What was going on when I was born?

Defense Department policy-makers, in a new five-year defense plan, have accepted the premise that nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union could be protracted and have drawn up their first strategy for fighting such a war. In what Pentagon officials term the ''first complete defense guidance of this Administration,'' drafted for Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger's signature, the armed forces are ordered to prepare for nuclear counterattacks against the Soviet Union ''over a protracted period.'' The guidance document, drawn up in the Pentagon and reflecting its views, will form the basis for the Defense Department's budget requests for the next five fiscal years. The document was also a basic source for a recent strategic study done by the National Security Council, according to Defense Department officials. That study is the foundation of the Administration's overall strategic position.

''Ireally wanted to sufficiently immerse myself in a character so that people wouldn't see me as Raquel Welch anymore,'' said Raquel Welch. ''That is to say, the Raquel Welch they see on the Academy Awards presentations. It was important for me to do that, and I think I succeeded.'' Viewers can judge for themselves tonight at 9 on NBC, when Miss Welch will make what the network has termed her ''first TV movie dramatic debut'' starring in a two-and-a-half-hour minute film, ''The Legend of Walks Far Woman.'' It is an adaptation of a novel about a 19th-century American Indian woman caught up in the maelstrom that was Montana in the era of the battle of the Little Big Horn. ''People might have some skepticism about me in such a role,'' the actress said of the part that has her wearing feathers and fringe, birthing a baby and skinning a buffalo, ''because it's, well, a change of pace. But I don't feel sensitive about that now, really. The recent reviews on Broadway have given me a kind of overnight legitimacy.''

As a child growing up in the 50's, Steven Spielberg knew, just knew, that another magical and somehow terrifying world lay just beyond the placid surface of his family's suburban life. Even the tiny crack in his bedroom wall, illuminated by the hallway light, promised all sorts of awful marvels. ''I remember lying there, trying to go to sleep,'' he says, ''and I used to always imagine little Hieronymus Bosch-like creatures inside, peeking out and whispering to me to come into the playground of the crack and be drawn into the unknown there, inside the wall of my home in New Jersey.'' To this day, Mr. Spielberg says he continues to be fascinated by ''what I think is there but cannot see,'' and that capacity for wonder, combined with a prodigal imagination, has informed nearly all his films from ''Jaws'' to ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' to ''Raiders of the Lost Ark.'' In his latest pictures, Mr. Spielberg returns to the suburban milieu of his own childhood, but invests that world with two dramatic and highly disparate visions of the supernatural: ''Poltergeist,'' (opening Friday) which he produced and co-wrote, is a darkly imagined horror movie, portraying a family threatened by the vengeful spirits of the dead; while ''E.T.,'' (opening June 11) the story of a 10-year old boy who befriends an extraterrestrial stranded on earth, is, in effect, a contemporary fairy tale, offering a vision of innocence and hope.

SOMETIME early tomorrow morning a dozen or so women dressed in white and wearing blue sashes will gather near the Bronxville train station. Shortly after 9 A.M., having lined up behind flag-bearing Boy Scouts, they will begin to wend their way through streets lined with spectators. The village's annual Memorial Day parade will be under way and, as is their custom, the Daughters of the American Revolution will be on the march. ''We've been participating in the parade for years and it's one of the events we really look forward to,'' said Elizabeth Betts, regent of Bronxville's Ann Hutchinson chapter of the D.A.R., which, with 187 members, is the largest of 14 in the county. ''The parade is consistent with one of our goals, promoting interest in American history and patriotism.'' But there is another goal that the society is trying to accomplish, at least on an unofficial level: changing the way it is perceived by a large segment of the public.

Most Americans support the concept of a freeze in Soviet and American nuclear arsenals, but they turn against the proposal if it means that the Soviet Union would gain a military advantage, according to the latest New York Times/ CBS News Poll. The survey, conducted May 19-23, also found that both opponents and supporters of a nuclear freeze could easily be swayed by the kind of freeze proposed and its probable impact on American military prowess. ''This issue is very much up for grabs,'' a White House official concluded. This observation is consistent with the views of Reagan Administration officials and Democratic opponents who maintain that leadership will be a critical factor in determining how Americans ultimately come to view the freeze as a way of halting the growth in the superpowers' nuclear arsenals. Arguments of Two Sides The Administration has proposed deep reductions in nuclear weapons but argues that a freeze would lock the United States into a position of permanent strategic inferiority to the Soviet Union.

WHEN it comes time for a purchaser to figure the cost of home o wnership, two of the most important tools are a cigarette and a s crewdriver. These are useful in determining energy efficiency, a key factor in deciding whether to purchase a house. After mortgage payments, energy may be the most expensive single monthly outlay, and adding insulation or improving the heating system can be among the homeowner's biggest expenses. According to experts in the field, a potential buyer needs to keep two things in mind: what the current occupant pays to heat and cool the structure, and how easy will it be to reduce that sum. The cigarette and screwdriver - along with a tape measure, a flashlight and other such nonexotic items - are useful in making a quick estimate of what has to be done around the house, even for a buyer with no experience in home improvements.

The Yankees and the Minnesota Twins made Metrodome history today. They didn't hit one home run in a game the Yankees won, 6-4. That is not to say that the teams did not entertain the fans. The Yankees, in fact, were especially entertaining, most notably when they swung and ran themselves into an unusual triple play in the second inning.

After 17 hours of emotional debate that ended early this morning, foreign ministers from Latin America today condemned Britain's attack on the Falkland Islands and urged the United States to halt its aid to the British. The action came in a 17 to 0 vote with 4 abstentions at the Organization of American States building here. The United States abstained, along with Chile, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago, calling the resolution one-sided. The action appeared to represent a significant setback to United States relations with Latin America. Sources at the O.A.S. said they had seldom seen such emotion and frustration emerge over an issue.

Britain took about 900 Argentine prisoners during its recapture of Darwin and Goose Green on the Falkland Islands, but the commander of a British parachute battalion was killed during the action, the Ministry of Defense announced tonight. British troops reportedly advanced on two fronts toward Stanley, the Argentine-held capital of the Falklands. The ministry announcement said that Lieut. Col. Herbert Jones, 42 years old, died in action around Goose Green. The large number of prisoners reported taken by the British Friday appeared to be a result of a twin-pronged offensive against Darwin and Goose Green that surprised and encircled the Argentine positions, in part with the assistance of landing craft, according to background accounts provided by British officials. The two settlements lie two miles apart along a narrow isthmus about 20 miles south of the British beachhead around San Carlos Bay.

The United States and France have reportedly agreed on how to begin rebuilding the international monetary system. Page 4. By SANDRA SALMANS The concern of the United States with fighting inflation and the Western European concern with stimulating employment are expected to clash when leaders of the seven major industrialized democracies meet this week for an economic summit conference. West Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada, faced with economic stagnation and rising unemployment, plan to press President Reagan to reduce his projected budget deficit and allow interest rates to fall. Japan may join the call. ''We would like to have American interest rates down to reasonable levels,'' said Ikusaburo Kashima, deputy division director at Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

The test of endurance between the Royal Navy and the Argentine Air Force evolved last week into a fierce fight on ground, sea and air for the main Falkland Island. ''It's all in the hands of the military men now,'' said an aide to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. British troops who landed on East Falkland May 21 broke out of their beachhead at San Carlos Bay and captured the twin southern outposts of Darwin and Goose Green, the Defense Ministry said. Troops there and others at San Carlos reportedly began advancing in classic pincer style toward the capital, Stanley, where the main Argentine garrison was based.

In the birthplace of English Christianity, in the noble Gothic cathedral that Anglicans everywhere consider their mother church, the Bishop of Rome and the Archbishop of Canterbury embraced today. They came up the aisle together, Pope John Paul II a half step ahead of the Most Rev. Robert Runcie, to a most un-English storm of applause - the Pope in a red cape and stole embroidered in gold, the Archbishop in white, a towering miter on his head and a gold shepherd's crook in his right hand. They knelt at the altar, simply dressed with a yellow cloth, a cross and two tapers, a few paces from the spot where Thomas Becket was martyred in 1170. The congregation said the Lord's Prayer.