January 7, 1987

LEAD: The State Department, which solicited $10 million in nonlethal aid for the Nicaraguan rebels from the Sultan of Brunei, lost track of the money, according to a secret Senate report, and has no idea how it was spent.

LEAD: Companies

LEAD: Strikes Spread in France A strike movement spread from France's railroads to the state-run electrical power company and the Paris subway. Page A3. Amtrak Signals Tested Signals that should have warned a freight engineer before the crash with an Amtrak train worked in tests afterward, officials said.

LEAD: Wall Street is now three-for-three in 1987 as stock prices rose again yesterday, but this time only by a moderate amount. Still, the move pushed the Dow Jones industrial average a bit closer to the 2,000 level.

LEAD: FOR years, much of the cooking in Ireland's restaurants has been of the ''Gravy, sir? One lump or two?'' school. The current 23 percent tax on all restaurant bills has not exactly helped, nor has the law against serving any liquor except wine; not even Irish whisky or beer is allowed.

LEAD: Amid live camels and papier-mache kings, about 1,000 schoolchildren - transformed by costumes into angels, kings, shepherds and peasants - celebrated the Epiphany yesterday in a parade that wound through Spanish Harlem.

LEAD: The investigation of the disastrous arson fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel is focusing on several hotel employees who are union members, a high-ranking Federal investigator said today.

LEAD: Mayor Koch, who has been at odds with Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell, the Manhattan Democratic leader who ran for Mayor against him in 1985, has now cut off the Bronx Democratic organization and its new leader, Assemblyman George Friedman, from City Hall patronage and cooperation.

LEAD: William J. Casey, the Director of Central Intelligence, has not been able to speak clearly or control the right side of his body since his surgery for brain cancer last month, and a senior Administration official says he will be replaced after a ''decent interval.''

LEAD: Investors stormed into mutual funds last year, but they probably would have been better off investing in a run-of-the-mill blue-chip stock. That is because the average stock mutual fund was left in the dust by the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's index of 500 leading stocks.

LEAD: Two people sought as witnesses in the assault of three black men in Howard Beach, Queens, have been found but say they are unable to identify any members of the gang of white assailants, law-enforcement officials said yesterday.

LEAD: EDDIE BONAFE was 3 years old, sickly, partly blind and deaf, unable to walk or speak and severely retarded because his mother had contracted rubella while pregnant. Doctors told Gloria Carrillo her son was ineducable and would need to be institutionalized.