THE great hope known as low-temperature nuclear fusion suffered its worst setback yet last week at the first Federal conference to assess the phenomenon.

Dozens of laboratories immediately checked, and confirmed, the first report of "high temperature" superconductivity; many labs checked, but failed to confirm, low-temperature nuclear fusion.

Advocates of low-temperature fusion testified that the time was ripe to forge ahead on commercialization.

Scientists at the first Federal conference on low-temperature fusion reported today that they had failed to find some byproducts that had been expected from the nuclear reaction.

Professor Valdik Palyatskin, one of the Soviet Union's authorities on low-temperature fusion.

It is the first public suggestion that fraud may have tainted some of the dramatic results announced in the beleaguered field of low-temperature fusion.

For instance, the Office of Naval Research was among those financing the university chemists who recently claimed to have achieved breakthroughs in low-temperature nuclear fusion.

THE first Federal team of scientists to inspect the Utah laboratory that claims to have achieved low-temperature fusion came away divided.

Leading scientists said recent experiments on low-temperature nuclear fusion have produced enough interesting results to justify more research.

Recent experiments on low-temperature nuclear fusion have produced enough interesting results to justify more research into the phenomenon, leading scientists said today.