What was going on when I was born?

El Salvador needs better battle leadership, personal motivation and field training as much as it needs ammunition, helicopters and guns, according to American and Salvadoran officials here. The Salvadoran Army, like the military in much of Latin America, has had more political than battlefield experience; it has never fought a sustained military campaign. This army is now fighting a 9-to-5, five-day-a-week war against guerrillas who are active 24 hours a day, seven days a week. An American officer recalled that on a recent visit to a combat unit he was briefed by its commander and executive officer. He then talked to some junior officers. When he returned to his helicopter to leave, he found the commander and his executive officer in civilian clothes waiting for a lift back to the capital. It was Friday evening.

Five distinguished Americans were honored here today, the 50th anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inauguration, for maintaining the spirit and ideals of the Four Freedoms he said were essential to democracy. The presentation took place in St. James Episcopal Church, where Roosevelt worshiped and served as a deacon, and it brought to a close the centennial of his birth. Speaker after speaker drew on Roosevelt's words, with some noting parallels to the nation's current economic difficulties. W. Averell Harriman, a former Governor of New York and a Roosevelt aide, received the Four Freedoms Medal. William J. vanden Heuvel, president of the Four Freedoms Foundation, said Mr. Harriman was ''the finest public servant of our time.''

Governor Kean and Governor Cuomo are near an agreement to increase Hudson River tolls and PATH fares, officials familiar with their discussions said yesterday. The officials also said that under the agreement the possibility of selling the World Trade Center would be explored. New revenues would be used to set up a regional development bank that would provide capital for industrial development and highway, bridge and mass-transit repair projects. The officials said that under the plan, Port Authority Trans-Hudson transit fares, which have not gone up since 1962, would increase from 30 cents to 75 cents, while tolls on four bridges and two tunnels would go from $1.50 to $2 for a round-trip crossing.

President Reagan, warning that other nations in the hemisphere ''would follow'' if El Salvador falls to leftist rebels, said today that he might increase the number of American military advisers in El Salvador, but would not use them in combat. The President said the United States ''may want to go beyond'' the present limit of 55 United States military advisers used for training purposes in that nation. ''In no sense are we speaking of participation in combat by American forces,'' the President said in remarks before the Commonwealth Club. 'No Parallel With Vietnam' ''I can give you assurances and there is no parallel whatsoever with Vietnam,'' he declared in response to a question from the audience. But a moment later he said of the leftist insurgents: ''If they get a foothold, with Nicaragua already there, and El Salvador should fall as a result of this armed violence on the part of the guerrillas, I think Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, all of these would follow.''

An appellate court has unanimously approved the Koch administration's effort to tax a nonprofit Manhattan institution. The head of New York City's Law Department said the decision could mean that most museums and possibly foundations in the city could lose their property-tax exemptions. The case involved the Asia Society, a nonprofit institution at 725 Park Avenue, at 70th Street. The court, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, First Department, in Manhattan, ruled that the city was within its rights two years ago when it refused to renew the society's property-tax exemption. The ruling was made public yesterday,

Pope John Paul II strongly attacked Nicaragua's left-leaning ''People's Church'' today and ordered the faithful to obey their bishops, many of whom are openly critical of the Sandinist Government. At times almost shouting, the Pope said the idea of an independent church was ''absurd and dangerous,'' and he warned that the unity of Nicaragua's Roman Catholics was being threatened by ''unacceptable ideological commitments.'' Addressing nearly half a million Nicaraguans in an open-air mass here this afternoon, the Pope also indirectly criticized five priests who hold Government posts here, noting that they could be responsible for breaking church unity by ''acting outside or against the will of the bishops.'' Pope Visibly Irritated In his hourlong homily John Paul was repeatedly interrupted and occasionally drowned out by pro-Sandinists shouting, ''Popular power!'' and ''We want peace!'' The Pope, visibly irritated, several times called out, ''Silence!'' But at one point he replied, ''The first that wants peace is the church.''

The rate of unemployment in February remained unchanged at 10.2 percent of the total work force, including domestically based members of the armed forces, the Labor Department announced today. The rate of civilian unemployment was at 10.4 percent, also the same as in January. While declining to characterize unemployment as bottoming out, Janet L. Norwood, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, said there had been a ''moderate improvement'' in the overall employment situation. Growth in Factory Jobs ''Unemployment is down markedly since December, and there is evidence of growth in factory jobs,'' Dr. Norwood told members of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress when she appeared before them to discuss today's report. ''There are moderate but hopeful signs in both unemployment and employment numbers.'' But she warned that unemployment could rise again in the coming months.

Anne McGill Burford, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, told aides today that she believed she could now legally open her agency's files to Congressional investigative committees and ignore a complex arrangement for disclosure worked out by the Justice Department. Mrs. Burford told the aides she could do that because she was no longer being represented by the Justice Department. She said she believed this could be accomplished without violating President Reagan's instructions on the handling of the documents in the dispute between the White House and Congress over the agency's conduct. But Thomas P. DeCair, a Justice Department spokesman, said tonight that only the White House could change the rules for access to the documents, Thus the stage appeared to be set for a confrontation between the White House and the environmental agency.

A four-member American military team will arrive in Hanoi on Wednesday for ''technical discussions'' on Americans missing in Vietnam, a Pacific Command spokesman said today. The team will leave Hanoi on March 12. The visit is the second of its kind.

President Reagan revoked Rumania's trade preferences with the United States today because of its tax on emigration. Larry Speakes, a White House spokesman, called the tax ''a serious new barrier to emigration.''

Urban blacks, once barred from owning houses on the ground that they were ''temporary sojourners'' in white South Africa, are about to be made the targets of a Government-sponsored sales campaign to persuade them to purchase the state-built dwellings in which they live. To promote the sales, discounts of up to 40 percent will be available on house prices that are already pegged significantly below the presumed market values for the small brick structures, most of which were built on a mass production basis in the 1950's and 1960's when the white authorities built a series of segregated townships as part of the apartheid program. An announcement by the Cabinet in Cape Town Thursday night said 500,000 Government-owned dwellings in areas set aside for different racial groups, including poor whites, would go on sale starting July 1. Four hundred thousand of these are in the black townships, officials said.

Hassan Adam is a strong, smiling, 11-yearold who says he is lucky to have a job on his uncle's terraced farm here on the banks of the Shari River. Just across the river, less than a mile away, is Cameroon - and, for Hassan, the rest of the world. Cameroon is not a rich country, but Chad is one of the poorest in Africa, and the world. Hassan said he was unaware of this. ''I know Chad should be rich, but because of the war we are not,'' he said. This country has had 9 months of peace after 17 years of intermittent civil war since it was granted independence 22 years ago by France. France made Chad part of French Equatorial Africa in 1900. Ndjamena is a quiet, dusty, shell-pocked city of 400,000.