What was going on when I was born?

The Elections The New Jersey gubernatorial contest was the closest one since 1961, with Representative James J. Florio, the Democratic candidate, and Thomas H. Kean, the Republican, running neck and neck. The relatively large turnout showed that Mr. Kean had attracted most of the independent voters, who have been responsible for wide swings in previous Jersey elections. (Page A1, Column 6.) Mayor Koch won a second term in a landslide victory as Democrats swept citywide and boroughwide offices. Mr. Koch, who had both the Democratic and Republican endorsements, and his Democratic running mates, City Council President Carol Bellamy and Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin, overwhelmed their opponents. (A1:3.)

Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., irritated by articles suggesting that he was in disfavor with President Reagan, charged today that a senior White House aide had been waging ''guerrilla warfare'' against him. In taking the unusual step of allowing a State Department spokesman to confirm that he had made such an accusation, Mr. Haig in effect was elevating the issue from the category of a rumor to a concrete problem for the Administration in its management of foreign policy. It has been no secret that friction has existed throughout the past months between Mr. Haig and other members of the Administration, most prominently Richard V. Allen, the White House national security adviser. However, both have publicly denied any friction, and Mr. Allen said today that Mr. Haig had personally assured him that he was not being blamed.

Southbound traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway was snarled most of yesterday as road work forced autos coming from New Jersey, Westchester and other points into two lanes and then into one lane. The parkway was narrowed as a result of a $30 million state improvement project between 125th and 144th Streets that began Monday. The project is expected to take 32 months, and before it is over work on additional sections of the parkway will begin.

FRANCE still has regions where one can drive for hours and not pass another vehicle. That is true of Quercy, in the southwest, where gently rolling hills are dotted with brilliant fields of sunflowers and where the only signs of life are, as often as not, a few waddling geese or a stray cat. There are few restaurants, and no one has ever heard of a fast-food croissant shop. It is an agricultural area and its farm families partake of solid peasant food that is rustic, abundant and strongly influenced by the Arabs, who for nearly 800 years held substantial portions of Spain just beyond the Pyrenees and left traces of their presence in all phases of the culture. One sees it in native dishes like the tourtiere, which is a not-too-distant cousin of baklava, and in the cassoulet, a blend of beans and sausages and preserved meats that, it has been suggested, is simply an adaptation of the Arab fava bean and mutton stew. The fertile soil easily provides the essentials for the wellfurnished Quercy table: corn-fed geese and ducks to be preserved as confits and to supply the liver for foie gras, prunes for preserving in eau-de-vie, wild mushrooms and truffles for holiday meals and grapes for the table as well as the coarse red vin du pays.

Two muggers who fatally shot a young resident surgeon just a block from Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center were the object yesterday of a wide police search. The victim, Dr. John Chase Wood Jr., was accosted Monday night near the intersection of 165th Street and Riverside Drive as he was returning from his home to Presbyterian Hospital after his dinner break. The flag was lowered to half-staff at the hospital, where his stunned colleagues described the 31-year-old victim as an outstanding doctor, a gifted muscian and a spirited rugby player. He was, one doctor said, ''a nearly perfect person,'' smart, talented, modest and as ''handsome as a movie star.''

DelBello and Pisani in close race in Westchester B6 Purcell wins by landslide in Nas- sau B6 Milner elected in Hartford; re- count seen in Bridgeport B6 Henry seems winner as District Attorney in Suffolk B6 Democrats win decisive victories in four upstate cities B7 International Brazilian's bequest sets off a $12 Billion Scramble A2 Government party and allied group sweep Tunisian election A4 Weinberger says arms buildup is necessary A6 Sweden presses interrogation of Soviet submarine commander A8 West German says neutralism threaten nation A9 Possible Chinese shift on Wald- heim is hinted A10 Egyptian official calls security situation reassuring A14 Washington Talk Briefing A20 A new generation of Democratic leaders emerges in the House A20 President Reagan is a favorite of White House photographers A20 General Council of Churches seeks new vitality and purpose A16 Around the Nation A18 Newspaper says 5 banks subpoe- naed in Cody investigation A18 "Bullet train" service urged for U.S. A25 Suspect in Brink's case is moved to a jail in Manhattan B2 Obituaries Arthur A. Leff, professor at Yale Law School A26 Ed Libov, advertising executive active in Jewish groups A26 Living Section Food Hearty fare of France's South- west C1 A kitchen soloist's homemade sausage C1 A former policeman learns a new beat C3 Old-time crackers bounce back C13 Living Hunting afoot behind the Chat- ham beagles C1 Metropolitan Diary C2 Kitchen Equipment C2 60-Minute Gourmet C3 Best Buys C7 Personal Health C8 Discoveries C10 Beene's fashions: Fluidity and freedom C14 Footloose in Manhattan (in sneakers) C14 Health/Science Tests on shuttle aim to unveil Earth's secrets A23 Talk of Cape Canaveral: Where acronyms and rockets fly A24 Ejection during liftoff of shuttle may be perilous A24 Arts/Entertainment Pop Life: The Stones roll on, refusing to become slick C25 Edward Asner elected head of Screen Actors Guild C26 "Crossing Niagara" is staged at Manhattan Theater Club C26 Show of American Indian art to open Nov. 19 in Peking C26 Opening of "The First," Jackie Robinson musical, delayed C26 Stravinsky archives may go to U.C.L.A. music library C29 "Selected Letters of James Thur- ber" is reviewed C30 Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra plays at Carnegie Hall C31 "Other Victim," CBS-TV movie about effects of rape C31 Sports University of Miami barred from bowls for recruiting violations B8 Motion to dismiss shave charge against ex-player denied B8 Islanders and Flames tie, 2-2 B9 Hayes filling a gap in Rockets' of- fense B9 Dodgers and Angels not eager to sign Jackson as free agent B9 Fingers of Brewers voted Cy Young Award B9 Johnson and Michael Spinks are friends and foes B9 Loughery returns tonight, but as foe of Nets B10 Red Smith on Lew Jenkins B11 Jenkins paces U.S. team in vic- tory at Horse Show B11 Features/Notes About New York B3 Notes on People C22 Sports People B10 Going Out Guide C22 News Analysis Hedrick Smith examines U.S. Middle East policy A3 Stuart Taylor Jr. on Reagan plans to control immigration A21 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A30 What the 'S' in NASA means Thanks, Saudi style The humanities: halfway home Late entry on voting rights Letters A30 James Reston: Averell Harriman at 90 A31 Russell Baker: no hum but ho hum A31 Eqbal Ahmad: replacing Camp David A31 Margaret Drabble: teen-age, good age A31

The second flight of the shuttle Columbia is about to mark the first critical test of the reuse of a spaceship for scores of trips to and from the orbital frontier. Today's launching, scheduled for 7:30 A.M., is the first attempt to fly a used spaceship. The United States has invested at least $10 billion so far to develop the Columbia as a vehicle capable of perhaps 100 round trips to space, and, depending on its success in early test flights, a fleet of four shuttles is expected to be in operation by the middle of the decade. The planned five-day mission, to be flown by Col. Joe H. Engle of the Air Force and Capt. Richard H. Truly of the Navy, will be marked by the first working payload of scientific instruments to be carried by the 122-foot-long winged spaceplane and extensive testing of the vehicle's 50-foot robot arm for handling cargoes.

President Reagan is being told that he must accept either higher budget deficits over the next three years or ask Congress to adopt tax increases that would raise billions of dollars in that period, White House spokesmen said today. But they said that Mr. Reagan was clinging to his hope of making further spending cuts to balance the budget by 1984. Mr. Reagan was presented with the new fiscal dilemma at a review process that started yesterday and continued today at a luncheon meeting of the President and his main political and economic advisers. Congress and Recession Factors The review was made necessary by two factors. One is stiffening Congressional resistance, even among Republicans, to further deep cuts in Government spending that Mr. Reagan still favors as the main tool for achieving his goal of a balanced budget by 1984.

It was a left-footed rabbit, and it hopped from the wild-cherry thicket right out into the alfalfa field. Far in the background were the russet and gold hills of Columbia County. In the foreground, eyeing the cottontail, were 46 men, women and children, a number of them wearing black velvet caps and green and yellow hunt livery agleam with brass buttons. ''Tallyho!'' yelled Frank J. Tuttle, president of the Old Chatham Hunt Club Foot Beagles. The cottontail studied him intently, then beat it for the nearest hedgerow. By now the hounds, 18 of them, were in full cry, and the rabbit began circling leftward through the brush, as it is the left-footed rabbit's lot in life to do. Thomas G. Kelly, the huntsman, began blowing short, rapid blasts on a brass hunting horn from Swaine & Adeney's in London. ''The hounds are speaking,'' said Albert S. Callan as he legged it through the alfalfa with the other Foot Beagles. ''A lovely music, too.''

As he prepares for four more years at City Hall, Mayor Koch says that key people will soon leave his administration, several of them involuntarily. But the Mayor insists that his second term will essentially be an extension of the first. There will be ''very few'' changes in his lineup of commissioners and principal advisers, he says, adding that he intends to leave it to his chief aides to ''paint the broad strokes on policy for the next four years.'' Some of those aides regard the next two months - even if the Mayor says he does not - as a period of re-evaluation, particularly to focus on ways of achieving Mr. Koch's professed goal of improving essential services. ''I think you'll see over the next month that we will be sitting down and talking about refining direction,'' said Robert F. Wagner Jr., the Deputy Mayor for Policy. ''This means doing some thinking about the race issue, about how we make a real commitment to dealing with economic problems, and trying to think of longer-term issues.''

The threat of immediate and permanent closure lifted at BL Ltd. when 58,000 striking workers voted today to accept the auto maker's offer of a 3.8 percent increase in base pay. The proposed increase, far below Britain's 11 percent inflation rate, had provoked deep resentment and was rejected overwhelmingly yesterday by a meeting of shop stewards from the 32 BL plants. The decision to go back to work after two days on the picket lines averted a potential political disaster for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose aides had said that rejection could have led to the shutdown of Britain's last major domestically owned car producer. ''I think the credit must go to the work force for accepting something they certainly do not want to accept,'' said Grenville Hawley, the chief negotiator for the unions.

Many large corporations plan to increase their philanthropy next year, but corporate executives say that business cannot replace the billions of dollars that will be cut from the Federal budget for education, social welfare and the arts, according to a survey and interviews with business leaders. President Reagan has been urging businesses to give more money as the Federal Government reduces its own role. He has told company and foundation officials at the White House that the private sector can offer alternatives to solving social problems that are more creative, more efficient and less expensive than those provided by the Government. He has also set up a Presidential study group headed by William Verity, chairman of Armco Steel, to promote private initiatives.