What was going on when I was born?

The United States sent to Iran early this morning the final language of an accord that, if accepted by Teheran, could end more than 14 months of captivity for 52 Americans. United States officials said yesterday that a formal announcement of an agreement could be made today and the hostages could be freed tomorrow. But Jody Powell, the White House spokesman, stressed that, despite several optimistic signs, it was premature to say that an accord had been reached. ''It is everyone's hope that there will be an agreement,'' he said after hectic round-the-clock talks here and in Algiers. ''But it is not a certainty. I am not playing with words here when I am saying to you that we don't have an agreement. We don't.''

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, the fiery opponent of what she calls the British occupation of Northern Ireland and a former member of the British Parliament, was shot and seriously wounded this morning by armed men who burst into her home near a village 30 miles west of Belfast. Her husband, Michael, was also seriously wounded in the attack, which the police said was the work of a Protestant paramilitary group. Three men were taken into custody near the house just after the attack, but by this evening the police had not disclosed their names. Mrs. McAliskey, who is known abroad as Bernadette Devlin, is a leading republican campaiger in Northern Ireland, and the attack sent shock waves through the province and the rest of Britain.

The Carter Administration set off a day of frenzy in international banking circles today. Officials and bankers in Washington and Algiers worked through the day on details for the transfer of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets if Teheran agrees to last-minute American proposals for the release of the hostages. President Carter ordered an exchange transaction of more than $900 million worth of gold with Britain so that the United States would have the gold in the Bank of England for ultimate transfer to Iran. He also ordered the sale of Iranian-owned Treasury securities in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York so that the money could be transferred to Iran. An Air Force plane ferried American Government officials and representatives of American banks and the Bank of England, which would participate in the financial arrangements for resolving the hostage crisis, to Algeria. Twenty-five representatives of a dozen major banks were summoned to an all-day meeting with top Administration officials at the State Department to discuss unresolved differences with Iran and details of the fund transfer that would be necessary to carry out the agreement the Administration hopes to reach with Iran for release of the hostages.

President Carter took issue today with a Presidential commission's recommendation that the Federal Government encourage migration of people from Northern industrial cities to the South and the West. ''I disagree with the implication in the commission's recommendation that the Federal Government should play a role in facilitating the population trend from the Frost Belt to the Sun Belt,'' the President said in a statement issued by the White House. ''We cannot abandon our older urban areas.'' The President's Commission for a National Agenda for the 80's, which Mr. Carter appointed in 1979, met with him today and gave him a final copy of its report.

Mayor Koch yesterday announced his budget plans for the next fiscal year, and, as expected, they called for an expansion of critical municipal services and virtually no additions to the financial discomfort that for years has been a way of life in New York City. The Mayor's program included the hiring of 1,300 additional officers for the Police Department and the transit and Housing Authority police. This was among many details of the budget that have been reported during the last week. Over the next year and a half, Mr. Koch plans to add 445 sanitation workers, 375 firefighters, 336 correction officers and hundreds of new teachers in certain schools, even though the Board of Educa- Text of budget letter, page 28. tion stands to lose a total of 600 teachers as the result of declining enrollments.

President Carter, in a final State of the Union Message to Congress, warned today that the United States confronted ''serious problems,'' including unemployment and inflation rates that are ''unacceptably high'' and an increasingly tight world oil market. In a 76-page written message summarizing the achievements of his Administration and the policies it would have pursued in a second term, Mr. Carter drew Excerpts from message, page 10. attention to what he sees as a continuing Soviet threat to the integrity of Poland. ''Although the situation in Poland has shown signs of stabilizing recently,'' he wrote, ''Soviet forces remain in a high state of readiness, and they could move into Poland on short notice.'' He added that Moscow had been advised that such a move would have ''severe and prolonged consequences for East-West detente, and for United States-Soviet relations in particular.''

A Federal judge today halted an historic antitrust trial that pits the Justice Department against the American Telephone and Telegraph Company because the two sides said they had reached a ''tangible, concrete agreement'' to settle the case. The judge said he would not begin to hear witnesses in the trial until Feb. 2, to give both sides a chance to refine their preliminary agreement to the satisfaction of the court and the Reagan administration. The new administration, taking office Tuesday, would have to approve any settlement negotiated by the Justice Department under President Carter, according to attorneys for both sides. Neither side would discuss details of the settlement, which came after two secret meetings this week between attorneys for both sides and the presiding judge. Divestitures Reportedly Planned But there were widespread reports in the communications industry that Bell was prepared to divest itself of up to three of its 23 local telephone operating subsidiaries.

United States bank executives, caught in conflicting pressures in the hostage situation, discussed their legal responsibilities to shareholders at their extraordinary meeting yesterday with State Department officials on the question of releasing deposits to Iran, according to sources close to the participants. ''We're walking on areas of constitutional law that may not have been traveled before,'' an executive of one major bank said. Banks in the United States control approximately $6 billion of the estimated $9.5 billion of Iranian assets that were frozen by President Carter on Nov. 14, 1979. According to United States Government documents, major Iranian deposits at American banks were broken down in these parcels: Bank of America, $2 billion; Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, $416 million; Bankers Trust Company, $332 million; Chase Manhattan Bank, $321 million, and Citibank, $175 million in the United States and $50 million in its Paris branch. Other banks have smaller portions.

Islamic foreign ministers will meet in Saudi Arabia tomorrow to prepare for a summit conference that must tackle the bitterly divisive issue of the war between Iraq and Iran.

The Iranian Government has placed an order with the United States for military supplies, including sophisticated warplanes, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported today. The newspaper Al Watan, in a dispatch from New York, said the order had been communicated through the Algerian diplomats who are acting as intermediaries in the effort to free the American hostages in Iran. The paper said the Iranians wanted warplanes and spare parts for the American-made jets they already own.

Olof Palme, a special United Nations envoy, arrived in Iran from Iraq today to try to convince Iranians to agree to a cease-fire in the war. Pars, the Iranian press agency, reported his arrival without comment.

What is usually discussed by only accountants and bankers, a form of bookkeeping called offsets or setoffs, has emerged at the center of the negotiations for the release of the 52 Americans held hostage in Iran. Among the Iranian demands is the return of about $4.8 billion in Iranian assets on deposit at European branches of several American banks.