What was going on when I was born?

LONDON THREE comments from three European officials, all of them swimmers in the mainstream of politics and public opinion and none of them intemperate or demagogic, suggest the mounting anxiety in many parts of this continent over the prospect of nuclear cataclysm. At the British Labor Party's annual conference a month ago, Alex Kitson, a Scottish trade unionist serving as the conference chairman, roused the crowd with the observation that when the United States and the Soviet Union speak of limited war, ''they mean limited to us'' - in Western Europe. Meeting with American reporters, a Dutch Cabinet member wondered aloud whether citizens of New York would react much differently from those of the Netherlands, if told that nuclear weapons in large numbers were to be based on Long Island. And during a seminar on the Atlantic Alliance, a West German diplomat observed that the United States had placed greater hopes in detente than Western Europe had and was therefore behaving like a spurned suitor, while the Europeans' more modest hopes remained more or less intact.

- Federal housing programs should be revamped to replace current subsidies for construction and rehabilitation of rental housing for low-income families with a system of grants to help needy households pay rent for existing apartments, the President's Commission on Housing has recommended. The interim report, to be presented to President Reagan this week, was adopted by the commission on Oct. 19, the day the Commerce Department announced that housing starts had dropped in September to a 6 1/2-year low. The report advocates ''consumer-oriented housing assistance payments,'' commonly referred to as vouchers. And it proposes to eliminate future production subsidies for low income housing under the Section 8 rental assistance program, the public housing program and the Section 202 loan program for housing for the elderly. The report sounds an alarm about the state of the housing industry. ''Unless decisive action is taken,'' it said, ''the ability of the housing industry, including the financial institutions, to perform efficiently in the future may be severely damaged.''

On the eve of the 12th New York City Marathon, Gary Fanelli donned his all-black Elwood Blues outfit and sunglasses, pulled out his harmonica and sang his rendition of what 16,000 other runners were thinking yesterday. I woke up this morning, What did I see; New York City, Staring at me. I said wait a minute, What am I doing here; Then I remembered, It's that time of year. Today competitors from 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico will be joined by 3,000 entrants from 61 foreign countries in another 26.2-mile journey through the city. Got the marathon blues, Oh yeah! Got the New York City Blues, 26 miles is such a long, long way to go. A computer, programmed with statistical information on personal records, predicted Alberto Salazar's time for today's race at 2 hours 7 minutes 51 seconds, which would be under the current world record of 2:08:34. Just to go Salazar one second better, Greg Fredericks, another world-class 10,000-meter runner, programmed faster times, wound up with a time of 2:07:50 for himself, then seriously said he would settle for simply finishing.

NEW JERSEY residents see a difference between the problems at the national and state levels, and perceive differently the ability of the representatives of the two major political parties to handle those problems, according to a New York Times survey completed last week. The survey, which gathered detailed responses from 1,118 registered voters between Oct. 13 and Oct. 18, found that New Jersey residents had substantially more faith in the Republicans than in the Democrats to deal with the major problems facing the nation. But when asked who could better handle the major problems facing the state, those responding split almost evenly between the Republian candidate for Governor, Thomas H. Kean, and the Democratic candidate, Representative James J. Florio. Overall, The Times survey found that, among all registered voters, Mr. Florio was leading Mr. Kean by 48 percent to 40 percent. This included those who said they were leaning to one candidate or another. However, among the half of the registered voters most likely to vote, Mr. Florio's lead was only 2 percentage points, a difference that was within the poll's margin of error for this core group of voters.

President Reagan said today that the meeting of 22 leaders of industrialized and developing nations had been ''extremely constructive and positive.'' ''The exchange was direct, frank, wide-ranging and free of recrimina- Text of Reagan statement, page 12. tion,'' Mr. Reagan said in a statement after arriving at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. ''We dealt with hard issues and yet succeeded in finding many areas of shared priorities and common ground.''

In a tumultuous three and one-half hours filled with 10 pitchers, 27 hits and 15 runs, the Los Angeles Dodgers rallied in the late innings today to defeat the New York Yankees, 8-7, and tie the World Series at two games apiece. Not even the debut of Reggie Jackson in the Series kept the Dodgers from a melodramatic victory, although Jackson reached base five straight times on two walks, two singles and the 10th homer in his Series career. The Dodgers survived all that, tied the game with three runs in the sixth inning, took the lead with two in the seventh and held on until the final out was made 385 feet from home plate. They have now won two games at home after losing two in Yankee Stadium, and they won this one before a record Dodger Stadium crowd of 56,242. Somebody will break the tie tomorrow, when Jerry Reuss pitches for the Dodgers against Ron Guidry, in a rematch of the opening game last Tuesday. After that, the Series will return to New York, where it will be won by the first team to take four games.

Rich Gossage candidly and succinctly summed up the Yankees' performance in the fourth game of the World Series today. ''We stunk,'' he said. Gossage was not one of four relief pitchers Manager Bob Lemon used in an effort to halt the relentless Dodgers, but he nevertheless did not exempt himself from the team's awful day. ''I was warming up in the ninth inning,'' he said, telling on himself, ''and I threw one clear over the fence. Not just barely over the fence but about five feet over. I said, 'Geez, don't put me in there.' That stuff rubs off.''

TOKYO VIEWED against the huge trade deficit the United States is running with Japan, expected to reach as much as $15 billion this year, the market for aluminum baseball bats in Japan is puny - roughly $15 million a year. Yet the story of how American metal bat makers were first pushed back in the Japanese market during the middle 1970's, after holding a leadership position, and then excluded altogether is becoming a cause celebre among American trade officials. The reason is that, faced with mounting trade deficits with Japan, American and Western European officials have started all-out campaigns to try to open up what they regard as the clam-like economic system of Japan. Foreigners charge that there are many Japanese markets that can be exceedingly difficult to crack, including those for beef, citrus fruits, pharmaceuticals, financial services, communications equipment and computers. To be sure, foreign companies trying to sell in Japan have often invested too little time and money in learning the markets, product preferences and the ways of doing business here - not to mention mastering the difficult Japanese language. But what also deters many companies from making long-term commitments in Japan is the perception that its markets are inhospitable. Accordingly, they seek more promising opportunities elsewhere. The Japanese, for their part, have long held that the notion of a closed Japanese economy is outdated.

The man accused of attempting to assassinate a Libyan student in Colorado last year found sanctuary four months later at an isolated English farm owned by Edwin P. Wilson, a former American intelligence agent who is now a fugitive in Libya, according to neighbors and local merchants in England. The accused assassin, Eugene A. Tafoya, lived in a bungalow at Broxmead Farm, about 35 miles south of London, for three weeks in February, the neighbors and merchants said. They said he had been escorted to the farm by a business associate of Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson's neighbors said they did not learn until earlier this month that Mr. Tafoya faced criminal charges. He is currently being held in Fort Collins, Colo., pending trial on state charges in the shooting of the Libyan student.

An Appetite for Debt Wall Street may see its fears about the cost of Reagan-omics borne out this week when the fiscal year's first refunding offering is made. And, while the credit markets are expecting government borrowings to be large, some analysts fear the impact on short-term rates may be worse than anticipated. Rising interest costs, lower corporate profits and financing the first tax cut means the Government will have to raise $35 billion in new cash this quarter, says David Jones, an economist at Aubrey G. Lanston. And unless the economy falls into a fairly steep recession, business borrowing is likely to stay brisk, keeping short-term rates high. With new tax cuts set for later this year, Mr. Jones doubts Washington's appetite for new money will diminish, and could reach $100 billion this fiscal year, a record. OPEC Stumbles to Geneva In the face of deteriorating market conditions, OPEC oil minister gather in Geneva this week to try to recapture some control over world petroleum supplies and prices.

The economic hopes and fears of governments and their peoples on both sides of the world's Great Divide between rich and poor, were the main order of business last week as President Reagan met at Cancun, Mexico, with leaders of 14 developing countries and seven industrialized nations. Mr. Reagan went to the Yucatan resort island ''to listen and learn,'' he said, acknowledging the consciousness-raising usefulness of the exercise. But he did not promise to be convinced, and he wasn't. The United States, joined by Britain and Germany, insisted at the end of the conference, as they had at the beginning, that key decisions affecting the distribution of the world's wealth remain in bodies controlled by the world's rich - the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

CENTER MORICHES LONG ISLAND's flower growers are busy these days adopting the floriculture techniques that have revolutionized flower production in other areas of the nation and the world. They're using new insulation and heating methods - including coal-burning boilers - for glass greenhouses or converting to the use of portable, polyethylene greenhouses in an effort to remain competitive with domestic and international growers. One Long Island grower has even opened a nursery overseas. At stake is the continued health of the Long Island flower industry, a $50 million business employing 5,000 people that has been part of the Island since the turn of the century.