American Notes

DRUGS Crackdown on Grass Farmers

Attorney General Edwin Meese clearly relished the numbers he ticked off for the press: 342,635 marijuana plants uprooted and destroyed, nine pot farms confiscated, 175 arrests, 73 weapons seized. Those were the results of the first three days of "Operation Delta-9," this year's expanded version of the Justice Department's nationwide marijuana-eradication drive. By the harvest season in late fall, lawmen hope to surpass last year's record total of 13 million plants eliminated.

Meese was criticized for making Delta-9 a media extravaganza. Word of the operation was leaked to the press well before the raids began, and reporters and television camera crews accompanied officers as they swooped down on cannabis fields in helicopters or hacked away at the plants with machetes. Said New Jersey Democrat William Hughes, chairman of the House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee, in an angry letter to the Attorney General: "I realize we live in a media-oriented environment, but this is the first time I have ever seen a press release issued three days in advance of a dangerous law-enforcement operation." PUBLISHING Stockman's Budget Buster

During the more than four years he spent as President Reagan's embattled Budget Director, David Stockman received a top annual salary of $75,100. For the four months that he plans to spend writing a book about his experiences in the Administration, Stockman will receive more than $2 million. In the hope that the outspokenness that made Stockman so controversial in Government will make him a hit at the book stores, Harper & Row beat out a number of other prominent publishing houses with its extravagant bid, putting Stock man in a league with Henry Kissinger. Stockman, 38, who plans to join the investment banking firm Salomon Brothers this fall, negotiated the book deal without the services of an agent.

In recent months, Geraldine Ferraro, Tip O'Neill and Jeane Kirkpatrick have each sold rights to their memoirs for what at the time seemed a hefty sum of about $ 1 million. According to friends of his, Stockman chose Harper & Row in part because the publisher promised him editorial independence. The question is whether he will be able to resist pressure to pull his punches from the colleagues he left behind in the Reagan Administration. MILITARY A Delicate Pentagon Probe

Despite the concern of many Americans over military spending, the defense contracting business remains one of the nation's most mysterious industries. There have been precious few truly reliable statistics on whether the Pentagon is protecting the interests of taxpayers and, conversely, whether the defense industry is achieving an equitable return on its investment. Last week the Pentagon released its first comprehensive report on the subject in a decade. The 18-month study found that, thanks to the Reagan Administration's military buildup, weapons contractors made a 4.7% profit between 1980 and 1983. Over that same stretch of time, manufacturers of durable goods in the commercial market averaged losses of 3.65%.

The study immediately fell under criticism. The Pentagon analysts were faulted for using a special economic model to compare defense contracting with other businesses. Critics argued that traditional standards would have shown profits exceeding 20% between '80 and '83. The study also ignored the continuing spate of allegations about waste, fraud and abuse, the very issues that have made the industry so controversial in recent years. BROADCASTING Fussing over Fairness

That bane of broadcasters and sacred cow of public interest groups, the Fairness Doctrine, is under attack again, this time from the very body that is assigned to enforce it. The Federal Communications Commission last week blasted the rule, which requires that when television and radio stations cover controversial issues they must provide reasonable opportunity for representatives of contrasting viewpoints to be heard. "Far from serving its intended purpose," said the five-member panel, the doctrine violates the First Amendment by unnecessarily restricting "journalistic freedoms of broadcasters."

Despite their tough language, the commissioners have no power to repeal the doctrine. The Supreme Court has upheld the rule on numerous occasions, most notably in rejecting a 1969 challenge from a radio station that resisted granting rebuttal time to a journalist who had been criticized on the air. The FCC plans to send its critical 100-page report to Capitol Hill, in the hope that the law will be changed, but that seems unlikely. "Congress will keep the doctrine as it is," said a House Communications Subcommittee staffer. "No one is more concerned about fairness on television than politicians." EDUCATION Dunning the Defaulters

"This will be the biggest and most effective crackdown yet," said Richard Hastings, director of debt collection for the Department of Education. In its ongoing crusade against defaulters, the Education Department last week asked the Internal Revenue Service to withhold tax refunds next year for a million former students who have not begun repaying federal loans for college. Another million negligent debtors will receive warnings of such a fate from state agencies that gave federally insured student loans. Some $15 billion in student loans have gone into default, and the delinquency rate is currently 10%.

Most of these defaulters are not stereotypical community-college dropouts. According to Hastings, "We have many delinquents who are Wall Street executives, doctors and federal officials." The Reagan Administration has already slapped 16,000 ex-students with lawsuits, and federal employees who have not made good on their loans are having money deducted from their wages.