The Nicaraguan ambassador to the United Nations last night joined three other panelists at an MIT forum in criticizing both past and present United States foreign policy in Latin America.

"American officials are looking at Latin America through a black and white East-West looking glass which distorts their view," ambassador Alejandro Bendana told an audience of more than 250 people.

The forum, the second in a series of ten to be given in the next two weeks, dealt specifically with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) actions in Latin America.

"The purpose of the lecture series is to examine the Reagan administration's attempts to revitalize the CIA on domestic and foreign fronts," Jeff McConnell, a graduate student in philosophy and linguistics at MIT and co-sponsor of the lectures with the department of political science, said yesterday.

"The CIA is a desperate foreign policy elite, desperate because it has not been able to maintain power in foreign countries," panelist Saul Landau, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., said.

Joshua Cohen, professor of political science at MIT, agreed with Landau, adding that "it is particularly repellent that the Reagan administration should be admitting its action in El Salvador while it condemns the Soviet Union in the issues of Poland and Afghanistan."

The fourth speaker at the forum was Stephen Kinzer, the Latin American correspondent for the Boston Globe and author of the soon-to-be-published book, "Bitter Fruit," an account of the CIA-backed coup in Guatemala in 1954. Kinzer dealt specifically with the U.S. involvement in Guatemala, giving historical background and precedent for current CIA affairs.

A series of panels and talks this week will concentrate mostly on the CIA's involvement in foreign military affairs, while next week's will address the CIA's domestic operations.