What was going on when I was born?

The auto industry closed out its worst sales year in almost two decades, recording total car sales of 7.9 million. But in the final 10 days of the year, sales rose 28.5 percent for the Big Three. Most executives remained cautious in discussing the outlook for 1983. (Page D1.) Ford and Chrysler are asking banks to help finance their cut-rate financing programs for buyers of new cars. (D4.) President Reagan noted signs of economic recovery, but reiterated that he is still troubled by high budget deficits. Speaking at a news conference, the President said he had not made any decisions on his budget for the fiscal year 1984, but said, ''Increasing taxes is not the way out of a recession.'' (A1.)

International A nuclear-powered Soviet satellite is apparently in trouble and will probably crash to earth this month, the Pentagon announced. It said the reconnaissance satellite was believed to contain about 100 pounds of enriched uranium and was similar to a Cosmos satellite that crashed in an uninhabited area of northern Canada in 1978, causing minor radiation contamination. (Page A1, Columns 3-4.) A nonaggression pact would be signed by the Warsaw Pact members if the NATO countries pledged not to use force against the Soviet bloc nations, they announced at the end of a meeting in Prague. Western diplomats said they believed the proposal had no more chance of being accepted than a similar offer that NATO rejected in 1958 as meaningless. (A3:1-3.)

A special committee of the American Bar Association has recommended broad changes in the way New York State disciplines its lawyers. It concluded that the present mechanism was ill-coordinated and poorly financed. The recommendations, contained in a 53-page report, would transfer responsibility for the discipline of the state's 71,750 lawyers from the four Appellate Divisions of State Supreme Court to a newly created statewide agency.

Because of a production error, the Going Out Guide yesterday omitted the first name of a pipe player who appeared at Christ Church United Methodist yesterday and who will perform tonight at 8 at the American Irish Historical Society, Fifth Avenue and 81st Street. He is Bill Ochs.

A Federal warrant was issued yesterday for the arrest of a man in connection with last Friday's bombings in lower Manhattan and in Brooklyn that seriously injured three police officers. The suspect, Luis Rosado, 32 years old, was described as a supporter of the F.A.L.N., a Puerto Rican terrorist group that is suspected in the bombings. He was identified in a Federal complaint as the anonymous caller who telephoned the WCBS radio station after the first two dynamite bombs exploded, asserting: ''This is the F.A.L.N. We are responsible for the bombings in New York City today.'' Since 1974, the terrorist group -Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, or the Armed Forces of National Liberation - has claimed responsibility for 100 bombings in the name of Puerto Rican independence.

The United States said today that a nuclearpowered Soviet reconnaissance satellite had apparently run into problems and would probably crash somewhere on the earth's surface before the end of the month. A statement issued by the Defense Department said the satellite, known as Cosmos 1402, was similar to an earlier Cosmos satellite that crashed in an uninhabited area of northern Canada in January 1978, causing minor radiation contamination. Administration officials said the Cosmos 1402 was believed to contain about 100 pounds of enriched uranium for a reactor that provides electricity for its radar, which observes American naval operations. Danger From Radioactivity Officials emphasized that the danger of the satellite was not from the possibility of an explosion but from the radioactivity of its nuclear-fission products. Strontium 90, for example, builds up in the reactor as its uranium fuel is consumed.

HOW do children match up the world they live in with the one they see on television? Do they think that Superman is an actual person? Will they watch a cartoon character hit his animated friend on the head with a baseball bat and then try it on their playmates? A team of Harvard University researchers has been working to answer these and other questions as part of a long-term study of television's effect on the way children think and act. The researchers report that even as early as age 2 children begin to try to make distinctions between the television world and the world of home and parents. Indeed, television may stimulate young children to draw lines between reality and fantasy by testing those very concepts.

Frederick S. Pierce, executive vice president of the American Broadcasting Companies, is to be appointed president of the corporation on Monday, senior executives said last night. The appointment would put the 49-year-old Mr. Pierce in line to eventually succeed Leonard Goldenson as chairman and chief executive officer. Mr. Goldenson, 77, founded ABC and is the company's largest stockholder. Just as William S. Paley has been closely identified with CBS, so has Mr. Goldenson been the most visible executive at ABC since its formation in 1953. While Mr. Paley has announced his retirement effective in April, Mr. Goldenson is expected to participate in ABC management for the foreseeable future.

A cracked valve at one of New York City's largest sewage treatment plants is forcing the city to pump 300 million gallons of raw sewage a day into the Harlem, Hudson and East Rivers until repairs can be made, city officials said yesterday. They estimated that it would take at least four days to fix the problem. The Wards Island plant, between Manhattan and Queens, was flooded when a ''cone check valve'' broke at about 8:30 P.M. Tuesday. According to John Cunningham, a spokesman for the city's Department of Environmental Protection, the released sewage is not expected to cause any health hazard.

President Reagan announced tonight that he was nominating Elizabeth H. Dole, a White House assistant for liaison with special interest groups, to serve as Secretary of Transportation. If confirmed by the Senate, Mrs. Dole would become the first woman to head a Cabinet agency in the Reagan Administration. In his 15th formal news conference, Mr. Reagan also said he had not made any decisions on the budget for the fiscal year 1984, which is to be submitted to Congress by Jan. 31. But he hinted strongly that he would not approve any tax increases. ''What we must do is get the economy restored on a longtime, permanent basis,'' Mr. Reagan said. ''A tax is the wrong thing to do when you're trying to come out of a recession.''

THERE'S some difference in the meaning of the word ''luxury'' - as in ''luxury'' apartments - when used by those who build them and those who live in them. Some builders believe that any building with an elevator is a luxury apartment. Some tenants think luxury begins with a wood-burning fireplace. But people on both sides will agree on at least one essential of apartment-house luxury - the building must have a lobby, a shared ground-floor front hall that serves as an introduction to each resident's apartment. And in New York apartment buildings, lobbies can be viewed as a brief history of taste: they reflect the popular architectural styles that flourished when each building was built. As early as the 1880's and as recently as the 1920's, builders of expensive apartment houses bore the burden of proving that ''nice'' families could raise children in them. The lobby became an elegant offering, a loss leader in effect, that was intended to establish the prestige of the premises. A rare survivor is the wonderfully preserved 1880 lobby of the Osborne, at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue. Its ornate European eclecticism, leaving no inch of wall unadorned, speaks clearly of the tastes of the American aristocracy at the time it was built. See, said the Osborne lobby to a yet unconvinced gentry, even the most powerful families in the country can live well in apartments.

Pope John Paul II named 18 new cardinals today, among them Jozef Glemp, the Pontiff's successor as Primate of Poland, and Joseph I. Bernardin, the Archbishop of Chicago. The Pope also elevated Msgr. Julijans Vaivods, an 87-year-old Latvian, who becomes the Soviet Union's first publicly proclaimed Cardinal. The elevation of Archbishop Glemp had been expected since the head of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Poland is traditionally a cardinal.