What was going on when I was born?

Six former senior partners of Salomon Brothers, the investment firm acquired last year by the Phibro Corporation, will soon be able to begin cashing in $60 million or more in securities that they received as a result of the merger, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. John H. Gutfreund, Salomon's former managing partner and now co-chairman of the merged company, would receive the most - more than $13 million. The former partners, who are now directors of the company, renamed Phibro-Salomon Inc. in May, include Henry Kaufman, the well-known economist and expert on interest rates, as well as Mr. Gutfreund. In August 1981, when the two companies announced the merger, the transaction was valued at $550 million.

Congress cleared the way today for a quick end to the nation's crippling railroad strike as the House voted, 383 to 17, to follow the Senate in directing 26,000 locomotive engineers to accept a new contract and return to work. President Reagan then signed the emergency legislation, which he had requested. Striking union officials said they were complying by ordering the engineers back to work. But both union and rail spokesmen cautioned that on some routes it could take 12 or even 24 hours to get all services restored.

The Justice Department said yesterday that it intended to parole 49 illegal Haitian aliens who had been detained in Brooklyn for from nine to 13 months while their applications for legal admission into the United States were pending. The 49 had not been covered by the ruling of a Federal court in Miami in June that called for parole of 1,774 other illegal Haitian refugees being held elsewhere in the United States and in Puerto Rico. Their continued detention had provoked charges of unfairness by their attorneys and other critics of the continued detention, but immigration officials had said that they were enforcing the law and that release of the 49 was not required by any court ruling. Yesterday, however, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a branch of the Justice Department, said the service had concluded, ''for humanitarian reasons and in order to avoid any appearance of unfairness, that all Haitians in detention on the date of the court order'' issued in Miami by Judge Eugene Spellman ''should be treated similarly.''

Allied and Bendix have agreed to merge, making Allied the fourth entrant in one of the most complex takeover battles ever. If Allied buys Bendix, it will be taking over a company that has just bought control of Martin Marietta. The Bendix move has drawn a counterbid by Marietta, which began its purchase of Bendix shares early today, though it fell well short of control. (Page A1.) A Federal judge had authorized Marietta to proceed with its purchase. (D4.) Six former senior partners of Salomon brothers can soon start cashing in $60 million in securities that they received as a result of the investment firm's merger with Phibro, according to data filed with the S.E.C. (D1.)

An article in Business Day Tuesday about the sale of Conoco assets to the Petro-Lewis Corporation incorrectly stated the date on which 35 percent of the onshore oil interests involved would revert to Conoco. It is Jan. 1, 1993.

Defense Minister Ariel Sharon admitted to Parliament today that Israel had requested and helped plan the entry of the Lebanese Phalangist forces into the Palestinian refugee camps last week, and that he and his commanders had suspicions of the killing of Palestinians a full day before the Phalangist units finally withdrew. He also said senior Israeli Army officers had agreed to allow the Phalangists to stay in the camps for a day after suspicions were aroused about the bloodshed there. Mr. Sharon insisted, however, that in joint planning sessions before the operation, Israeli Army commanders had stressed to the Phalangists that ''it was forbidden to harm the civilian population, especially women, children and the elderly.'' 'It Was Too Late' And he contended that ''when the picture became clear, when we saw the enormity of the tragedy, it was too late, too late to do anything, although we intervened at the rise of the first suspicions.'' The Defense Minister's revelations were made in an hourlong address to the Israeli Parliament in which he was repeatedly interrupted by legislators accusing him of murder and calling for his resignation.

LESS STEEL IS PLANNED BY E.E.C. BRUSSELS, Sept. 22 (AP) - The European Economic Community today predicted more hard times for the slumping steel industry and ordered cutbacks in production. The community's Industry Commissioner, Etienne Davignon, said steel consumption in the 10 member countries would drop to 24.1 million tons in the final quarter of the year, 3.4 million less than in the similar period in 1981. Moreover, he said, the steelmakers would only be able to export about 5 million tons, 2.3 million less than in the final quarter of 1981.

Avon is coming to China, but not by its usual door-to-door method. A new facial moisture cream developed for the domestic Chinese market by the American cosmetics company Avon Products Inc. went into full-scale production today at the No.4 Daily Needs chemical factory here. It is the result of a co-production contract that Avon signed in April 1981 with the China National Import and Export Service Corporation for Light Industry and the Factory after a year and a half of negotiations. Avon's products are sold by some 1.3 million independent sales representatives in 32 countries, and Avon had talked with the Chinese two years ago about employing the same door-to-door sales approach here. The idea was shelved, said George D. Ittner, Avon's director of new ventures, because ''the system wouldn't accommodate it, for obvious reasons.''

New orders for durable goods fell 4 percent in August, the biggest monthly decline since October, the Commerce Department said today. The department also reported that orders in July for these ''big ticket'' items such as autos, appliances and capital goods increased by only 2.5 percent, considerably weaker than the 4 percent gain originally reported. The combination of the sharp August drop and the lowering of the July figures was a surprise to analysts, many of whom had expected no more than a 2 percent decline for August.

A list of primary contests in Metropolitan Report yesterday omitted the Democratic candidates for Manhattan surrogate.

Martin S. Feldstein, whom the President has nominated to be his chief economic adviser, said today that the economy would grow about 3.5 percent next year - a forecast that is nearly a full percentage point below the Administration's current projection and one that would mean a bigger budget deficit. He was also critical of the promises, many of them made in the selling of the Reagan economic program in 1981, that inflation could be cut painlessly. At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Mr. Feldstein said, ''Extremists among both the supply-siders and monetarists who predicted that inflation would be reduced without raising unemployment have been decisively proven wrong.'' Blending the 2 Approaches Generally monetarists seek to reduce inflation by slowly reducing the growth rate of the money supply, while supply-siders argue for tax cuts to stimulate capital investment and saving as a way to spur growth and productivity. Mr. Feldstein, who would succeed Murray L. Weidenbaum as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers if he is confirmed by the Senate, says he believes in a blend of the two approaches, but he acknowledges that one of the costs of reducing inflation is slow economic growth and higher unemployment.

The 22d Salone Internazionale del Mobile, which ended here this week, may just go down in memory as the show where Il Nuovo Design, the year-old movement that the Italians also call Neo-Modern, carved a place for itself in the crowded ranks of furniture design. While there was, to be sure, a comforting sea of solidly made, serviceable storage and seating units, the overriding success and the pervading sensibility were those of this furniture design ideology, which the Italians do not hesitate to claim as their own. The earmarks of the new style were easily identifiable: an abundance of pattern-laminated surfaces; primary colors; combinations of unrelated materials such as wool, leather and plastic, and the use of the massive and linear elements that marked the Italian design school known as the Novecento, which lasted for about a decade, beginning in 1925. Whatever the Italians choose to call Il Nuovo Design, however, this new style includes references to such diverse schools as Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism and, perhaps most important, Pointillism.