What was going on when I was born?

Transcript of Polish Prime Minister's radio address A16 Poles Awake to a Day of Bayonets and Despair A17 Excerpts from Poland's martiallaw decree A17 Polish-Americans react with protests and silent prayers A17 Excerpts from Haig news conference A19 Chronology of events leading to Polish crisis A20 Schmidt stresses East-West ties A20 International For China's parliament, back to the rubber stamp A2 Levesque to put leadership to a vote A3 Two die in London car bomb blast A4 Dispossessed in Indian Ocean grow bitter A5 Malta's course hangs on election result A6 Around the World A7 Iranian names two to new Cabinet A8 Israel's Defense Minister says South Africa needs more arms A9 Extradited Palestinian arrives in Israel A10 Pope appeals to Poles to ''peace- fully build a peaceful future'' A14 Wall St. lawyer seeks justice for murder of nuns in El Salvador B5 Government/Politics Orange County voters satisfied with voting for Reagan A22 New York agencies plan energy-saving greenhouse project B3 U.S. Attorney assesses impact of verdict in Margiotta case B9 Washington Talk Briefing D10 Reagan's story-telling is asset that sometimes needs checking D10 Alexander Barkan retiring from A.F.L.-C.I.O. political post D10 Congresswomen's Caucus at- tracts 46 men as members D10 SportsMonday Basketball: North Carolina rolls on and on C1 Cremins, Georgia Tech coach, has a New York connection C4 Marques Johnson negotiates new contract under pressure C8 Columns: Dave Anderson on Rob Carpenter C6 Red Smith on Steinbrenner's scheme C9 Features: Sports World Specials C2 Question Box C11 Football: Giants win, 20-10, keep playoff hope alive C1 Tennessee upsets Wisconsin, 28- 21, in Garden State Bowl C5 Cowboys beat Eagles, win N.F.C. East title C6 Dolphins defeat Chiefs and are assured wild-card berth C7 Jets' Todd spends Sunday watching and rooting C9 Hockey: Islanders inspired by challenge of the Oilers C3 Sittler, angered at owner, asks Maple Leafs for a trade C3 Outdoors: Waterfowling on Martha's Vineyard C11 Statistics C12 Tennis: McEnroe victory gives U.S. the Davis Cup C1 General Around the Nation A22 Oakland to sell, then lease back, museum and auditorium A23 House that Frank Sinatra once lived in is auctioned B2 Trash fires are up sharply since the carting strike began B3 Shoppers stroll Fifth Avenue as it is closed to traffic B3 Arts/Entertainment ''Vincent,'' about van Gogh, staged at the Open Eye C15 Hollywood salaries are now a status symbol C15 ''Kingdoms,'' Napoleon vs. Pius VII, opens at the Cort C17 Etsko Tazaki, pianist C18 ''Floored,'' by Lisa Fox, is danced at the Kitchen C18 B6 Patricia Hearst's ''Every Secret Thing'' is reviewed C19 Canada's Glass Orchestra performs at 49th Parallel C19 Meredith Monk's ''Specimen Days'' opens at Public Theater C20 Met sings ''Il Trittico'' C20 WFMT, Chicago's fine-arts station, has anniversary C26 ''Timon of Athens'' on WNET C27 Style Relationships: Presents can hold hidden messages D12 Bereaved children meet to discuss their problems D12 Study of engaged couples spots potential trouble D12 Obituaries Erle Martin, aviation inventor and retired executive D14 Features/Notes Man in the News: Wojciech Jaruzelski, Polish leader A20 Man in the News: Lech Walesa, Polish labor leader A20 Notes on People B16 Going Out Guide C17 News Analysis David Binder comments on the developments in Poland A1 Robert Pear on the Administration's shift on rights A21 Steven Roberts discusses use of voting records in campaigns A25 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A26 Neither Polish nor a solution Cold look at the Garden ice Maintaining health in the city Peter Passell: pipeline puzzle Letters A26 Anthony Lewis: Russia's act of despair A27 Flora Lewis: too much noise made by the U.S. A27 Helmut Sonnenfeldt: Geneva and linkage A27 Frank J. Popper: will the ''sage-brush'' rebellion move East?A27

More than $500 million in interest payments owed by Poland to Western banks, and an agreement to reschedule $2.4 billion in debt due this year, appear to have been put under a cloud by the crisis there, a United States official said. The Western banks are unlikely to proceed with the debt rescheduling if the interest payment, due today, is missed, the official added. (Page D1.)

After expressing great alarm last summer at the prospect of the Federal budget deficit rising above the Administration's $43.1 billion target, the business community has greeted the latest estimates of a staggering $100 billion deficit with surprising calm. The Reagan Administration's most recent, and still preliminary, estimates project a deficit of $109 billion for the 1982 fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1. That figure is 65 percent higher than the record $66 billion deficit under President Gerald R. Ford. Interviews with corporate executives and economists regarding the latest deficit forecasts reflect a widespread feeling that the estimates have been made excessively high in order to frighten the public into accepting further revenue cuts and tax increases.

In both Houses of Congress, Democrats searching for 1982 campaign issues have begun criticizing the 1981 leasing amendments to the tax code. Unless changed, these amendments will let corporations reduce their tax bills by billions of dollars a year. The provisions modified earlier restrictions on the sale of tax benefits -investment credits and depreciation deductions - through leasing. Instead of buying a machine, a company that owes no taxes arranges to lease the machine from another company, which buys it and uses the credit and depreciation to reduce its own tax bill. With competition keen for leasing business, the investor companies (or lessors) are splitting the tax benefits with the users (or lessees).

The defense did it again, and the Giants' playoff hopes are still alive. They beat the Cardinals, 20-10, today in a game in which their offense consisted mainly of Rob Carpenter's running. But the defense, which had pulled them through all season, never let the Cardinals off the hook. The defense gave the Giants a 7-3 lead in the first quarter, when Lawrence Taylor's jarring sack forced Neil Lomax to fumble. George Martin picked up the loose ball and ran 20 yards into the end zone.

Warsaw mood - Every hour on the hour beginning at 6 A.M., Poles listening to their radios heard Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski speak in solemn tones about having placed the country under martial law. The interludes were filled with music. More cars were on the streets than is usual for a Sunday, particularly in a period of acute gasoline shortage. All telephones had stopped functioning, presumably to keep those who might wish to resist from coordinating actions. Page A17. Washington concern - The Reagan Administration called in the Polish Ambassador and the Soviet Deputy Chief of Mission for discussions. Several allied diplomats were also called to the State Department. President Reagan returned ahead of schedule from a weekend at Camp David to be briefed on Poland by Administation officials. Page A15. Soviet silence - The Soviet Union made no official comment on the declaration of martial law in Poland. The Polish developments were reported in a series of brief and largely factual dispatches by the official news agency Tass. Page A19. Papal appeal - Pope Paul John II asked his fellow Poles to pray for peace and to do everything in their power ''to peacefully build a peaceful future.'' Page A14. German reaction - Chancellor Helmut

The Democratic National Committee said yesterday that it would file a $10 million Federal suit today against the Republican National Committee, charging harassment and intimidation of black and Hispanic voters in New Jersey on Election Day. Eugene Eidenberg, executive director of the Democratic committee, said it had affidavits from more than 80 voters asserting that they had been harassed or had witnessed harassment by the Republicanbacked National Ballot Security Task Force during the election on Nov. 3. Mr. Eidenberg said the affidavits, along with photographs of task force members, some of whom were armed off-duty policemen, would be submitted as the case proceeded in Federal District Court in Trenton. The Republican National Committee said it had established the task force to prevent voter fraud at the polls. Task force members patrolled polling places on Election Day and put up posters warning that ''it is a crime to falsify a ballot or to violate election laws.'' Richard Richards, chairman of the Republican committee, said that without such an effort, the Democrats ''would have stolen the election.''

The people in the temporary-service industry do not like to admit that they may be profiting from the recession. It makes them feel a bit guilty. ''We are not recession-proof. We are just not as susceptible to recessionary pressures,'' said Patricia Morse, senior vice president of the Olsten Corporation. Olsten, one of the nation's four largest temporary-service companies, with more than 250 offices nationwide and with headquarters in Westbury, L.I., reported earnings in its third quarter were ''the best in the history of the company.'' But, as companies cut back on full-time staff to cope with the recession, they often find themselves short-handed and turn to a temporary-service company for part-time workers.

A New Jersey construction company gave trips, trucks, building materials and no-show jobs to officers of the blasters' union in New York City on at least seven separate occasions while Raymond J. Donovan, now the Secretary of Labor, was a senior executive of the company, according to a former official of the union. The former official, Mario Montuoro, described the incidents in grand jury testimony as long ago as 1978, according to his lawyer. The seven incidents, according to Mr. Montuoro, are in addition to one that he said took place at a 1977 lunch at which an official of the construction company, in Mr. Donovan's presence, made a $2,000 cash payoff to the president of the blasters' union. The $2,000 was to encourage the union to fight another union for jurisdiction on a New York City subway project being built by Mr. Donovan's company, according to Mr. Montuoro.

A clamor has arisen among the clammers on the Great South Bay because their counterparts in Rhode Island have flooded the market with choice littlenecks and cherrystones and have challenged Long Island's claim to being the most productive clamming area in the Northeast. The baymen here were already upset that their hauls had declined year after year since the mid-1970's. Then, last summer, Rhode Island officials reopened the northern third of Narragansett Bay, a 9,500-acre fishing ground that had been closed since 1978 because of pollution. Suddenly clam prices dropped, thanks to an underwater population explosion that had transformed the Narragansett area into a clam harvester's dream.

John Darnton, who has been chief of The New York Times bureau in Warsaw since September 1979, reports in the following article on the problems underlying the crisis in Poland. WARSAW - Behind the workers' revolt that began with strikes in the summer of 1980 and grew to a revolution on the shoulders of the Solidarity union, the operation of which was suspended when martial law was declared, lies a story of failure. It is the failure of Communism, in the eyes of the workers, to deliver on its promise of a better life. The revolt sprang from an unspoken consensus among Poles that despite more than three decades of sacrifice and toil, conditions of everyday life were scarcely improving and that the Communist system had failed most dramatically in precisely those areas, in the realm of social welfare, where its ideology called for greater exertion and improvement. Appalling dirt and safety conditions in factories, cramped and unavailiable appartments, substandard and sloppy health care, lines in front of meat shops - food shortages in general despite a stringent rationing system - these were the distingushing traits of what the Government referred to as ''people's Poland.'' They were glossed over, ignored or denied by successive governments that pressed instead for higher production statistics in heavy industry.

Crackdown in Poland Poland was placed under martial law by its new military leaders. Civil rights were drastically restricted and the operations of the Solidarity union were suspended. The union's activists reacted with an appeal for an immediate general strike. The Martial Council for National Redemption, the new top authority, banned all kinds of gatherings and demonstrations and ordered the internment of persons whose loyalty to the state was under ''justified suspicion.'' (Page A1, Column 6.) Communism's failure to deliver its promise of a better life for the Polish working people led to the workers' revolt in the summer of 1980 and the organization of the Solidary union. After three decades of sacrifice, conditions of everyday life had scarcely improved and it was in the area of social welfare that Communism had failed most dramatically. (A1:2-3.)