What was going on when I was born?

WASHINGTON IN this city of lobbyists and other assorted pressure groups, it is no surprise to find that restaurants also have their claques. And though all factions might agree that the most fashionable eating scenes are played out in French, Italian and Far Eastern restaurants, opinions differ widely as to which eating place is the best in each category. The conflicting advice presents a frustrating situation to those who care most about eating well and have only a few days in which to do so. Having tried the three French restaurants considered tops by almost all Washington food buffs, I found the best by far to be Jean Louis in the Watergate Hotel. Le Pavillon came in second with very good food and very pretentious service in a darkly depressing setting. Lion d'Or was uneven; some dishes were excellent, others were mediocre, and the service left almost everything to be desired. That trio having been accounted for a few weeks ago, there is a second level of eating places that are solidly ''in,'' and again they vary widely in the quality of their ingredients and preparations.

New-car sales by the Big Three domestic auto makers dropped 27.8 percent during the first 10 days of December, as the industry remained mired in the worst sales slump in recent years. The Chrysler Corporation, the Ford Motor Company and the General Motors Corporation reported combined sales of 120,439 cars, compared with 166,808 in the same period last year. There were nine selling days in both periods. The sharpest decline was reported by Ford, which had a 37.7 percent drop, to 24,733 cars, compared with 39,688 in early December 1980. Ford's offer of $400 to $600 rebates expired at the end of November.

As the American economy slips deeper into recession, and with only an anemic recovery expected in Europe next year, the industrial world appears to be slipping another step down from the high rates of economic growth and prosperity it enjoyed during the 1960's. This is the view of bankers, economists and other analysts who were interviewed in recent days. The first pronounced decline in the economic growth of the industrial nations occurred in the 1970's, when rising inflation and the 1974 oil price shock helped shrink the average rate of economic expansion to only 3.5 percent a year from the 5 percent that prevailed in the 1960's. Down to a Lower Plateau Now economic growth rates appear to be dropping to a lower plateau, partly as a result of the second oil price shock in 1979-80 but also because of high interest rates. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and most private forecasters now expect that the industrial economies - essentially, the United States, Canada, Western Europe and Japan - will follow the mild contraction in 1980 and probable stagnation this year by growing a paltry 1.5 percent or so on average during 1982.

A Business Day article yesterday on video game commercials by Atari and Intellivision incorrectly reported NBC's position. It has asked that the commericials be revised, but has not ordered them off the air.

The Public Service Electric Gas Company, New Jersey's largest utility, asked the State Board of Public Utility Commissioners today for permission to abandon one of two nuclear power plants it is building near Salem, N.J. The utility also asked the board for permission to increase its rates sufficiently over the next 12 years to cover the estimated $370 million cost of construction already completed and the abandonment of the project. Company officials testified at a board hearing that one plant, called Hope Creek II, was no longer needed because consumer demand for energy was growing at a rate of only 1.9 percent, compared with 7 percent a decade ago when the plant was planned. Financing Difficulty Cited Everett L. Morris, a senior vice president of the company, also said that it would have difficulty obtaining financing for the project and that putting more money into Hope Creek II would jeopardize completion of the Hope Creek I plant next to it on Artificial Island in the Delaware River near Salem.

As the big Los Angeles retailers tell it, there is a huge gap in their holiday sales this season. At the top of the line, the goods are moving nicely. Bullock's sold 1,000 men's cashmere sport jackets at $249.99 in one week and 45 women's mink coats at $4,500, also in one week. Neiman Marcus, in Beverly Hills, did strong business in Judith Lieber handbags at $500 each, and Robinson's enjoyed ''very good sales'' in Calvin Klein, Polo and Armani men's clothes, all priced well above the average. At the opposite end of the spectrum, things are also going well. Zody's discount stores, which appeals mostly to low-income customers, says that since Thanksgiving Day, sales are running 20 percent ahead of last year's pace. The gap, according to the major retailers here, is a striking decline in holiday buying by the broad middle-income segment, families with incomes of $25,000 to $40,000 a year. ''That's the big drag,'' observes Frank H. Arnone, chairman of the Broadway department stores, the biggest retailer in this area. Normally, even the fanciest department stores count on such shoppers for half or more of their business.

Reporter's Notebook: How Does Copenhagen Cope? A2 Guatemala's high hopes for Rea- gan give way to anger A3 Iraqi President says his nation is ready to end war with Iran A5 Peruvian sworn in as U.N. Secre- tary General A6 Syria considers its response to Is- rael's annexation A8 Around the World A10 Security Council to debate the Golan annexation A12 Radio Free Europe's Polish sec- tion has a growing audience A16 Government/Politics Reagan said to consider keeping Energy Department A17 Turner sees harm from Reagan order on intelligence gathering A22 Attorney General defends treat- ment of Haitians A23 Reagan signs $413 billion stopgap spending measure A26 Decision delayed on using Fort Drum as refugee center B2 2 Jersey counties end inquiries on voter intimidation charges B2 City must pay $6.6 million to chil- dren of couple in explosion B3 Washington Talk John G. McMillian a force behind the Alaska gas pipeline A28 Mayor Koch makes, and renews, friendships in the capital A28 Briefing A28 Federal employees experiencing more stress as jobs dwindle A28 General Around the Nation A20 Students learn printing in re- created 19th-century shop B3 Paramedics use bus as ambu- lance for heart attack victim B3 In cramped subway tunnel, work- ers rush to mend tracks B4 Lawyer seeks to be a privateer B7 Psychologist admits perjury B8 The Living Section Food An ideal Christmas feast - Italian-style C1 Capital restaurants: yeas and nays C1 Ye olde fete of foode, drynke & danse C3 Wine Talk C19 Living Pet-food esthetics: a human concern C1 Metropolitan Diary C2 Discoveries C9 Personal Health C11 In Italy, fashions keep an eye on crime C14 Changing voice patterns to make a point C15 New Yorkers, etc. C20 A weekend of self-confidence C20 A gift library with ''an aura of England'' C20 Health/Science U.S. doctors skeptical over Soviet therapy for eye disease A17 Harvard cardiologist suspended for research fraud A19 House passes increase in coal tax for black lung benefits A24 Creationism attacked at trial B7 Arts/Entertainment Christmas records are running from satire to treacle C23 Met Opera stages Zeffirelli's pro- duction of ''Boheme'' C27 Astaire, Douglas, Fairbanks and Houseman in ''Ghost Story'' C27 Ted Mooney's ''Easy Travel to Other Planets'' is reviewed C29 Charles Kuralt to be replaced C30 ''Isabel's Choice,'' on CBS C31 Obituaries Claud Cockburn, British writer B6 Dewey Markham, comedian B6 Zoya Fyodorova, Russian actress B6 Sports Islanders top Nordiques, 10-7 B9 Knicks defeated by Hawks B9 Misses Jaeger, Miss Austin and Mrs Lloyd win in title tennis B9 B6 Costs took joy out of baseball, Carpenter says B9 Guidry signs for five years B12 Red Smith on baseball's money scheme B12 Beck of Rangers banned 6 games B13 Features/Notes Notes on People A25 About New York B5 Sports People B11 Going Out Guide C23 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A30 Low politics on Golan Moving garbage mountains The value of a life Chad and its neighbors' webs Letters A30 James Reston: the new isolation- ists A31 Russell Baker: six feet high, and rising A31 Nadav Safran: Begin's heights of risk A31 Bruce Chapman: farming small in America A31

Faced with pleas from Congress and the thrift industry for delay, Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan will ask postponement of Federal action that could have ended interest rate limits on savings accounts of more than three years' duration, the Treasury Department said today. Mr. Regan, according to the department's statement, will ask fellow members of the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee to put off action scheduled for Wednesday on a proposal to let banks and savings and loan associations pay as much interest as they want, effective next Feb. 1. on three-and-a-half-year accounts of $250 or more. This announcement represented a reversal of Mr. Regan's previous position favoring the rapid phasing out of interest rate ceilings under legislation that created the committee to supervise the phasing out of all bank interest rate ceilings by 1986. Panel's Previous Action Earlier, Mr. Regan had advocated a sharp rise in the interest rate ceilings for passbook savings, only to reverse himself on this issue on Oct. 16, with the result that the deregulation committee postponed a half-point rise in the passbook interest rate ceiling that was to have taken affect Nov. 1.

International The Polish authorities moved quickly to halt strikes and to seize workers defying martial law. A clandestine information service of the Solidarity trade union said large numbers of troops and riot policemen had taken over major factories in Warsaw and other large cities. Sketchy reports in a country plunged into a communications blackout indicated that the authorities were meeting little active resistance. (Page A1, Column 6.) A strong warning to Poland against further acts of repression was issued by the Reagan Administration. The White House said American ''actions will be decided as developments warrant.'' A spokesman declined to elaborate, but officials indicated that stronger economic measures against Warsaw were a possibility. (A1:4-5.)

An IRT express train lost a motor and careered off the tracks just south of the Times Square station early yesterday morning, injuring 10 passengers and causing a daylong disruption of subway, bus and traffic patterns for several hundred thousand New Yorkers. Subway repair crews struggled throughout the day and into the night to clear the twisted metal in the tunnel in an effort to restore full service on the crippled West Side IRT line. The line carries 350,000 passengers along the length of Manhattan each day. During the evening rush hour, only one of four West Side IRT lines was operating between Chambers Street and 96th Street. It was the northbound local line, and it was moving slowly and crowded with commuters.

HOW do we love our dogs and cats? Let the pet-food industry count the ways. We love them enough to spend $4 billion a year to feed them. For, according to market researchers for the pet-food business, we do not regard our pets as mere animals, but as members of the family. With this difference: Researchers found that the woman of the house regards the family dog as a dumb and perpetually immature child. She loves the dog, as she does her children, but acknowledges that the dog will never, unlike her own offspring, be able to assume any task for itself. In real terms this means the average woman can look down at her dog and see approximately 18 years of opening cans or sacks. Of course, not only women cater to pets, men do too. But most often, according to Robert Wilbur, spokesman for the Pet Food Institute, ''It is the woman who decides what the companion animal'' - the new term for pet -''will eat.''

THERE are few places where Christmas is celebrated more heartily than in Italy. Boisterous and colorful festivals to honor the birth of Christ begin in that country as much as nine weeks before Christmas Day, when shepherds - the zampogniare -come down from the mountains to play Christmas music on their bagpipes, and continue through to the Epiphany, 12 days after, when drivers hang boxes of panettone and nougat on the arms of traffic policemen. An integral part of all this revelry are the special seasonal feasts, lovingly and painstakingly prepared from recipes handed down through generations. These repasts vary from region to region, but an especially enticing, robust and festive Christmas meal is prepared in Abruzzo, the rugged section east of Rome that is flanked by a hundred miles of Adriatic shore and the snow-covered Apennine mountains. With an abundance of fish, pork, poultry and lamb, its fine sausages and prosciutto, Abruzzo is renowned for earthy, highly spiced cuisine.