What was going on when I was born?

The Lebanese Cabinet agreed today to ask that the multinational force of American, French and Italian troops return to Beirut because of the massacre of Palestinian civilians by Christian militiamen and the pervasive fear among Moslems in West Beirut that more bloodletting may occur. It appears certain that the Lebanese Parliament, at a special session Tuesday, will elect as the country's next President 40-yearold Amin Gemayel, the older brother of Bashir Gemayal, the Presidentelect who was assassinated last week. Amin Gemayel's only serious rival, former President Camille Chamoun, withdrew from the race today in the name of national unity. So terrified are the Palestinians and Lebanese Moslems of West Beirut over the possibility of more killings by Christian militiamen that hundreds of panicked men, women and children stampeded out of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and the surrounding neighborhoods this morning, minutes after a rumor swept the area that Phalangists and members of Maj. Saad Haddad's militia had returned.

President Reagan is trying to transform the shock and horror of events in Lebanon into new pressure for the withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian forces from Lebanon and renewed Arab-Israeli negotiations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Administration officials said today. The essential first step is gaining Israeli acceptance of the proposed international peacekeeping force. At stake, according to the officials, are future American relations with the Government of Menachem Begin and the credibility of the United States in the Arab world. Displeasure With Begin The officials indicated that if Israel did not agree to withdraw its troops from the Beirut area and accept the international force, Mr. Reagan was prepared to go very far, without specifying what that meant, toward making clear his displeasure with the Begin Government as now constituted.

The well-known loan losses of some of the nation's most prominent banks have prompted some money market funds to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars from those banks and have thereby created a destabilizing force in American banking, according to Federal Reserve officials, bankers, and even some money fund executives themselves. The fear is that the money funds, which have become an important source of funds for banks, are reacting in lockstep in withdrawing their money from banks whose troubled loans have become widely publicized. Bankers and officials are concerned that money funds have become excessively sensitive to publicity given banking problems and are pulling out their money from unquestionably sound institutions. Although the money funds, by offering much higher rates of interest than banks, have attracted billions of dollars that might otherwise have gone into savings accounts, much of this has been recycled back into the big banks by investing the funds in large certificates of deposits. At present the money funds control about $200 billion. Based on figures supplied by Donoghue's Money Fund Report of Sept. 13, the 10 largest money market mutual funds, out of a total of 205, held $24.7 billion in bank C.D.'s. The problem, bankers say, is not so much the aggregate size of these holdings, but the fact that at times a fund will suddenly pull a large amount out of a bank.

Alexander & Alexander Services Inc., the large New York-based insurance brokerage firm, announced yesterday that it had filed a suit in London against four former officers and a leading underwriter of its British subsidiary, charging that they had diverted some $55 million of funds into companies they owned. Last month, the insurance firm reached a settlement with the four former officers of the London-based unit, the Alexander Howden Group, under which it was supposed to recover lost assets. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. However, Alexander said that the individuals had subsequently failed to live up to the pact, prompting legal action.

SCHOOL systems usually demand from textbook publishers proof that the books are neither too difficult nor too easy for the grade levels for which they are intended. Most publishers are ready to respond, and from reams of statistics they cite readability scores as evidence of each textbook's level of difficulty. Educational researchers, however, have become skeptical about such claims and about the readability formulas on which publishers rely in making them. The researchers fear that by using the shorter words and shorter sentences that the formulas consider easier to read - sometimes chopping up sentences, dropping connecting phrases and inserting periods - the publishers may actually be making the books more, not less, difficult to understand.

An 1896, Frederick Crum and John Forster were insurance agents who started their own concern to sell other companies' insurance. That small brokerage business has grown into the nation's 15th-largest property and casualty insurance company, with a thriving commercial insurance division that has apparently whetted the appetite of a potential acquirer. Today, Crum & Forster, with a premium volume last year of $1.6 billion and consolidated domestic assets of $3.8 billion, intends to make ''a significant announcement'' before the opening of the New York Stock Exchange. That announcement will probably disclose the name of the corporation with which a merger deal has been struck. According to Wall Street sources, the most likely acquirer of the New York-based insurer is Sears, Roebuck & Company, although the Transamerica Corporation and the American Can Company have also been mentioned as potential suitors.

The Bendix Corporation, announcing yesterday that it had purchased some 70 percent of the Martin Marietta Corporation's stock for at least $1.2 billion in cash, will go into the Federal District Court in Baltimore today in an attempt to enjoin Marietta from trying to take over Bendix. Wall Street sources said, meanwhile, that they had heard that an unidentified company friendly to Bendix might offer to purchase some 10 percent of Bendix that it would later swap for Bendix assets. Such an offer would gain time for Bendix because Marietta would be unable to buy on Thursday the Bendix shares that have been tendered to it, as its offer currently provides. By law, any new bidder for a company automatically extends tender offer deadlines by 10 business days so that stockholders can study the new situation.

''It is now urgent that specific arrangements for withdrawal of all foreign forces be agreed upon.

International A return of peacekeepers to Beirut to help the Lebanese Government maintain order and prevent further killings has been agreed on by the United States, France and Italy, President Reagan announced. A senior State Department official said Israel must approve the reintroduction of the three-nation peace force and agree to pull back its forces. (Page A1, Column 6.) Evidence of Israeli knowledge that Palestinians were being killed in Beirut emerged in Jerusalem. The evidence indicated that senior Israeli military commanders and Government officials apparently knew about the murders 24 to 36 hours before the Israeli Army acted to halt them. The massacre has prompted widespread grief and outrage in Israel. (A1:3-5.)

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company plans to sell interests in 29 domestic oil and gas fields owned by Conoco Inc., its oil subsidiary, to the Petro-Lewis Corporation for $772 million, according to an agreement in principle announced yesterday. The deal represents Du Pont's first major step toward its goal of selling $2 billion in Conoco assets to reduce the debt it built up in acquiring Conoco last year. It will also be the largest acquisition to date by Denver-based Petro-Lewis, the 14-year-old pioneer in the business of buying oil- and gas-producing properties that are then resold to investment partnerships.

The economy will grow at an annual rate of just 1.5 percent in the third quarter, according to a preliminary figure for the gross national product, Government sources said. The 1.5 percent figure, known as the ''flash'' number, is slightly higher than some economists have been forecasting. (Page D1.) Emergency legislation to end the nationwide rail strike was asked by President Reagan. Union officials said they expected to comply with any directive of Congress. (A1.)

The nation's economy is expected to grow at a 1.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter, according to the first preliminary estimate for the period's gross national product, Government sources said today. The 1.5 percent figure, which is known as the ''flash'' G.N.P. number, is slightly higher than some private economists have been forecasting. They contend that the economy remains sluggish in the current quarter, which ends Sept. 30, and the long-promised recovery will not begin until the fourth quarter of this year. The estimated rise in the third quarter's G.N.P. follows a 1.3 percent increase in the second quarter and a 5.1 percent decline in the first. But despite two successive increases the Administration is not ready to declare that a recovery is under way.