December 15, 1986

The Koch administration, struggling with the city's housing shortage, is offering developers a valuable piece of city-owned property on a barter basis: an East Side site in Manhattan in exchange for privately built or rehabilitated housing elsewhere. The housing for low-, moderate- and middle-income people would be in the other four boroughs, and the developers would also be asked to build some shelter for the homeless. At no point would the developers pay cash to the city for the Manhattan property. Prospective developers were informed of the plan on Friday and greeted it with a mixed response - some indicating interest and some raising doubts about its feasibility.

When the Giants took the field today against the St. Louis Cardinals, they had already won their division title. So they could have rested their regulars and taken it easy and preserved their bodies and played out the string. Not these Giants. They rolled to a 27-7 victory that was convincing but, according to Coach Bill Parcells, ''not artistic.'' Their defense sacked Neil Lomax nine times and hurried him many other times in what the defensive coordinator, Bill Belichick, said might have been their best game of the season. On offense, Joe Morris ran for 179 yards and three short touchdowns, though he was upset because of his three fumbles. Phil Simms's unproductive passing did not hurt the Giants.

A self-styled counterterrorist identified as the brother of a United States Congressman has been arrested in a restricted area of Nicaragua and detained by the Sandinista Government on suspicion of espionage. He was the second American arrested in Nicaragua in less than three months. The Nicaraguan authorities identified the man as Sam Nesley Hall, 49 years old, of Dayton, Ohio, and said he was seized Friday at Punta Huete Air Force Base, 13 miles northeast of Managua, the capital. He was said to be carrying maps and sketches of military targets hidden in his shoes.

The New York Yacht Club's ties with the America's Cup unraveled today as America II was eliminated from the challengers' series. The club that lost the 132-year-old trophy to the Australians in 1983 failed in its three-year, $15 million drive to get it back. By losing to New Zealand by 15 seconds today, America II lost any chance to qualify for the semifinals. When the 1987 cup series begins here Jan. 31, the New York Yacht Club's long involvement - from the triumphant first victory of America in the English Channel in 1851 and the 24 subsequent defenses over more than a century - will be reduced to being part of a spectator fleet.

Investigators are still trying to map the complex flow of money used in the Iranian arms transactions, but they have concluded that the operation had three main reasons: The arms sales themselves required secrecy; the relationship among the participants was politically sensitive, and the disposition of the proceeds may have involved illegalities. At this point in the investigation, according to Congressional and other government investigators, both ends of the financial chain remain unclear: the source of the money used to pay for the American arms shipped to Iran and the disposition of the extra profits left over, which Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d has estimated at $10 million to $30 million. Although Mr. Meese has said these profits were diverted to aid the Nicaraguan rebels, many questions have been raised about whether this amount of assistance actually reached the contras and where else it might have gone. For at least some of the sales, in 1986 when the diversion took place, the money flow went essentially like this: * Since the Iranians declined to pay for the arms in advance, the original funding came from and through a Saudi Arabian businessman, Adnan M. Khashoggi, who acted as a guarantor for Iran. He deposited $25 million to $30 million in advance in a Swiss bank account controlled by Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North. It is still not clear where all of Mr. Khashoggi's money came from.