What was going on when I was born?

Consumers considering whether to invest in the tax-exempt savings certificates created by the new tax law are going to find only limited information available now to elp them decide. Although the certificates are scheduled for offering beginning on Oct. 1, they have not yet been officially authorized by the bankang regulatory agencies, and some of the details have not yet been determined. ''There is no question that Congress wants them, so our job really is just to implement the program,'' said Gordon Eastburn, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Capital Markets in the Treasury Department and also acting executive secretary of the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee. ''There are a lot of technacal issues to resolve, such as disclosure requirements and how to calculate yield,'' Mr. Eastburn said, ''and we're trying to resolve them as soon as possible.'' But it is impossible, he said, to predict how much before Oct. 1 the decisions would be made.

Three former members of Congress received three-year prison terms yesterday in the first sentencing of defendants convicted in the Federal Government's two-year Abscam investigation into political corruption. Also sentenced yesterday in a hushed, crowded courtroom in Federal District Court in Brooklyn were a former Mayor of Camden, N.J., who got six years, and a Philadelphia City Councilman, who was given a three-year term. The former Representatives who were sentenced were John M. Murphy of Staten Island and Michael J. Myers and Raymond F. Lederer, both of Philadelphia. They were sentenced along with former Mayor Angelo J. Errichetti of Camden and City Councilman Louis C. Johanson of Philadelphia, who, like Mr. Errichetti, was convicted as a co-conspirator with Mr. Myers. Thompson Sentencing Delayed Former Representative Frank Thompson Jr. of Trenton, who was convicted in the same case as Mr. Murphy and was also to have been sentenced yesterday, had his sentencing, in effect, postponed pending further studies of his medical condition.

Robin H. H. Wilson, until recently a senior vice president for operations at Trans World Airlines, has been chosen as the new president of the Long Island Rail Road, officials of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said yesterday. The appointment, which is expected to be announced formally today, caps an eight-month search that began even before the past president of the railroad, Francis S. Gabreski, resigned in February. Mr. Wilson, 45 years old, left T.W.A. in May after his job was eliminated in an airline economy move. When he became a senior vice president at T.W.A. in 1977, Mr. Wilson's salary was $113,000 a year. A top railroad source said yesterday that his new salary would be around $100,000. Mr. Gabreski earned $72,500 a year.

President Reagan acknowledged that future budget deficits might be wider than he had projected, as he signed his economic package into law. He blamed changes in his program by Congress. (Page A1.) The tax-exempt savings certificates authorized by the tax law could prove a boon to those in 30 percent-plus brackets. (D1.) The Big Three auto makers reported a 30.8 percent sales increase in the first 10 selling days of August. Analysts pointed out, however, that the increase was compared with the worst sales period of 1980. The new figure lifted the seasonally adjusted annual selling rate for 1981 to 7.4 million domestic units. (D1.)

Trans-Atlantic travel is returning to normal at airports A12 Views of the air controllers' strike from 33,000 feet A12 Trans-Atlantic air travel returns to near-normal A12 International Lowly Hindus in India see Islam as their salvation A2 Ex-prisoner tells of harsh life in Vietnam 're-education' camp A3 East Berlin marks anniversary of the wall A4 Around the World A5 Lebanon accepts 'in principle' Libyan offer of defense system A6 Government/Politics White House seeks ways to shift welfare programs to states A8 New York State increases penalty for late tax payments B2 U.S. cuts to cause layoffs of 600 in New York's job service division B4 General Ukrainian boy's parents call asy- lum official kidnapping A3 Around the Nation A8 Reporter's Notebook: Linda Greenhouse on bar convention A13 Health/Science Voyager 2 transmitting sharp photos of Saturn A13 Weekend Lincoln Center goes out of doors C1 Weekender Guide C1 Metropolitan Baedeker: Fire Is- land C1 A hands-on West Side children's museum C12 Art: Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner show in Hamptons C1 Whitney shows off its Georgia O'Keeffes C18 Auctions C19 Toledo (Ohio) Museum sched- ules 1982 El Greco tour C18 Theater: Broadway C2 New Face: Ben Masters in "Key Exchange" C3 Peking Opera at Tully Hall C3 Screen: "An Eye for an Eye" with Chuck Norris C6 At the Movies C6 "The Uprising," reconstituted Nicaragua war story C10 Dance: Margaret Fisher learns from the insects C14 Music: Brubecks lead an alfresco weekend C17 Philharmonic offers brassy "Corsair" in park C17 Hildegarde, still incomparable, singing at Marty's C22 Ruth Brown is belting them out at the Cookery C22 Vince Giordano leads new jazz group C24 Books: Publishing C21 "Cujo," Stephen King novel, re- viewed C21 Restaurants C16 TV Weekend C23 Style The Evening Hours A14 For the elite, summer means - work A14 Career relocation: companies test a seminar A14 Fetal treatment vs. abortion A14 Obituaries Chester Brown, former chairman of Allied Chemical Corporation A13 Sports Guidry and Yankees turn back Tigers, 3-0 A15 Cubs stop Mets' streak at three games, 6-1 A15 Indians hope demotion to minors will help Charboneau A15 Vijay Amritraj upsets McEnroe at Canadian open A15 Red Smith on how Redcoats lost again at Saratoga A17 Shirk, tight end, fighting for job with Giants A17 Ten-year-old girl wins gold medal at Empire Games A18 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A22 Ma Bell drops the other shoe Mayor Koch's rugby game Nicaragua, lost and found A superb regulation! Letters A22 Flora Lewis: the neutron weap- ons muddle A23 Tom Wicker: Puerto Rico - an American colony? A23 Cyrus R. Vance: the Japanese- American partnership A23 Millicent Fenwick: yesterday's endless summers A23 Robert F. Drinan: Reagan's dan- gerous foreign policy A23

THERE is a story about Fire Island that goes like this: a newspaper correspondent from a far off country visits the island and, as ordered by his editor back home, writes a first-impression piece, the kind that is supposed to give a fresh, unjaded look at a place. ''The land has a poor underdeveloped economy,'' he types on his portable. ''The residents use small carts. The automobile has not yet been introduced. Indeed, most of the natives are so poor they wear no shoes at all.'' While Fire Island may be an island apart in that it has avoided the car and the shoe, it has done so out of choice, not poverty. This 32-mile strip of sand facing the Atlantic Ocean off the south shore of Long Island has some of the most valuable real estate on the ocean. Modest beachfront houses easily rent for Metropolitan Baedeker

THE 10th free Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival is upon us, spilling music and laughter across the great open spaces of the city's cultural capital. It is running for three weeks, day and night, through Aug. 30, with bands and orchestras of every beat, mimes, clowns and jugglers, children's theater and dance companies. The festival is particularly active this weekend. ''We want everybody to know that Lincoln Center is not a cultural fortress, a place only for people in tall hats and ropes of pearls with the price of a box at the Metropolitan Opera,'' said Leonard de Paur, a composer and conductor, who is the festival's producer. ''From the beginning, we set out to overcome that perception, to attract and welcome everyone who might not otherwise come to Lincoln Center. Our other obligation is to provide a showcase for every performer on earth who can get here.''

FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1981 Controllers' Strike No immediate boycotts or other actions to support striking air traffic controllers in the United States will be undertaken by the 61-nation international controllers' organization. But it appealed to President Reagan to reopen talks to end the strike. The appeal, which was made at an emergency meeting of the group's executive board in Amsterdam, was immediately rejected by the Administration. Later, the President reiterated his refusal to grant pardons or amnesty to the fired controllers. Meanwhile, air travel across the North Atlantic, which had been thrown into chaos earlier in the week, returned to almost normal. (Page A1, Column 1.) A cooling-off period and an immediate resumption of negotiations in the air traffic controllers' strike were called for in an emergency meeting of the executive board of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Organizations in Amsterdam. (A12:1.)

Just as they have done every morning for the last five years, hundreds of eager part-timers at 12:15 A.M. today manned the maze of conveyers and chutes in the Federal Express complex at the Memphis International Airport. Containers of packages rolled out of the DC-10's, Boeing 727's and Dessault Falcons in a steady stream. Speeding through the new $72 million sorting system at the rate of 700 a minute, the crush of packages adds to the din created by the humming of dozens of motors. And just as if there were no air controllers' strike, the first plane of the morning taxies down the runway at 3:18 filled with its cargo of overnight packages. Forty-four others followed, spaced only minutes apart.

Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger has prepared for President Reagan a comprehensive proposal to expand the nation's strategic nuclear deterrent forces that goes well beyond previous plans to strengthen those forces, according to senior Administration officials. The costly plan would encompass intercontinental ballistic missiles, long-range bombers, Trident submarines armed with more accurate missiles and, especially, a vast rebuilding of the extensive communications apparatus through which the strategic forces are controlled. A key to the proposal, the senior officials said, would be to exploit American technological advantages to offset Soviet strength in numbers of weapons and, more important, to prevent the Soviet Union from concentrating on any single countermeasure. Aim Is Restoring Superiority Because the proposal might add a new airborne missile force as well as improve existing weapons, the officials suggested that the lines could become blurred between the triad of land-based missiles, bombers and submarine-launched missiles that have formed the basis of the strategic deterrent force for the last 20 years. The proposed plan, the senior officials asserted, was intended to enable the United States to regain nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union within this decade. The Administration intends, the officials said, to build a capacity to fight nuclear wars that range from a limited strike through a protracted conflict to an all-out exchange.

If Governor Carey was not running for re-election yesterday, he was at least walking very fast. With his wife, Evangeline Gouletas-Carey, at his side and a coterie of public officials in tow, the Governor barnstormed through El Barrio, East Harlem's Hispanic community, shaking hands and delivering fiery speeches reminiscent of his last campaign, in 1978. His present term ends next year. Everywhere he went, Mr. Carey left good news or money, drawing enthusiastic applause, and attacked the Reagan Administration's cuts in social programs, also drawing enthusiastic applause.

The United States has begun to seek an accord to keep the Middle East free of nuclear weapons, the new director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency said today. In an interview in his office, Eugene V. Rostow, the agency director, said that ''we've started preliminary diplomatic talks'' both with nations in the Middle East and with key outside powers on the possibility of such a pact. He said the idea was to pattern it after the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco, which bans nuclear weapons in Latin America. ''We have no plan yet, no draft of a treaty,'' he said, ''except that the Treaty of Tlatelolco will be a rough model in everybody's mind as they move forward on this venture. And I think it has very high potential. It is a natural response to the risks of proliferation which have become much worse in recent years.''