News In Brief

Weinberger: British story on Flight 7 is Soviets'

The Reagan administration Monday denied as ''lies'' a British report that the Korean Air Lines jet shot down by the Soviet Union in September was on an intelligence mission to test Soviet radar. The crash killed 269 people.

Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger called the story, in Britain's Sunday Observer newspaper, ''a total set of lies.'' The Observer quoted the magazine Defense Attache as saying KAL Flight 7 entered Soviet airspace to enable Western intelligence to monitor Soviet radar and electronic signals.

Mr. Weinberger contended that the British magazine ''apparently . . . picked up lock, stock, and barrel the total set of lies that the Soviet Union published after the Korean airliner was shot down.''