FORD AND CARTER TELL OF DIFFICULT COMMUNICATIONS IN GOVERNMENT

The most difficult task Jimmy Carter faced in office, the former President said today, was not freeing American hostages in Iran or shaping the Camp David agreement but pushing the treaty that transfered control of the Panama Canal to Panama past 66 recalcitrant United States Senators.

Gerald R. Ford, meanwhile, warned of a growing gap between Presidents and the people created by the complexity of today's issues, news organizations that are more interested in entertainment than fact, an obsession with public opinion polls and ''pushy lobbyists'' who speak only for special interest groups.

The two former Presidents, good friends now despite their battle for the White House in 1976, made their comments as co-chairmen of a conference on public policy and communications at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library at the University of Michigan here.

The two men also joined in their criticism of Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin for delaying the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon and for his Government's policy of building Jewish settlements on the West Bank. But they were restrained in their comments on the domestic problems faced by President Reagan, who has been called one of the best communicators to the hold the office.

Leaders and Citizens Separated

The conference, which dealt with communication among the branches of government and between government and the people, was sponsored by the Domestic Policy Associaton, which has conducted several discussion groups around the country. The group was formed in response to the observation that, as Daniel Yankelovich, the public opinion analyst, put it, ''For 10 years we have been digging an ever deeper chasm between the American people and our major institutions of leadership.''

A similar conference is planned next year at the Lyndon B. Johnson library in Texas, and in other Presidential libraries after that, a spokesman for the association said.