What was going on when I was born?

President Reagan, in a reflection of growing White House concern over his political standing, enlisted Lyn Nofziger today to lead the fight for the Administration's bill to raise taxes by $98.5 billion. Mr. Nofziger, who resigned in January as assistant to the President for political affairs, dismissed his earlier opposition to the bill as ''pure stupidity.'' After meeting with the President this morning, he said he would return to the White House staff on a temporary assignment to lead a campaign in the next 10 days to increase public support for the measure. Mr. Nofziger told reporters that he wanted Mr. Reagan to make a nationwide television address putting pressure on Congress to pass the legislation. He said the President was ''leaning toward'' such a course.

The stock of the Cities Service Company slid almost $7 a share - nearly 20 percent of its value - in hectic trading yesterday as reports circulated that the Allied Corporation had discussed purchasing the oil company. The drop in Cities Service stock to $30.375 a share came after the New York Stock Exchange permitted the stock to open for trading less than an hour before the exchange closed. It was the first trading since the Gulf Oil Corporation's surprise announcement Friday afternoon that it had dropped its $5 billion offer to buy Cities Service. The decline, while dramatic, was less than expected, apparently because of Cities Service's announcement on Sunday that it would buy back up to 20 million shares of its own stock to help support its price - now at less than half the $63 a share that Gulf had originally offered. Industry sources said that the Allied Corporation, one of the nation's biggest companies, had approached Cities Service about buying the company. They also said that Cities Service had invited the Mobil Corporation and Texaco Inc., among others, to consider making offers for the nation's 16th-largest oil company.

Lionel H. Olmer, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Administration, said today that the Government had no plans to ask the European Community to improve its offer to resolve a steel trade dispute, despite rejection of the offer last week by the domestic steel industry. His comment came in an interview as the Commerce Department prepared to issue findings that could set new penalties on imports of European steel to the United States. Such penalties would further intensify the trade conflict that involves tough competition for the American industry from European exporters.

''The Japan of the United States'' -Prof. Marshall Goldman, describing Massachusetts' industrial complex. (A1:3.)

When Brooks Brothers, the genteel, 164-year-old clothing store, opened its first store in Connecticut last Saturday, it ended a long-standing tax advantage for Connecticut residents. Although upsetting to some consumers, the move is bound to please New York and other state authorities who, in an effort to capture millions of dollars in lost revenue, are trying to end these interstate tax advantages. Under regulations as old as most tax statutes, a buyer does not have to pay any sales tax for most items purchased out of state and shipped to the buyer's home - as long as the seller does not have an outlet in the state of the buyer. Thus the tax-free status does not apply to Connecticut shoppers at such New York stores as Macy's and Lord & Taylor, and now at Brooks Brothers, all of which have outlets in Connecticut.

Because of vacations and a judicial conference in Buffalo, the state courts in Manhattan have come to a virtual halt this week, and few trials are getting under way in the other boroughs. In a departure from the official policy of last year, court administrators have deliberately left the courts barren for much of summer, and especially in the first two weeks of August. For this, they have been criticized by some judges and by District Attorney John J. Santucci of Queens, who note that arrests and arraignments increase during the hot summer months. ''This isn't an efficient way to run a system,'' Mr. Santucci said yesterday. ''Justice is not supposed to take a vacation.'' Last year officials announced a plan to keep the courts active throughout the summer, but they took a new tack this year. Coordinating the summer schedules of judges, defense lawyers, witnesses and police officers last year was ''like pushing molasses uphill,'' said Henry O'Hagan, a spokesman for the State Office of Court Administration.

American consumers took on $1.35 billion more in installment debt than they paid off in June, showing a bit more caution in expanding their debt than they had in May, the Government reported today. The biggest growth in credit was for the purchase of new cars. Although the increase in installment debt in May and June was above levels of last winter, analysts said that the rise was not enough to indicate that consumer buying was about to move up sharply. Many economists have said that a sharp rise would be needed to push the economy out of recession.

In the largest corporate collapse in Germany since World War II, AEG-Telefunken, the giant electrical and electronics group, announced yesterday that it had run out of cash and would seek a court receiver. Heinz Durr, Telefunken's chairman, said at a news conference in Frankfurt that the company ''is no longer able to pay its bills.'' A voluntary plan to scale back the company's operations in recent months had failed, he said, but the receivership process would permit it to continue the reorganization with less pressure from creditors. The company, which has lost nearly $800 million since 1978, said last month that it could lose as much as $200 million in 1982. In 1981, it lost $287.6 million on worldwide revenues of about $8 billion.

After 55 hours of deliberation over seven days, a jury was unable to reach a verdict yesterday on a murder charge against two men accused of killing a police officer on a Queens street last year. But the jury found the defendants, both former Black Panthers, guilty of attempted murder in the wounding of the officer's partner. The decisions by the jury on the four-count indictment were described by defense and prosecution attorneys as ''logically inconsistent'' and an ''apparent compromise verdict.'' The trial of the defendants, Anthony N. LaBorde, 33 years old, of Jamaica, Queens, and James Dixon York, 41, of Linden, N.J., lasted 13 weeks in State Supreme Court in Queens. Judge Kenneth N. Browne immediately scheduled a retrial Sept. 7 on the charge of second-degree murder, the charge on which the jury could not agree. Judge Browne said the sentencing on the attemptedmurder conviction would be handed down the same day. The defendants face eight and a third to 25 years in prison.

CONGRESS and the state legislatures are joining the search for ways to ease the shortage of science and mathematics teachers, and corporations are being coaxed into helping as well, as it becomes increasingly obvious that the nation's public schools cannot solve the problem alone. At the heart of the various proposals is a desire to attract into teaching young people who would otherwise be lured to higher-paying jobs in business and industry. One way of doing this, as proposed in several pending bills, is to subsidize the education of students who will become teachers of mathematics and science. In addition, there is growing interest in persuading business and industry to become involved. A bill in Congress proposes to do this by awarding tax credits to corporations that give summer jobs to such teachers as a method of elevating their income and expertise.

International Israeli planes attacked positions held by Palestinian fighters in Beirut and in the hills east of the city as the American special envoy, Philip C. Habib, completed detailed proposals for evacuating the 6,000 to 9,000 Palestinians from Lebanon. What was described as a ''comprehensive'' plan was submitted to the Israeli Government. (Page A1, Columns 4-5.) The peace plan for Beirut calls for the arrival of the first contingent of a multinational peacekeeping force at the start of an evacuation of the Palestinian military units trapped in Beirut. Israel has insisted repeatedly that most of the Palestinians must have left Lebanon before the arrival of the peacekeeping force. (A1:6.)

Unidentified gunmen, firing submachine guns and hurling a grenade, attacked a kosher restaurant and passers-by in a Jewish neighborhood at lunchtime here today, killing 6 people and wounding 22. The police said the attack had been carefully planned and involved as many as five or six assailants. One of them threw a grenade into the restaurant while the rest opened fire on patrons and then fled on foot in the narrow streets between the City Hall and the Place de la Bastille, shooting bursts into doorways and at automobiles. ''Considering the circumstances and the site of this indescribable action, everything suggests that anti-Semitism was the ugly motive,'' said Interior Minister Gaston Defferre, who visited the area along the Rue des Rosiers after the attack. Mayor Calls Raid 'Horrible' Mayor Jacques Chirac described the raid as ''horrible'' and said, ''Alas, its racist character appears beyond doubt.'' The assailants escaped, and there was no indication from the police what group might have been behind the attack. The newspaper France-Soir said it had received a telephone call from an organization called Action Directe claiming responsibility. But another caller, saying he represented the left-wing group, which has been linked by the police to three other attacks on businesses and people with Jewish connections in recent days, told Agence France-Presse that it was not involved.