What was going on when I was born?

Two English professors from City University who disappeared two months ago during a vacation in Indonesia are believed dead, killed during a robbery, the sister of one of the men said yesterday. The State Department confirmed yesterday that the Indonesian police have arrested five men in connection with the disappearance. The statement was made by John Caulfield, a press officer in the department's Bureau of Consular Affairs in Washington, Mr. Caulfield added that he could not confirm that the two professors were dead. Report of a Confession However, one of the Indonesians arrested has confessed to murdering the Americans, said Jean Grazer of Salt Lake City, the sister of Dr. James D. Allen of Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, one of the missing professors.

Black and Puerto Rican legislators said yesterday that they had asked Deputy Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. to withdraw from the competition for Schools Chancellor in favor of their candidate. Mr. Wagner said that he had declined to drop out and that he was in the running to stay. ''I feel I offer the kind of leadership the board will need in the next several years,'' he said after meeting with three members of the Black and Puerto Rican Legislators Caucus in his office at City Hall. ''He doesn't have the qualifications,'' said Assemblyman Angelo Del Toro, Democrat of Manhattan and chairman of the caucus. ''Does Robert F. Wagner Jr. want to be remembered as the white person who denied a black person the opportunity to run the largest public school system in the country?'' Deputy Chancellor Is Candidate Mr. Del Toro was referring to Dr. Thomas K. Minter, the deputy schools chancellor for Instruction, who is black and who won the endorsement of the caucus over Anthony Alvarado, superintendent of Community District 4 in East Harlem.

A flight engineer who had been disqualified for future pilot assignments because of ''proficiency'' problems was apparently flying the United Airlines DC-8 cargo plane that crashed while taking off from Detroit Jan. 11, according to Government documents made public yesterday. The documents, released by the National Transportation Safety Board, also disclosed that the ''trim'' mechanism governing the nose-up, nose-down balance of the horizontal tail was found set in a much more pronounced nose-up position than was called for. The four-engine jet, taking off in early morning darkness, climbed immediately at a precipitous angle. The captain shouted, ''Push forward, push forward!'' and the copilot, evidently riding at the engineer's station, shouted ''Trim!'' as the flight engineer wrestled with the controls. But it was too late.

President Reagan vowed today to veto a $3.7 billion job bill if it contained an amendment repealing the requirement that taxes be withheld from interest and dividend income. The fight over the amendment has paralyzed the bill in the Senate, raising the possibility that some states might cease paying unemployment benefits by the middle of next week. Twenty-seven states, plus the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, are almost out of funds to pay benefits. In addition to other provisions, the job bill contains $5 billion to replenish their accounts, which have been strained in the current recession.

President Reagan issued an order today tightening procedures for the handling of classified information by Federal employees, and, as a result, many more employees will have to sign secrecy agreements. The directive says employees throughout the Government are required to cooperate with Federal agents investigating unauthorized disclosures of classified information. It said further that an agency might decide ''adverse consequences will follow an employee's refusal to cooperate with a polygraph examination.'' Disciplining Is Possible Such consequences, the Justice Department said in a document explaining the President's directive, could include disciplinary action against the employee, including possible dismissal from the Government. But Justice Department officials said the results of a test by polygraph, or lie detector, must be considered in the light of evidence obtained from other sources.

Nine Roman Catholic high school bands have withdrawn from the St. Patrick's Day Parade next Thursday in the furor over the grand marshal's support of the Irish Republican Army. The Archdiocese of New York said yesterday that Msgr. John J. Healy, its secretary of education, had withdrawn the bands of four schools directly under its control because the parade ''has assumed a political stance which seems to be overshadowing the cultural celebration.'' Cardinal 'Consented to Decision' It added that the five other schools, which are run by various orders, had made their decisions independently as the result of the selection the grand marshal, Michael Flannery.

In the last month, a campaign of terror and intimidation has been mounted against Palestinians living in Lebanon, according to many refugees and United Nations officials. Palestinian civilians, primarily those living in the seafront district around Sidon, as well as officials of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency say the refugees have been exposed to bomb attacks, murders, kidnappings, threatening leaflets and visits in the night by hooded vigilantes trying to terrorize them into leaving their property and returning to the overcrowded refugee camps or, preferably, quitting Lebanon altogether. Officials of the United Nations agency help look after the refugees' affairs and have been investigating the harassment. But neither they nor the Palestinians, Israeli officers or Western diplomats know who is behind the campaign. Phalangist Involvement Suspected Most Palestinians suspect that the Christian Phalangist militia is involved, but there has been no proof of that whatsoever. Officials of the United Nations agency say they believe the campaign is probably not centrally directed but involves instead small groups of Lebanese Christians, or possibly anti-Palestinian Moslems, with both ideological and economic motives. About all anyone is certain of is that the campaign has been effective.

President Reagan today criticized what he called ''unfounded allegations'' of Administration mismanagement of the environment and assailed ''environmental extremism'' and lobbyists. ''I don't think they'll be happy until the White House looks like a bird's nest,'' he said. The President's remark was offered with a wink of emphasis at an unscheduled White House news conference where he counterattacked in the continuing dispute and insisted that he was ''very proud of our environmental record.'' Mr. Reagan charged that those who criticized his record and that of the former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Anne McGill Burford, were motivated by politics, not concern for the environment.

The Vatican radio today denounced with unaccustomed severity events that marred the visit by Pope John Paul II to Nicaragua and Guatemala. The Pope returned Thursday from a trip that took him to seven Central American countries and Haiti.

To assure the comfort and security of the largest modern assembly of heads of states and government, the Indian hosts of the third world meeting here lavished garlands and hospitality on their guests and effectively sealed off this city from the rest of India. Beggars were rounded up and sent to hostels across the Jamuna River. Sidewalk fortunetellers and strolling monkey tamers vanished. Gone, too, were the thousands of Rajasthani women who on their heads carried the bricks and mortar for city's new arenas, overpasses and hotels.

Israel's Foreign Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, flew into Washington today for high-level talks bearing what Israeli officials said were ''new ideas'' for the deadlocked negotiations on the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon, which a high American official said were nearing ''a point of decision.'' ''Our negotiations with Lebanon in the last months have reached an important stage and we have felt it necessary to review them with the United States Government,'' Mr. Shamir told reporters as he landed after a 15-hour journey from Israel. The Israeli Foreign Minister did not go into detail on the substance of his mission, but another Israeli official said: ''You can assume he is bringing some new ideas, but since they are to be presented to the American Government, I can't comment on the kind of proposals he's bringing.'' What Administration Expects American officials were cautiously hopeful on the basis of press reports that Israel was modifying its demand for five permanent observation posts in southern Lebanon after the main body of its troops withdraws in favor of joint patrols with the Lebanese Army or other arrangements potentially more acceptable to Lebanon. But they said no such ideas had been formally presented through diplomatic channels.

The United States has decided to set up and operate a sophisticated radar system in southern Honduras with the intention of monitoring what the Reagan Administration says are Nicaraguan arms shipments to Salvadoran guerrillas, according to well-placed Hondurans. The radar system, used during last month's joint United States-Honduran military maneuvers, will be installed, according to the sources here, on a hill outside the border city of Choluteca and will include the nearby Gulf of Fonseca in its range. Reagan Administration officials have frequently accused Nicaragua's Sandinist Government of smuggling arms to Salvadoran guerrillas in light aircraft and small boats that cross the Gulf of Fonseca at night, but they have never made public any evidence to support their accusations.