CLINTON BACKS OFF HIS PLEDGE TO CUT THE DEFICIT IN HALF

Responding quickly to new projections of larger deficits from President Bush, President-elect Bill Clinton appeared today to back off his campaign pledge to cut the Federal budget deficit in half in four years.

Mr. Clinton said the Bush Administration had camouflaged the magnitude of the deficit.

In Little Rock, Ark., Mr. Clinton said the new figures, issued today by the White House as part of Mr. Bush's final budget, were an "unsettling revelation." But in the campaign, Mr. Clinton was repeatedly told by his advisers that the deficit would be larger than acknowledged by Mr. Bush or assumed by Mr. Clinton in his campaign manifesto. Billions and More Billions

Mr. Clinton and his aides seemed to be using the new estimates of the deficit from the Bush White House to begin revising Mr. Clinton's campaign promises. The Clinton stance also suggested the possibility that the President-elect wanted to lay early political groundwork for unpopular measures to cut the growth of spending, or even perhaps to raise some taxes.

Aides to Mr. Clinton said that he still wanted to halve the deficit, but that it would probably take more than four years to achieve that goal. "It would be imprudent to go too far on deficit reduction so you put the economy in a tailspin," said a member of Mr. Clinton's transition team.

Mr. Bush's budget for the fiscal year 1994, which begins Oct. 1, shows Federal spending of $1.5 trillion, equal to nearly one-fourth of the nation's total output of goods and services. It shows a deficit of $292.4 billion in 1994, rising to $305 billion in 1997.

By contrast, in his last report to Congress, in July, Mr. Bush said the budget deficit would decline to $274.2 billion in 1994 and to $236.7 billion in 1997. The new estimate of the 1997 deficit is $68 billion higher than the estimate made by the White House five months ago. The actual deficit for the fiscal year 1992, which ended three months ago, was $290.2 billion, a record. Both Sides Vulnerable

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