What was going on when I was born?

An investigation into the theft of 20 blank Municipal Assistance Corporation bonds from the United States Trust Company has led to two arrests and the unexpected recovery of $2.3 million in stocks and bonds stolen from a Wall Street investment firm in a separate theft last July, Federal authorities said yesterday.

Ronald Reagan swept to a solid majority yesterday among the staunchly conservative Republican voters of Florida, who saw him as a more effective leader, a more genuine conservative and a more electable nominee than George Bush, according to a New York Times/ CBS News Poll.

WASHINGTON, March 11--Records of Senator Edward M. Kennedy's telephone calls in the hours after the accident at Chappaquiddick were withheld by the telephone company from an inquest into the death of Mary Jo Kopechne without the knowledge of the Assistant District Attorney who asked for them.

WASHINGTON, March 11--Prospects for an out-of-court settlement in the Government's 11-year-old antitrust case to break up the International Business Machines Corporation appeared to weaken today in an exchange of statements between the Justice Department and the company.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Wednesday, March 12--President Carter and Ronald Reagan won decisive victories yesterday in the Presidential primary elections in Florida, Alabama and Georgia.

On the fourth floor of the Brooklyn College Student Center, above the disco throb coming from a social room two floors below, five dozen leading academic economists gathered this week for a three-day conference on inflation.

WASHINGTON, March 11--The Department of Justice is investigating what it called "unspecific allegations" that some Carter Administration officials were improperly approached to influence a Federal criminal investigation of Mayor Kenneth A. Gibson of Newark.

EACH year as Lent progresses and intimations of Easter become more apparent in the windows of florists, bakers, confectioners and clothiers, I am reminded of the extraordinary Lent-to-Easter season that I spent 16 years ago traveling through Germany. The monthlong trip was the last of several I made to do research for a German cookbook.

The sweet smell of early morning baking drifted through Edna's Delicatessen on the Lower East Side as Edna Leib, who was a refugee from postwar Europe, put down a tray of hot noodle pudding and gazed out her steamy front window.

NEW HAVEN, March 8--The lights become dim and the crowd of 2,300 turns strangely quiet. Suddenly, the atmosphere in the amphitheater is electric as a disembodied voice announces: "And they're off."

Inflation, for years a mounting threat to the American economy, has taken on a more ominous cast in the past two months, with political, economic and social consequences that are still unfolding.