What was going on when I was born?

Competing scuba teams from the Police and Fire Departments have been showing up at some underwater rescue missions in a year-and-ahalf dispute over jurisdiction. The dispute had quieted after an agreement between the two forces in March 1982, but it was revived last weekend when a man posing as a police inspector issued bogus orders by telephone after a 13-year-old Bronx boy was thought to have drowned in the East River. ''This instance raises problems because someone misrepresenting himself as a police inspector could have created a very dangerous situation,'' Alice T. McGillion, deputy police commissioner for public information, said yesterday. Questions over jurisdiction date back to November 1981, shortly after the Fire Department created its own 40-diver team to fight pier fires. There have been few major pier fires, and instead the divers have sometimes been going to ordinary rescues.

France expelled 47 Soviet diplomats, journalists and others today, accusing them of espionage. The Interior Ministry said their activities had centered on high technology and the armed forces. The ministry, describing the group as ''agents of the secret services of the Soviet Union,'' said in a statement that the gravity and extent of their activities justified immediate expulsion. The size of group was unusual, and the action was comparable only to Britain's deportation of 105 Soviet citizens in 1971. Soviet-French relations, which have worsened as a result of condemnations by President Francois Mitterrand of Soviet nuclear weapons policy and the intervention in Afghanistan, were expected to enter an even colder phase.

Edward P. Wolfram Jr., formerly the managing partner of Bell & Beckwith, was indicted yesterday by a Federal grand jury in Toledo, Ohio, on charges that he had engaged in a scheme to defraud in violation of the Federal securities laws. Bell & Beckwith, an 85-year-old Toledo stockbrokerage firm, was closed by Federal investigators on Feb. 7 after they found a $36 million shortage of collateral in six margin accounts overseen by Mr. Wolfram and owned by his wife, Zula. Mr. Wolfram was accused in the indictment of siphoning money from the brokerage house to purchase or operate a casino and hotel in Las Vegas, Nev., a horse farm in Florida, an oil company in Louisiana and cattle ranches in Arkansas. The biggest item was $14.3 million for the Landmark Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

A major Connecticut toxic-waste treatment company has agreed to begin removing a contaminated sludge pile from its plant in downtown Waterbury, officials announced yesterday. Federal and state officials said the company, Environmental Waste Removal Inc., would bear the cost, estimated at between $500,000 and $1 million. In return, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency will drop a lawsuit it filed against the company last summer, according to Paul Keough, deputy regional administrator of the agency's Boston office.

President Reagan was described today as staying with his proposal for 10 percent growth in the military budget as he met with key Senate Republicans and heard warnings that his spending goal would never make it out of their budget committee. ''Clearly the President was dug in and so were most of the others, but that doesn't necessarily mean you aren't going to get an agreement,'' the Senate majority leader, Howard H. Baker Jr., said after a long White House meeting that was described as a candid exchange between the President and Republicans concerned about his budget program. ''I told him it would be very difficult to get it out of committee,'' the chairman of the Budget Committee, Pete V. Domenici said of the President's goal of a 10 percent increase after making up for inflation. ''And I think he ended up seeing that, on the basis of the various senators speaking for themselves, and they all did.''

Interest rates fell sharply yesterday after two weeks of light activity in which they hardly moved. The decline amounted to almost a quarter of a percentage point for some short-term issues and a tenth of a percentage point for longterm Treasury bonds. In the last two weeks, short-term rates had risen slightly while long-term issues were almost unchanged. Dealers in Government securities said sizable purchases by Middle Eastern buyers helped lift prices of Treasury issues and depress yields. They added that speculative buying was also a factor as prices of Treasury bonds and bond futures reached levels that set off additional buying.

''I MAKE my spaghetti sauce with tomatoes and meatballs,'' the butcher was telling a customer. ''But you know, if it says 'beef stock,' you've got to use those cubes.'' The conversation was unremarkable except for its location - over a meat case filled with fresh pheasants, squabs, partridges, quails and prime meat. At the Grand Union on East 86th Street. Until recently it was not easy to find the butcher in most New York City supermarkets. Hidden behind one-way glass, he could see customers, but they could not see him. And even if he were visible, game birds weren't. But today butchers, bakers and even fishmongers can be found smiling over newly built counters in dozens of metropolitan-area supermarkets, along with an array of foodstuffs usually found only in specialty shops: chocolate almondine coffee beans, fresh truffles, extra-virgin olive oil, pasta primavera and live lobsters steamed while you wait.

Last December, without giving it much thought, Denis Caslon, a 48-year-old Manhattan schoolteacher, routinely deposited a $60 check that a Canadian friend had sent him. Almost two and a half months later, following a process that involved four different banks and two separate fees, his bank credited him with $30, or just half his original check. And thereby hangs a tale. Mr. Caslon's $60 check was from a United States dollar account written on a Canadian bank. The Harlem Savings Bank, where he made the deposit, does not have a Canadian correspondent bank. As a result, clearing the check required two different banks, one American and the other Canadian, as middlemen, and each extracted a $15 fee, chopping Mr. Caslon's original $60 in half.

Connecticut today banned tandem-trailer trucks in defiance of a new Federal law permitting the larger rigs to use Interstate System highways beginning Wednesday. ''Hopefully it will send a message across the country that the Federal Government should have a great concern before they pass laws in Washington, and know what effect they'll have on various states,'' Gov. William A. O'Neill said as he signed legislation barring the larger trucks. The legislation, which was rushed through the General Assembly with only token opposition last week, sets up a confrontation with the Federal Government over a state's power to ban the tandem-trailer trucks - tractors pulling two trailers instead of one. Court Challenge Is Expected While state officials said they expected the ban to be challenged in the courts, they were unsure how a confrontation to test the law would develop.

The Group of 77, which now comprises about 120 developing countries, began a ministerial meeting here today amid signs of an emerging mood of moderation in their demands on the industrialized world. Argentina's President, Reynaldo B. Bignone, the conference host, reflected the shift in a somber opening speech. While calling for an ''urgent solution'' to the recession and foreign debt that burdens most of the third world, he passed up its previous demands for a radically restructured world economic order. He said the immediate solutions ''are not simple and require a high degree of responsibility that must characterize our actions.''

A committee of Roman Catholic bishops today issued a revised draft of a proposed pastoral letter opposing nuclear arms that its leader, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, called ''more flexible'' in meeting the criticisms of Government and church leaders. Cardinal Bernardin, at a news conference, said some of the earlier emphases of the document had been altered after consultation with the Reagan Administration and Church officials here and in Europe. But he asserted that the proposed letter ''had not really lost its prophetic character or its basic moral thrust.'' The 150-page third draft is one-third longer than the second version and contains material that responds to some of the suggestions and criticisms made after the second draft was debated by the bishops at their annual meeting in last November. Nuclear War Opposed In their revised draft, the bishops repeat their call for total opposition to nuclear war, rule out all deliberate nuclear strikes against noncombatants and call nuclear deterrence ''acceptable'' on the condition that it is used as a first step toward disarmament.

The Reagan Administration appealed today to Palestinian and Arab leaders to give support to King Hussein of Jordan and not to lose what it called ''this unique moment'' for reviving the Middle East peace negotiations. Administration officials said they were concerned that King Hussein would become discouraged and decide not to enter the negotiations if the Palestine Liberation Organization and some key Arab nations did not give him backing in the next several days. The officials said that they regarded King Hussein's talks with Yasir Arafat, the P.L.O. leader, as inconclusive so far, but that they expected the talks to continue when Mr. Arafat returned to Amman after canvassing opinion in several Arab capitals. Three days of talks between the two men in Amman ended inconclusively today, and Mr. Arafat flew to Kuwait without making any statement. (Page A11.)