AUGUSTA, Ga., April 20--President Eisenhower, striving to smash a deadlock, has appealed to Soviet Premier Khrushchev for a quick ban on nuclear weapons tests below 30 miles in the atmosphere.

In an April 13 letter to the Kremlin leader, Eisenhower said negotiators at the stalemated Geneva talks then could turn to further discussion looking toward a general ban on such tests. That would include detonations in outer space and under-ground.

"Meanwhile," said the President, "fears of unrestricted resumption of nuclear weapons testing with attendant additions to levels of radioactivity would be allayed."

Eisenhower alluded to Soviet demands for veto power and to other road-blocking Russian proposals, and again rejected them.

Red China Attacks Lama

TOKYO, April 20--Red China Monday branded as lies the Dalai Lama's statement denouncing Communist rule in Tibet.

Radio Peiping broadcast a charge that reactionaries dictated the statement and questioned whether the 23-year-old god-king, a refugee in India, had in fact written it.

"The so-called statement of the Dalai Lama issued through an Indian diplomatic official in Tezpur on April 18 is a crude document lame in reasoning, full of lies and loopholes," declared a long commentary of the official New China News Agency.

Herter Pledges 'Teamwork'

WASHINGTON, April 20--Christian A. Herter took command of the State Department Monday with a pledge to rely on teamwork rather than personal diplomacy.

The 64-year-old New Englander strongly implied he would do far less traveling than the cancer-stricken John Foster Dulles did.