What was going on when I was born?

International An economic and monetary policy rift was underscored in a joint announcement by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and President Francois Mitterrand that they would oppose the policies of Washington at the Western economic conference in Ottawa next week. West Germany and France fear that the continued high interest rates in the United States will increase Europe's troubling inflation and unemployment. (Page A1, Column 5.) An Israeli-American accord on arms appeared likely. In a possible effort to clear the way for a resumption of F-16 deliveries to Israel, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Robert C. McFarlane, a State Department counselor, issued a declaration in Jerusalem. It said that ''misunderstandings'' arising from Israel's bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor on June 7 had been ''clarified to the satisfaction of both sides.'' (A1:4.)

New York State has spent $519,000 to purchase a 132-acre preserve in Putnam County for the bog turtle, one of seven creatures on the state's endangered species list. Despite the state's concern, the Federal Government does not believe the turtle is in peril. ''The bog turtle population nationwide is large enough,'' said George Drewry, in the Office of Endangered Species of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. But at the state level, Patricia Riexinger, of the Endangered Species Unit of the Division of Fish and Wildlife, said: ''That there are bog turtles in nine or 10 other states does not concern us. We are concerned with maintaining as many species as possible in New York State, where habitats of the bog turtle now number only about 15.''

Waldheim quietly campaigns for new term at U.N. A2 Moscow Jews bury a matriarch A2 Around the World A4 Jesuits plan to protest Voice of America report on seminarians A6 Mishaps mar opening of U.N. Conference on Cambodia A8 Increase in quota for Eastern European refugees sought A10 Government/Politics Brown admits mistakes, but not misdeeds, of political aides A14 Localities brace for a future with less Federal aid A16 Inquiry begun into past business of C.I.A. aide A16 Senate rejects cloture move in busing dispute A17 The Region B2 Yonkers is two weeks into its fiscal year without a budget B2 The City B3 Freshman legislators look back on first session in Albany B3 State Comptroller faults Transit Authority on substation repairs B3 General Around the Nation A12 Esthetics leads to closing of a post office A12 Dallas is stunned by slaying of affluent couple A18 Prosecutor asks dropping of charges in strangler case A18 Federal attorney urges dismissal of Reader's Digest suit A21 Man pleads guilty to threatening the President's life A21 All-white jury selected in trial of Nazis in Carolina A23 Divers visit sub entombing German sailors off Block Island B1 New York company accused of fraud in sale of tantalum B3 Obituaries Elsie Cryder Woodward, benefactor of charities A20 Science Times Pilots enter thunderheads for data on birth of a storm C1 Researcher revives debate on man's earliest ancestor C1 Why do some people turn away from others in trouble? C1 Education: Couple scrutinizes 'Anti-American' textbooks C1 Science Watch C2 Doctor's World: the hospitals of Europe C3 Science Q&A C3 About Education: Universities assail secrecy curbs C4 Industry/Labor Dismissed Con Ed employee upheld in reinstatement bid B2 Energy Mobil's price increase is called retaliation for New York tax B3 Arts/Entertainment La Scala Ballet opens with Nu- reyev's "Romeo" C6 Mostly Mozart Festival gets under way C7 Dutch sell E. P. Dutton to Volt Information Sciences C7 Larzer Ziff's study "Literary Democracy" is reviewed C10 Brokaw looks forward to co-an- choring "NBC Nightly News" C11 Milton Friedman's "Freedom to Choose" in reruns on PBS C11 The Abbey Theater performs "Shadow of a Gunman" C12 Presidential group to urge continuing both arts endowments C12 Style Notes on Fashion A22 A Republican feminist out to change the party A22 The cool coiffures A22 Sports Red Smith on "The Greatest Match" in boxing history D22 Two foreign soccer teams show lack of practice in tournament D22 Palmer charges to four-shot victory in Senior Open playoff D23 Plucknett, discus record-holder, banned for using steroids D23 NO DEFINE BLOCK CHARACTER Baseball has no post-strike plan yet D23 Source baseball talks are on the upgrade D23 South African rugby team given visas by the U.S. D24 News Analysis Terence Smith on effectiveness of nuclear safeguards A6 Features/Notes Man in the News: Bruce K. Chapman, head of census bureau A17 Going Out Guide C6 Notes on People C10 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A24 Poland's half a loaf The riot experts Symbolic sludge Letters A24 Sydney H. Schanberg: masterpiece price hike A25 Tom Wicker: a concern for Reagan A25 Richard H. Ullman: the U.S. should press Israel on peace A25

It might seem like an adventure reserved only for the proteges of Jacques Cousteau - a 110-foot descent through dark and frigid water to the wreck of a Nazi submarine, which became a tomb for more than 40 German sailors in the final hours of World War II in the Atlantic. But among the 21 persons donning wet suits on the rolling deck of this 55-foot dive boat were New Yorkers most unlikely to appear in an undersea documentary, including a bankruptcy lawyer, a clinical psychologist, and a kindergarten teacher. Tangible Link to Indefinable Past They, like an increasing number of residents in the New York metropolitan area, were spending a summer weekend at the sites of shipwrecks, seeking a view of marine life and a link to the region's maritime past. ''It's a connection with a past I've only read about,'' said Pamela Gurfein, a 26-year-old law student at Fordham University, who had gone scuba diving in the Caribbean but never to a wreck near home. ''To me the war is just a set of stories. It shocked me when I found out that the Germans had been so close.''

Interior Secretary James G. Watt, in another move to relax Government regulation, has proposed canceling a Presidential order that restricts the use of motorcycles, snowmobiles and other so-called off-road vehicles on Federal property. The executive order requires Federal land managers to bar the use of such vehicles when they determine that such vehicles damage the soil, vegetation, wildlife or other resources in national parks and forests, Bureau of Land Management areas and other federally owned areas. It was issued by President Nixon in 1972 and amended by President Carter in 1977. In a letter to David A. Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, proposing that the order be canceled, Mr. Watt said that the various Federal land agencies had sufficient authority to protect public lands from the off-road vehicles and that withdrawing the order would give more flexibility to land managers in determining what action to take if they find public lands are being damaged.

Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato says he should have been more sensitive to the appearance of a conflict of interest when he borrowed $130,000 for his campaign last year from a bank with which he had a close relationship when he was an official of the Town of Hempstead, L.I. In an interview in his office, the freshman New York Senator denied that he had done anything improper, but he said he realized in ''hindsight'' that he probably should have sought financial help from a bank that had not done business with Hempstead. The bank, too, denied any impropriety. Mr. D'Amato obtained $130,000 in campaign loans on favorable terms from the Bank of New York. When Mr. D'Amato was Hempstead's top official and chief fiscal officer, the bank was one of several that received millions of dollars in interest-free deposits from Hempstead and other towns. Moreover the same bank officer who had solicited Mr. D'Amato for interest-free deposits arranged for the loans. Mr. D'Amato obtained the loans during his campaign for the Republican senatorial nomination last year.

House Democrats, shifting from the defensive to the offensive, today outlined a strategy for winning support for a Democratic tax bill from Republicans who represent middle-income districts, especially in the Northeast. The Speaker of the House, Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., listed 38 Republicans whose votes the Democrats will make a special effort to win. Among them were six each from New York State, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, two each from Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine and one each from Rhode Island and Vermont. In a 90-minute meeting of the Ways and Means Committee, which went largely according to a Democratic script, Democrats made public the details of their tax bill that they have said would give more tax relief to people who earn less than $50,000 a year than would the Administration bill. The latter has been approved by the Republicancontrolled Senate Finance Committee.

A chart in Business Day on June 29 on ''Leading Underwriters of Initial Public Offerings in 1981'' listed the wrong headquarters city for D.H. Blair. Its head office is at 44 Wall Street in Manhattan.

First, there was Jell-O, a gelatin dessert, and its sales were good. Then General Foods created Jell-O pudding. Now, if the giant food company has its way, there will be Jell-O Pudding Pops, frozen pudding on a stick. Conceived four years ago, test-marketed since 1978, Pudding Pops promises to be one of the most successful products to emerge in recent years from the General Foods kitchens. The company refuses to say when it will be introduced nationwide. But General Foods, which has already sunk millions of dollars into the new product, clearly has great hopes for Pudding Pops.

''If anybody should think that one sovereign country should consult another sovereign country about a specific military operation, in order to defend its citizens, that would be absurd.'' - Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel. (A7:3.)

LONGVIEW, Tex. MEL and Norma Gabler seem simple folk at first. She dwells on the grandchildren. He mows the lawn. They have lived for years in the same modest ranch house here in this dusty East Texas industrial town. But in their own quiet way, the Gablers have become an important voice in American education. Their goal: to cleanse the nation's schools of all materials that they consider antifamily, anti-American and anti-God. Their target: textbooks.

Pan American World Airways, hit by disastrous losses that threaten the survival of its airline operations, is expected to announce today a reshuffling of routes, including a shutdown of its stations at La Guardia and Newark International airports. New York operations will be concentrated at Kennedy International Airport. Airline sources said yesterday that the company was also planning a suspension of the airline's only remaining service to Eastern Europe - a twice-a-week service between Warsaw and Frankfurt. They said this service, now year-round, will be operated only in the busy summer months.