What was going on when I was born?

A study of appellate justice in New York has found that the state's highest court is too busy hearing relatively unimportant cases to perform its principal task of defining and clarifying the law. The study, which was requested by the court, cited ''a cluster of problems that pose a threat to the quality of judicial review.'' It recommended that the court, the State Court of Appeals, be given much greater discretion to select its own cases so that it could be free to address major constitutional issues and to reconcile conflicting lower-court rulings. The study also proposed a number of other changes in the state's overall appellate system, which it called ''possibly the most complex structure of appellate justice of any state in the nation.''

Predicting another year and a half of soft markets and huge financial losses, the International Harvester Company said today that it would ask its private lenders to suspend interest payments on debts of $1.6 billion until December 1983. Harvester's request comes as part of a far-reaching survival plan that the company said it would present to its nearly 200 bank lenders on Friday. The new blueprint, coming only seven months after the banks had agreed to refinance $4.2 billion in mostly short-term debt, projects a loss of about $1 billion in the company's 1982 fiscal year and includes plans for selling its construction business and closing several plants. The construction division accounts for roughly 10 percent of Harvester's more than $6 billion in annual revenue.

Yasir Arafat was out touring the Palestine Liberation Organization's front-line bunker recently when one of the fighters leaning behind a red dirt barricade asked him whether it was true that the P.L.O. was withdrawing from Beirut. ''What do you think?'' Mr. Arafat replied. ''I think that if you order us to withdraw I will shoot you with this gun,'' the guerrilla said. Guerrillas Are Not Optimistic Mr. Arafat chuckled. But the conversation summed up one of his big problems: how to negotiate a withdrawal of the P.L.O. from Lebanon that could be sold to his fighters as a victory.

A Company News report in Business Day yesterday gave an incorrect starting date for Pan American World Airways' mileage bonus program. It began yesterday.

The House tonight approved a $13.8 billion supplemental spending bill that probably set the stage for another Presidential veto. The bill, adopted by a vote of 282 to 111, provided only $362.6 million for military programs, $2.1 billion less than the Administration requested. In addition, the measure provided $5.2 billion for military pay. The House used most of the funds requested by President Reagan for military programs to bolster domestic spending programs, making a veto a possibility.

The president and three senior executives of the Charter Company, the insurance, oil and communications conglomerate based in Jacksonville, Fla., were killed yesterday along with their pilot when their helicopter crashed in Ireland. The dead included Jack T. Donnell, 53 years old, Charter's president and chief operating officer. In recent months Mr. Donnell had been presiding over a major reorganization of the financially troubled company, including attempts to sell most of its publishing businesses, including The Ladies' Home Journal. Mr. Donnell and the three other executives had been in Ireland attending a corporate planning session - along with other Charter executives and company directors - at the castle and estate of Raymond K. Mason, Charter's founder and chairman. Mr. Mason, 55, had spent considerable time at the estate in recent months, company sources said, while Mr. Donnell presided over Charter's day-to-day operations from Jacksonville.

International Some progress in talks on Lebanon is being made by the special American mediator, Philip C. Habib, but major hurdles remain in working out an agreement for the departure of Palestinian guerrilla forces from west Beirut, according to Reagan Administration officials. They said that Egypt, Syria and Jordan had agreed to accept the Palestinians, but that details of a withdrawal had not been resolved. (Page A1, Column 6.) Guerrillas vow to fight on in interviews at a Palestinian bunker at west Beirut. Yasir Arafat has the problem of trying to negotiate an honorable withdrawal for the Palestine Liberation Organization from Lebanon that can be sold to his fighters as a victory. The P.L.O. is not expected to withdraw from west Beirut unless it gains political concessions that advance the Palestinian cause. (A1:5.)

The Reagan Administration is considering turning over the Government-owned uranium-enrichment business to private industry, according to a White House document. In a memorandum dated July 7, Edwin Meese 3d, the White House counsel, requested that the Energy Department and two other agencies ''proceed with the consultations with industry you recommended'' and ''complete the options paper'' on a ''possible transfer of the U.S. uranium-enrichment business to the private sector.'' The memorandum would affect the nation's three enrichment plants, at Portsmouth, Ohio; Paducah, Ky., and Oak Ridge, Tenn. They are Government-owned but operated by private companies.

The Administration, in its midyear economic review, predicts a recovery this year and next that would be more extensive than many current projections. The report, which has been rejected by some of the President's top advisers, forecasts a budget deficit of $115 billion for fiscal year 1983. (Page A1.) The House approved a $13.8 billion supplemental spending bill that might be vetoed by the President. The bill provides $362.6 million for military programs, $2.1 billion less than the Administration sought. The House used most of the difference to bolster domestic programs. The measure now goes to the Senate. (A1.)

''The United States is making the same mistake with the P.L.O. that it did with the North Vietnamese.

A Connecticut couple, their two children and another child were robbed and abducted by two men as they left Yankee Stadium during Wednesday night's baseball game. They were threatened with a knife and driven around for 15 minutes in their own van before being released unharmed in upper Manhattan. Ten minutes after their release, the police recovered the van and arrested two suspects on charges of robbery and kidnapping. The victims - William and Barbara Volz, and their children, 10-year-old Jenny and Kenny, 9, and their friend Tim Smith, 9 - had left the game in the seventh inning after a rain delay. The Volzes had decided to leave before the game was over to start the long drive from the Bronx to their home outside Danbury.

AS though it were not enough to feast the eyes on the spectacular view of the Lower Manhattan skyline and the massive, sculptural sweep of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Fulton Ferry Landing offers more solid sustenance by way of food in three attractive restaurants. Much like a luxury yacht at anchor, the River Cafe, at 1 Water Street (telephone: 522-5200), is the best known and the most stylish and expensive of the three, and it affords the most wide-open view of the river traffic. When reviewed last April, it was given one star, a rating that still seems accurate based on visits during the last week. It is virtually impossible to get a window table unless you are known to the management, but the view can be enjoyed from many inside tables.