What was going on when I was born?

Each manila folder in the clutter on Brian T. Buchbinder's desk holds snippets of daily criminal life in the streets of New York City - someone stabbed, someone else pushed onto a subway track, thieves, pickpockets, con artists and the omnipresent peddlers of pills, marijuana and cocaine. Last year, Mr. Buchbinder and his 399 colleagues in the Legal Aid Society's criminal defense bureau represented 162,656 indigent defendants in New York City assigned to them by the courts. He acknowledges that what happens in the courtroom often bears no relation to what preceded it in the streets. ''We are not dealing with crime, just people accused of committing a crime,'' the bearded 31-year-old lawyer said. ''What we do has such a small impact on crime in the street that, no matter what we do, it has almost no effect.

A Federal judge today blocked the sale of oil drilling leases for more than 150,000 acres of California coastal waters. The judge ruled that the Reagan Administration had violated a 1972 Federal law in designating the area for development without first adequately consulting state authorities. The decision appeared to be a major setback for the Administration's program to accelerate exploration for oil in almost one billion acres of coastal waters. The victors were coastal states concerned about the environmental impact of the projected five-year program.

President Reagan, accusing the Democratic Congressional leadership of ''political fun and games,'' appealed tonight for support of his tax reduction program, which he termed ''the first real tax cut for everyone in almost 20 years.'' In a television address from the Oval Office of the White House, Mr. Reagan used two colored charts - each compar- Text of Reagan address, page B6. ing the tax cut benefits of ''our bill'' with the alleged defects of ''their bill.'' He also engaged in a series of partisan attacks on his opponents on Capitol Hill to repeat a message he has delivered repeatedly since taking office in January. The message in the President's speech was that Mr. Reagan's proposed tax cuts were no less urgent than the spending cuts that Congress approved at his request only last month.

Mayor Koch said yesterday that citywide inspections showed ''sustained improvement'' in street cleaning over last year, and he suggested that an extra 450 street cleaners would soon make the city still cleaner. He added, however, that even 1,250 street cleaners, the force the city will have by mid-August, ''cannot clean up after seven and a half million New Yorkers.'' The Mayor also conveyed a sense of pessimism about the city's cleanliness - ''I'm not going to make any promises that it's going to be satisfactory within a certain period of time'' -and an occasional vagueness about his plans for longterm improvements. In an interview on sanitation, Mr. Koch turned often to his Sanitation Commissioner, Norman Steisel, for advice. The interview was one of several with the Mayor on key issues in his campaign.

Threats alter life for Argentina's Nobel laureate A2 P.L.O. commander calls Israeli strategy a 'complete failure' A3 U.S. officials express optimism on Middle East truce A3 Sadat denounces Israeli air strike on Beirut A3 Japanese pleased at avoiding new obligations at Ottawa A4 Polish Government and union compromise on meat ration A4 Around the World A5 Behind the jubilation, a historic moment for Britain A6 The wedding day route: history all along the way A6 Old mingles with the new in sandy Nigerian city of Kano A10 British officials see no hope of re- solving hunger strike issues A11 Government/Politics Mayor Koch sees improvement in city's street-cleaning efforts B1 Prospects called bleak for West- chester's police department B2 Koch revises remarks on selling city property by lottery B3 Official says U.S. will pay 90 per- cent of Westway costs B3 Goldin and opponent agree that New York is "crumbling" B3 General Around the Nation A12 Mistrial declared in murder case arising from 1980 Miami riots A12 Three dead and five missing in flash flood near Tucson, Ariz A13 Lower taxi fares sought from Manhattan to Newark Airport B2 City's prefabricated jail dormi- tory ready for inmates B3 Chemical in Jersey fire shipped under U.S. rules B4 Trial lawyers convene to trade tips B20 Features/Notes Going Out Guide C8 Notes on People C14 Science Times Ulcer cases and surgery on the decline in many countries C1 Therapist uses poetry as guide to the hidden mind C1 Education: tests faulted for in- ability to measure creativity C1 Foxes tracked at night reveal a surprising group life C1 Science Watch C2 Doctors' World: physicians move to jobs in industry C3 Science Q A C4 About Education: concern on de- cline of graduate schools C5 Arts/Entertainment A concentration of talented teen- age ballerinas at Wolf Trap C7 Jack O'Brien takes over Shake- speare festival in San Diego C7 Carla Blank pauses in New York to give dance program in SoHo C8 Verdi's Requiem is presented in Central Park Mall C8 David Richards's tragic biogra- phy of Jean Seberg C9 Pine Orchard Artists Festival opens with two operas C10 House-Senate conferees agree to extend TV licenses to five years C15 West Germans review Johanna Meier's singing of Isolde C15 Paintings by concentration camp victim to be published C16 Style Notes on Fashion B5 Paris fall couture: Opulence all the way B5 The ultimate wedding put-on B5 Obituaries Lord Widgery, Britain's Lord Chief Justice B8 Dr. Frances L. Ilg, an authority on child behavior B8 Sports Baseball player representatives unanimously back negotiators C11 Oldfield wins shot-put at Sports Festival C11 Clerc defeats Vilas in Washington tennis final C11 World Games a showcase for un- heralded sports C11 Young, Giants' rookie tight end, finds making team isn't easy C13 George Vecsey on how Walter Payton fits in Chicago C13 Gaines of Jets hopes he can come back after broken leg C13 Judge in N.F.L. trial gives jury three issues to consider C13 News Analysis Hyatt tragedy raises questions of responsibility in building D19 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A14 Sustaining the right to vote Westway, still the best way Children Topics: thrillers Letters A14 Sydney H. Schanberg: undercov- ered primary A15 Tom Wicker: advise and consent A15 Yale Kamisar: the Agee decision A15 Marina Warner: Joan of Arc revisited A15

hunting. He waits in his little blue van, one hand out the window aiming the antenna mounted on the roof. With the other, he adjusts the knobs of a radio receiver in his lap. ''There she is,'' he says suddenly as a series of intermittent tweets emerges from the hiss of the receiver. ''That's Old Mahogany, right where she should be, on the edge of that wood.'' Because the signal is unsteady and changes pitch, he can tell that the vixen is moving. He marks her position on a map, then drives on. Mr. Macdonald spends nearly every night alone in this wood, keeping track of eight foxes that he captured here, fitted with radio transmitters set into collars and released. Each transmitter has a different frequency, so he can always tell Old Mahogany from Pintooth, and Bramble from Grizzle.

''The end of armed attack which has been achieved could be a first, important step on the road to greater calm and security in the area.'' - Philip C. Habib, United States envoy to the Middle East. (A3:1.)

The product planners of the American Motors Corporation were droning through another meeting, describing the fuelefficient models on their drawing boards when Gerald Meyers, chairman, interrupted. What, he asked, were they going to do if the current glut of gasoline continued and prices did not increase in accordance with their projections. What would happen if no market developed for the very fuel-efficient, but expensive, cars planned for later in the decade? Mr. Meyers has since said that his main purpose was to jolt his executives' thinking. But it is also true that the current surplus of gasoline that has stabilized prices at the pump is causing some concern for auto executives who have to decide now what buyers will want in three to four years.

ROBERT, who is 6 years old, took a test last spring to see whether he qualified for a special program for gifted children. He scored only in the 80th percentile, but the examiner noticed that during the test he was dropping things, looking around the room and fidgeting with his shoes. Later, Robert was interviewed at length and found to be unusually advanced in reading comprehension. He has been accepted in a program for the gifted at Public School 163 in Harlem - one of a growing number of cases in which traditional methods of identifying the gifted and talented are being challenged.

Moving to outbid Du Pont and Seagram in the multibillion-dollar battle for Conoco Inc., the Mobil Corporation said yesterday that it was increasing its cash offer for the nation's ninth-largest oil company to $105 a share for slightly more than half of Conoco's stock. Mobil also said it was reducing its offer for the rest to the equivalent of $85 a share in Mobil securities. Mobil, the nation's second-largest oil company after Exxon, valued its combined offer at $95 a share, or $8.17 billion in cash and securities for Conoco's 86 million shares. It valued a competing offer from E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company at an average price of $84 a share, or $7.3 billion in cash and stock, but said it could not estimate the average price of a bid by Joseph E. Seagram & Sons because Seagram was seeking only 51 percent of Conoco, for which it would pay cash.

Federal antipollution programs are adding four-tenths of a percentage point a year to the Consumer Price Index, according to a study released today by the Environmental Protection Agency. The study, prepared by Data Resources Inc. for the agency, also shows that the spending required of industry for meeting the requirements of the clean air and water acts and other environmental laws has also stimulated employment and business investment. Data Resources is a Lexington, Mass., economic consulting firm. Serious Capital Shortfall Meanwhile, the steel industry reported today that it would be able to clean up 96 percent of its air pollution and 98 percent of its water pollution in the next several years but that additional cleanup requirements would impose a serious capital shortfall on the industry.

Hundreds of people were forced out of their places of work and traffic was backed up for miles on major roadways near Newark International Airport early this morning after a railroad tank car containing 26,000 gallons of a volatile toxic chemical caught fire at the Oak Island Conrail freight yards. Routes 1 and 9 between Elizabeth and Newark and also the Pulaski Skyway, leading to the Holland Tunnel, were closed in both directions during the morning rush. They were reopened late in the day, except in the immediate area of the fire, after it was brought under control. The diversion of traffic into other arteries caused massive jams on the New Jersey Turnpike and on local streets in the morning rush as truckers and motorists tried to find a way around the area. Traffic was reported flowing smoothly by early evening, except on the sections of Routes 1 and 9 that were still closed.