December 19, 1986

ANTIQUES collectors this holiday season are shopping for American and European period furnishings in new places that are upstairs, in town-house settings and hidden away in converted mansions. This is because antiques dealers are on the march again - moving northward and into more discreet spaces, where their presence is acknowledged by little more than a sign on the door. In recent months, three major New York dealers - Stair & Company, Juan Portela and Margot Johnson - have relocated in uptown spaces. Two others -Jordan Volpe Gallery and Bernard and S. Dean Levy - have announced that they will follow suit in 1987. The decisions to relocate were motivated in every case by real-estate concerns and a desire for more suitable addresses on the Upper East Side. Each dealer's strategies were, however, as different as the merchandise they stock and the style of the galleries they operate.

OPEC ministers inched closer today to an agreement to curb oil production, but it appeared that any accord would exempt Iraq. The plan under discussion by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries calls for a 7 percent reduction in total output, aimed at pushing the price of crude oil toward $18 a barrel. ''We will not be part of that agreement,'' Qassim Ahmed Taki, Iraq's oil minister, said today. OPEC officials would not discuss whether the 7 percent reduction would be made from the temporary, reduced levels agreed to in August and October or from the previous quotas.

Holding that the State Constitution provides broader protection for freedom of expression than the United States Constitution, the New York Court of Appeals ruled unanimously yesterday that an adult bookstore could not be ordered closed because homosexual and heterosexual sex acts had been committed by customers in the store. The decision, in effect, supersedes a United States Supreme Court ruling that the Erie County District Attorney could legally seek a court order to close the Village Book and News Store in Kenmore, a Buffalo suburb, for a year to prevent ''indecent and illegal sexual acts'' on the premises. The public health code under which the court order was sought calls for a one-year closing. In its ruling yesterday, the state's highest court declared that the Supreme Court decision ''cannot be considered dispositive in determining the scope of this State's constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.''

The Thatcher Government ended its long and controversial search for an airborne early-warning defense system today by rejecting Britain's own Nimrod aircraft and announcing a billion-dollar decision to purchase Boeings from the United States. The decision maintains the dominance of the Boeing Company's Awacs in the lucrative airborne surveillance field - the use of elaborate command-post aircraft fitted with the latest in radar, computers and other detection gear to track enemy movements. An estimated $7 billion world market looms for such planes in the next decade, and the Nimrod represented the best effort of the British industry, once a leader in aircraft innovation, to crack the market and guarantee thousands of skilled jobs. Bitterness in Commons The bitterness of the failure was reflected quickly in the House of Commons when Defense Secretary George Younger announced the decision to purchase the first six Awacs, with an option for two more.

The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission has warned Mayor Koch that by restricting taxi medallions, the city is effectively issuing ''an engraved invitation to corruption.'' In a letter to the Mayor dated Dec. 16, the commission's chairman, Daniel Oliver, said limiting the number of taxi medallions not only leads to ''higher fares and reduced availability'' of taxis in the city, but also creates a window for ''those with a financial interest in regulatory decisions'' who are ''strongly motivated to influence the deliberative process.'' The F.T.C. was invited by the New York City Council to comment on a bill before the Council to increase the number of taxi medallions. Mr. Oliver's letter is an addition to a six-page report by the F.T.C. staff, which supports the bill's goal of increasing ''for hail'' taxis but advocates complete deregulation as a better solution.

Some of the most powerful merchants on Fifth Avenue fired a barrage of complaints at Mayor Koch yesterday over the proliferation of illegal sidewalk peddlers outside their elegant shops at the height of the holiday season. The merchants - executives of Cartier, Tiffany, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, the Trump Organization and others - charged that hundreds of peddlers of scarves, windup toys, cheap watches and trinkets were stealing business, evading taxes, strewing litter and destroying the ambiance of the famed thoroughfare. Calling the avenue ''a disaster'' that looked like ''Istanbul on a Sunday,'' the executives of the Fifth Avenue Merchants Association demanded tougher enforcement of peddling laws and accused the Mayor, in sometimes personal terms, of laxity and indifference. ''The Mayor is not doing his job with the peddlers,'' said Donald J. Trump, the real-estate entrepreneur whose Trump Tower soars above the avenue near 56th Street. Mr. Trump said the city's ''management of this situation is horrible, it's atrocious.''

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company said yesterday that it would eliminate 27,400 jobs and take a $3.2 billion charge against earnings, in a program to make itself more competitive in its key businesses. The job cuts will reduce A.T.&T.'s work force by 8.5 percent, to 290,000. The cuts are to be completed by 1988. The huge charge, which will cover early retirement and severance costs, write-downs in the value of some assets, and the expenses for consolidating operations, will be recorded in the current quarter. The write-down will cost $1.7 billion, after taxes. As a result, A.T.&T. warned Wall Street to expect a loss, for the three months ending Dec. 31, that will wipe out most of the telecommunications giant's profits for 1986.

The Soviet Union announced today that it would end its halt of nuclear testing as soon as the United States conducts its first test in 1987. A statement issued by the Government press agency Tass said that the Russians were prepared to halt testing again ''any day of any month'' if the United States were to reciprocate. Tass said that the Soviet Union's decision to end the test halt was forced by ''grave danger'' to its national security posed by the continuing American testing program. [ In Washington, a White House spokesman said: ''Whether or not the Soviets resume their nuclear testing is their business. Acceptance of the Soviet nucler testing moratorium is not in the security interests of the U.S. or our friends and allies.'' ] Soviet Test Halt Began in 1985 The Soviet Union stopped testing in August 1985 and called on the United States to join in and negotiate a permanent ban on underground testing, the only kind permitted since the 1963 treaty on a partial test ban prohibited explosions in the atmosphere, under water and in outer space.

New York City has decided to sell a rock. A rock nearly three stories high. It is in the craggy Inwood section of upper Manhattan, it has been there, in the words of one city official, since ''God put it there,'' and soon may serve a nongeological function. It could even disappear.

Michel Camdessus, the French Government's top banker, was named managing director of the International Monetary Fund today, ending an uncommon spectacle of open campaigning by two nations for a position of power over the world economy. Mr. Camdessus (pronounced COM-de-sue) was elected unanimously by the 22-member executive board of the 151-nation lending institution, succeeding another Frenchman, Jacques de Larosiere. But he was named only after barely winning a straw vote Wednesday over the Finance Minister of the Netherlands, H. Onno Ruding. Mr. Ruding withdrew from the race just before today's vote. Mr. Camdessus, who is 53 years old, joins the I.M.F. at a moment of acute tensions over a relatively weak world economy and the seemingly intractable loan payment problems of developing debtor nations. The I.M.F. attempts to help those countries, but also tries to discipline them by requiring sometimes severe economic restraint.

The White House chief of staff and a former national security adviser today stood by their contradictory accounts of when President Reagan approved Israel's sale of American arms to Iran in 1985. The issue, involving testimony by Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan and Robert C. McFarlane, is important because Mr. Reagan and other current Administration officials have said the President did not approve Israel's arms sales in advance. Only in January 1986 did he sign a special finding approving such sales. Mr. McFarlane, the former national security adviser, insists that Mr. Reagan gave oral advance approval for the Israeli arms shipments. The extent of the President's involvement at the beginning of the arms deals 16 months ago was one of the issues left unresolved today as the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded its closed hearings and the House Intelligence Committee neared the end of its separate investigation.

The board of the Diamond Shamrock Corporation said this morning that it had unanimously rejected a $2.03 billion takeover bid by T. Boone Pickens and Mesa Limited Partnership. By the afternoon, Mesa had withdrawn its all-securities exchange offer, originally announced Dec. 3. As part of its 13-page announcement, the board of the large Dallas-based oil and gas company disclosed that it had voted to delete a significant part of its shareholders' rights plan, or ''poison pill,'' but not the entire plan, as Mesa had requested. Nevertheless, the company's action raised questions about its commitment to remain independent.