What was going on when I was born?

Alexander M. Haig Jr., President-elect Ronald Reagan's choice for Secretary of State, warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today of the dangers presented by uncontrolled Soviet military power. And he responded to occasional critical questions about the Watergate scandals and other issues from his days in the Nixon White House. In his opening statement to the committee as his confirmation hearings began, Mr. Haig said that ''unchecked, the growth of Soviet military power must Main points of testimony, pages 9-10. eventually paralyze Western policy altogether.'' But, he continued under questioning: ''There are things worth fighting for. We must understand that. We must structure our policy under that credible and justified premise.''

Twenty persons were killed and 13 others were missing and feared dead early yesterday in a fire of undetermined origin that roared through a two-story brick and stucco home for the elderly in Keansburg, N.J. At least 78 of the 111 residents escaped, but 17 were injured, two critically. The heat of the blaze was so intense that it drove back firemen trying to rescue residents. Many of those who died were roused from sleep by staff members in time to get out, but returned to their beds or wasted critical seconds trying to dress as the flames drew near and enveloped them, the authorities said. Confusion in the Smoke Some of the victims were described as senile. Others were said to have been sedated by medication and virtually helpless or too confused or terrified to understand what was happening in the din of jangling alarms and billowing smoke and flames.

For the last 18 months there has been a sharp dispute among Federal prosecutors in New York and New Jersey over the undercover methods used in the Abscam investigation, according to an unpublished internal Government memorandum. The conflict between the United States Attorneys' offices in Newark and Brooklyn centered on the way agents conducted their undercover tactics with Senator Harrison A. Williams Jr. of New Jersey. According to the memorandum, the New Jersey prosecutors were concerned about issues that included the possibility of entrapment. That question could be crucial in appeals by those convicted in the investigation into political corruption. and in Senator Williams's defense. 'An Odor to It,' Judge Says On Wednesday the judge presiding in Washington at the Abscam trial of former Representative Raymond F. Lederer of Pennsylvania was convicted of bribery and other charges in Federal Court in Brooklyn. Page 27.

Producer prices continued to rise along a broad front in December, with declines in food prices more than offset by brisk advances in energy, capital equipment and other goods, the Labor Department reported today. Producer prices, those charged for finished goods ready for sale to the consumer, rose by six-tenths of 1 percent for the second consecutive month. This key index thus finished 1980 11.7 percent higher than it stood a year earlier, compared with a 12.6 percent advance in 1979. Although December's rise was less than half that recorded in five other months last year, economists said they found little in the latest figures to indicate the overall inflation rate was falling.

On the eve of another test of wills with Poland's independent labor union, a leader of the Communist Party appeared unexpectedly on television tonight to urge a ''reasonable solution'' to outstanding disputes. Mixing conciliatory language with criticism of ''counterrevolutionary forces'' and spreading ''anarchy,'' Stefan Olszowski, a member of the nine-man Politburo, suggested that an eventual compromise was possible with the Solidarity trade union organization over the question of the five-day workweek. Two nights ago, the union, accusing the regime of dragging its feet on the accords reached last August in Gdansk, said union members would not work on Saturdays. The Government countered with an offer of alternate Saturdays off and said that workers who do not work tomorrow would lose a day's pay. Solidarity has suggested that it might call strikes if workers who do not show up are penalized.

West Germany is reported to be considering a major weapons sale to Saudi Arabia that could basically alter Bonn's traditional position of avoiding the arms business in areas of tension. An authoritative source described the Saudi request as being of such magnitude that it would surpass the simple sale of weapons systems and would represent, in terms of long-range involvement, the creation of a special relationship between West Germany and the world's largest oil exporter. The Saudis, who made their request to Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in November, have not listed their requirements precisely, the informant said, but hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks and more than a dozen separate weapons systems were involved. The size of the tank order was described as probably similar to one given by the Saudis to France for 370 AMX30's.

The Eiffel Tower is not a building; it houses nothing. It is not a monument; it stands for nothing. It is more of a lofty gesture, frozen in time and 13,000 tons of iron. It is huge and inconsequential; it occupies the skyline without blocking it because it is semitransparent, like lace. It is, or rather it has become - after its portentous beginnings in 1889, when some hailed it as a temple of science - an enormous iron engine of playfulness. It is a vertical joke of such size and finesse that it dwarfs the horizontal purposes of this essentially horizontal and purposeful city. The writer Leon-Paul Fargue called it ''proud giraffe.''

A policeman was wounded here today when his car was machine-gunned by Basque terrorists, the police said, and a truck driver was hurt in Navarre when a terrorist hand grenade accidentally hit his vehicle. The attacks coincided with the signing in Madrid of an accord giving more fiscal and economic powers to the local government in the Basque region.

A bomb squad today dismantled an explosive device that had been planted in the Mahane Yehuda marketplace here, the police said.

Iran has raised additional questions about the latest American proposals for freeing the hostages, and this has led Deputy Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher to extend his discussions in Algiers, the State Department said today. With only a week to go before the self-imposed American cutoff date for the negotiations, the pace of the efforts to resolve the crisis seems to have quickened. But John H. Trattner, the department spokesman, said Mr. Christopher informed him by telephone this morning that ''serious problems continue to exist'' between Iran and the United States over the terms for freeing the 52 Americans.

Prime Minister Francisco Pinto Balsemao and his center-right Cabinet took office today with a pledge to govern for four years and ''liberate civil society'' from the Marxist legacy of Portugal's revolution in 1974. In a speech at the swearing-in ceremony, President Antonio Ramalho Eanes pledged to give his ''institutional solidarity'' and ''democratic political confidence'' to the country's 13th Government since the revolution.

President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr of Iran, in a speech contrasting with earlier confident statements about victory in the war against Iraq, vowed today that Iranian forces would fight on despite the ''high price of holding out.'' The Teheran radio said he told a group of Iranian ambassadors, called home for policy discussions, that ''the price of holding out, however heavy, is not as high as surrender.'' The President, who on Monday announced the beginning of a counteroffensive to drive Iraqi troops out of Iran and who was congratulated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over ''the news of your great victory,'' said nothing in his speech today about military advances. Rather, he was quoted as saying that independence and not territory was the real issue of the war. He reiterated oft-expressed Iranian charges that the ''superpowers'' were backing Iraq in an attempt to overthrow Iran's Islamic Government.