(FORTUNE Magazine) – What, we keep wondering, is the New York Times trying to tell us about Central America? Plainly, something of moment. Otherwise, why would a certain 12-person editorial board situated at 229 West 43rd Street be holding forth so regularly on the region, and why would this board keep trying to update the Monroe Doctrine if it didn't think it had an advisory message needing to be heard? But what is the advice? That is what we keep wondering. What is the U.S. government supposed to do about the possibility of a Communist takeover in Central America? There have been days when the Times seemed to be saying we should all just relax, that we fret too much about the Communists. This was manifestly the thought behind an editorial early in March, which characterized the problem as U.S. ''intolerance'' with respect to leftist regimes. Also warning against excessive anti-Communist zeal was a murky major statement--identifiable as major because it filled the entire editorial section--in the summer of 1983. Under the heading ''Forget the Maine,'' it counseled us not only to forget the 1898 sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, but also to stop worrying so much about Communist takeovers. ''Revolutions are unsettling, but not inevitably Communist,'' said the Times. ''If Communist, they are not inevitably pro- Soviet. If pro-Soviet, they are not irreversible.'' Contributing to the murkiness was the paragraph that came right after all this, in which it turned out that the editorial board nevertheless wanted to keep out the Russians. ''There are many things the United States should be doing . . . to diminish Soviet influence,'' said the editorial, evidently regarding these things as so obvious they didn't need to be specified. Times editorials have a recurrent tendency to describe desirable outcomes in Central America and assume that the description constitutes a policy for attaining the outcome. A statement a couple of weeks ago once again assailed the Reagan Administration for supporting the insurgency against the Sandinista regime; instead, said the editorial, we should support ''a verifiable regional treaty that limits the level of arms and provides guarantees for basic human rights.'' But how would we get from here to there? With the pressure off the Sandinistas, why would they reduce the level of arms--their military buildup having begun before there were any Contras--and why would they suddenly turn into civil libertarians? Answers to these questions did not forthcome. Also in the wishful thinking genre have been editorials endorsing the so-called Contadora proposal to demilitarize and democratize Central America. Unfortunately, the plan has never been refined to the point where anyone can explain how this agreeable outcome will be achieved, much less monitored. Equally vague was the thought in another recent editorial, which was that the Sandinistas ''might . . . under pressure . . . agree to bar Soviet and Cuban military bases and . . . let an inter-American force guard against arms shipments to El Salvador.'' Absent the Contras, what kind of pressure were we talking about here? And how does the presumed endorsement of pressure in some form square with numerous other editorials worrying about how it looks down there when arrogant North Americans start throwing their weight around? In any case, why might the Sandinistas uncharacteristically knuckle under to this new kind of pressure? Answer: ''Judicious pressures for negotiable ends promise a better result than aimless combat.'' The fog is still rolling in.