What was going on when I was born?

Paul Craig Roberts, the Administration's most fervent advocate of supply-side economics, has resigned as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury to accept appointment to the newly endowed William E. Simon chair in political economy at Georgetown University, it was announced today. Mr. Roberts, a champion of the three-year tax cut enacted last year, was asked about rumors that he was leaving because he was dissatisfied with the direction of President Reagan's economic policy. ''None of us really know the direction it's going, do we?'' he replied.

The Essex County Executive, Peter Shapiro, proposed today a cut of about 10 percent in the property tax rate for the county, which is New Jersey's most populous and includes the city of Newark. It was not clear which towns would be affected or how much of a tax break, if any, homeowners might receive. Donald V. Biase, director of the county's Division of Budget and Management, said a reduced county tax rate acting on inflated property values would raise the same amount of tax revenue as last year - $146.3 million. Services to Be Maintained Mr. Shapiro, in his message on the proposed budget for 1982, said that, even with its reduced tax rate, the county would be able to maintain its services and fill in the gaps created by Federal budget cuts.

International A U.S. military attache was slain outside his home in Paris by a solitary gunman who escaped. The murder of Lieut. Col. Charles Robert Ray came two months after the attempted shooting of Christian A. Chapman, charge d'affaires at the American Embassy. The police called the two attacks very similar. (Page A1, Column 3.) Thousands of Indians were arrested in advance of a one-day national strike called for today to protest the economic policies of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Most of those seized are union activists. (A1:1.)

Mayor Koch's preliminary plans to balance his budget for the next fiscal year rest in good part on dozens of proposed efficiencies and changes in the way certain segments of local government go about their daily business. They range from eliminating watchmen in some public buildings between midnight and 8 A.M. (saving $420,000) to requiring all city prisoners to leave their cells during recreation periods so that guards are not needed for those who might wish to remain behind (saving $463,000). No single proposal is worth a great deal of money, not to a city that expects to spend $15.7 billion in fiscal 1983. But altogether they produce a potential saving of $158 million. That goal is not only unusually ambitious, but also four times the scale that the Koch administration was talking about only a few months ago.

Israelis ask Egyptians to alter border a bit A3 Syrian paper says Soviet agrees to provide more arms A3 U.S. official has talks with Ango- lan A4 Around the World A5 Greece agrees to resume repair of Soviet ships A6 French Socialists shrug off two setbacks A8 Unesco conference on journalism opens in Mexico A13 Security tighter at U.S. embas- sies since Iran hostage seizure A16 High Polish official denies Walesa will be freed soon A17 Government/Politics Supreme Court Roundup A14 Labor Department proposes voluntary safety programs A19 Rep. Richmond's payroll ar- rangements raise questions B3 Connecticut Senate sends $36 mil- lion tax bill to Governor B3 Washington Talk Briefing A22 Clark settling in as national se- curity adviser A22 Congress gives itself a tax break A22 General Around the Nation A18 Cold wave strands thousands in the Northeast B2 New York City water shortage held no longer an emergency B2 Abbott denies violence attributed to him in prison B3 Hearing to start on asbestos com- plaint in Groton B12 PARKING REGULATIONS Because of snow, alternate-side parking is suspended in New York City today. All other rules remain in effect. Science Times Dinosaur extinction may have fallen from the sky C1 The fall and rise of a controver- sial biologist C1 About Education: A blow is struck for clear English C1 Science Watch C2 The Doctor's World: ''New'' dis- eases are not so new C3 Science Q&A C3 Education: The German lan- guage is losing out C5 Style Notes on Fashion A23 Boutiques: notable newcomers A23 A sense of adventure returns to men's fashion A23 Arts/Entertainment Charles Rosen gives all-Beetho- ven piano recital C6 New Park Avenue plaque honors Herman Melville C7 Three Mannes alumni join in benefit for school C7 Piers Paul Read's novel ''The Villa Golitsyn'' reviewed C10 Four new and recent dances by Bill Cratty C10 ''King of America,'' story of an ambitious Greek immigrant C10 Film about life in a mental insti- tution on CBS-TV C10 James Nederlander buys Lon- don's Aldwych Theater C10 Obituaries Varlam Shalamov, Russian writer on Stalin's labor camps A24 Sports N.B.A. referee admits he erred D24 Rangers' unbeaten streak halted at five in 6-2 loss to Maple Leafs D25 Nancy Lieberman still fights for league D25 Mare killed in tragic accident at Aqueduct D25 Reynolds, 49ers' senior member, is the team's film critic D25 Ira Berkow on Red Grange, the Galloping Ghost D26 Brown's Bengals are a no-frills, no-nonsense team D26 A24 (B2:2.) Miss Flanders wins first Cup downhill for U.S. in three years D26 Change in tennis Masters format expected D27 Yankees shuffle coaching staff D27 Features/Notes Notes on People A21 Going Out Guide C8 Sports People D27 News Analysis Michael T. Kaufman on outlook for new Pakistani council A2 Clyde Haberman reviews the Koch budget plan B1 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A26 It's still tax-exempt hate A not-so-neutral Neutrality Act Folly in New York's courts Jack Rosenthal: political lib Letters A26 Sydney H. Schanberg: fairness in hard times A27 Tom Wicker: where the buck stops A27 Angela E. Stent: Bonn pays the piper A27 Bernard Wolfman: law, cut on a bias A27

An American military attache was shot dead outside his home this morning by a solitary gunman. The killing of the attache, Lieut. Col. Charles Robert Ray, came two months after the attempted shooting of Christian A. Chapman, the charge d'affaires at the United States Embassy here. The police said the two attacks, which they assumed were the work of a terrorist group, had ''a great similarity,'' but they were not able to identify the group involved. Mitterrand Calls It 'Dastardly' In Beirut, a group calling itself the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction said it was responsible for Colonel Ray's death. The same group, about which little is known, had also said it was responsible for the attempt on Mr. Chapman.

An agreement for Coca-Cola to acquire Columbia Pictures in a $750 million transaction is expected to be announced today. The proposal is said to call for an offer of $74 a share in cash and stock for the profitable film company's 10.7 million shares outstanding. The acquisition would be the first major one under Roberto O. Goizueta, who took over Coca-Cola last March. (Page A1.) Chase Manhattan's fourth-quarter earnings almost doubled, rising to $135.6 million. Continental Illinois reported a 35.7 percent increase in its net operating earnings. (D3.)

China and Japan, joined by dozens of American and European oil companies with offshore technology and capital to offer, are preparing to pour billions of dollars into exploring the almost untouched offshore oil resources of China and the continental shelf between China and Japan. Exploration has already begun along thousands of miles of Chinese coastlines, stretching from the Bohai Bay in the north to the Tonkin Gulf in the south - and far out across the continental shelf to Japan, 500 miles away across the East China Sea. Experts interviewed here believe that regional offshore oil and gas fields may help Japan diversify sources of oil away from the Middle East, much as the North Sea fields have helped Europe. Japan is the world's second-largest oil importer after the United States, with estimated imports of 1.75 billion barrels in 1981. ''There is a whole series of North Seas out there,'' said Selig S. Harrison, an expert from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in New York who has studied Asian offshore potential intensively. 'Last Frontier'

SEEMS OVER By PHILIP M. BOFFEY THE long ordeal of Leonard Hayflick, a distinguished microbiologist who contends he was subjected to a ''Gestapo-like'' investigation by the Federal Government, appears to be over. Dr. Hayflick's career, once on the skids, has rebounded. Eighty-five scientists have signed a letter protesting what they consider injustices done him. And an out-of-court settlement has ended his litigation against the Government - without shedding much light on who was right and who was wrong in this bitter, tangled affair. When the acrimony sta rted in 1975, Dr. Hayflick's reputation was ascending. He had identified the microorganism that causes a form of pneumonia in humans. And, in a finding of great significance for research on a ging, he had demonstrated that normal human cells have alimited capac ity for dividing before they die out. He had also developed the first strain of cultured normal human cells used widely for th e production of vaccines, as well as for research.

Americans generally feel that President Reagan's program has hurt the economy so far, and this opinion is costing him support, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. But an even larger percentage said that the program would eventually help the country, and a majority said they were prepared to wait at least another year before judging the program a success or a failure. Fifty-one percent of those polled said they believed that the program had hurt the economy thus far. But 60 percent said they thought the President's economic program would eventually help the nation; this included half of those polled who say they expect unemployment to hit their own families in the next year. Twenty-six percent said they thought the Reagan program would hurt in the long run, and 14 percent had no opinion.

A brief news article by Reuters in Business Day yesterday mislabeled an oil industry statistic. The American Petroleum Institute said that the supply of petroleum products last year, a measure of domestic demand, averaged 15.9 million barrels daily, down 6.2 percent from 1980.

THE catastrophes have come repeatedly. Since life first appeared on earth, large percentages of the world's plants and animals have been wiped out in mass extinctions. Few scientific puzzles are more tantalizing than these calamities. Recently, at more than two dozen sites around the world, scientists have found geological evidence of a catastrophe 65 million years ago that apparently eliminated a large part of oceanic life. The ammonoids, flat, spiral shellfish that in their heyday reached a diameter of three feet, were virtually annihilated. Many bivalves and sponges disappeared. It was the period, too, when many land plants and animals, including the dinosaurs, became extinct. The fossil record shows at least five other major extinctions. Presumably what has happened in the past may happen again. Learning how abruptly the extinctions occurred and whether they might be predictable may depend on the outcome of current research.