its new president said last night.

Immediately after he was named to head the National Trust's governing council at a meeting yesterday, Mr. David L. White appointed an ad hoc committee to report "on how the Trust can extend its membership and how the Trust can further involve its present members.'' The committee, which is to include the three new members of the Trust council, is to report within two months.

Mr. White, said his first priority as he begins a three-year term is "to give the Trust some time to settle''.

"The Trust has had a difficult time, and I think that what the Trust needs to do now is settle down and get on with the enormously important work it does,'' he said. "My overall priority is to put the basic Trust on a good financial footing for the future, and I have already been doing that as chairman of the capital campaign.'' Still in its silent phase, the $6.5-million campaign has raised just under $3 million. Mr. White, who is Editor of The Royal Gazette , has been chairman of the campaign as well as Trust deputy president.

Also yesterday, the Trust named longtime council member and museums committee chairman Mr. Hugh Davidson the new deputy president.

A Trust spokesman said most of the 13-member council attended the meeting. The results of voting were not announced.

Usually, names put forward by the Trust's outgoing council are approved by acclamation. This year, five more names were put forward by the membership at large. After a secret ballot vote, four of the five names on the council slate were approved.

Mr. White, 59, said he agreed with outgoing president Mrs. Patsy Phillips, who said the 23-year-old Trust was experiencing "growing pains''.

But such pains are "entirely healthy,'' he said. "They indicate that the Trust's members are both interested and involved.

"The Trust has just been through a very healthy democratic process and I think it will grow stronger because of that.'' Mr. White said the only conflict he sees with his position as Editor of The Royal Gazette is one of time. The new post "will take a lot of time,'' he said. But, "I spend a lot of time on the Trust as it is now.''