What was going on when I was born?

The American Motors Corporation and China are close to signing an agreement to jointly produce Jeeps in Peking. The accord, which would be the first joint venture by an American auto maker in China, calls for the production of 40,000 vehicles a year for sale throughout the Far East. (Page A1.) A $2.05 million libel judgment against The Washington Post was thrown out by a Federal judge. U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Gasch, overturning a jury verdict returned last summer, ruled that the newspaper had not acted with malice in reporting that the president of Mobil Oil, William P. Tavoulareas, had used his influence and Mobil's money to ''set up his son'' in the shipping business. (A1.)

THE robots are coming. Nobody doubts it. And they raise important questions as they approach. How can they best serve mankind? What can they really do? Why are the Japanese so far ahead in robotics? Will robots be practical in the home? What are their drawbacks? But the answers often seem clouded in razzle-dazzle and the frivolities of science fiction. To glean some truths about the impending revolution in robotics, I set about building my own mechanical man. Heathkit has produced a much publicized $2,500 robot named Hero that anybody can buy ready-made to roll around the house. For $1,500, you can buy a kit and build Hero from scratch. All it takes is two weeks of hard work. The experience is a kind of crash course in robotics, a way of learning how androids are designed, and a way of replacing all that futuristic hoopla with a pragmatic awareness that only burning yourself with a soldering iron can drive home.

A Federal judge overturned a libel verdict against The Washington Post Company today and threw out a jury award of $2.05 million to William P. Tavoulareas, the president of the Mobil Oil Corporation. The judge, Oliver Gasch, said that there was no evidence in the record of the three-week trial that The Post had knowingly printed falsehoods or had published, with reckless disregard of the truth, an article about Mr. Tavoulareas that appeared Nov. 30, 1979. Judge Gasch presided over the trial in Federal District Court. The six-member jury found last July 30 that The Post had libeled Mr. Tavoulareas in the article, which asserted that he had used his influence and Mobil's money to ''set up his son,'' Peter Tavoulareas, in the shipping business.

At a recent Town Board meeting here, after the Democrats and Republicans had spent hours calling each other liars, after the youngest Democrat and oldest Republican had quarreled over where they should sit, after countless split votes, Carol Morrison, private citizen, stood up from the audience and leveled what might have been the angriest charge of the day against the Town Supervisor, Ronald Greenbaum. ''I don't think you understand how wells work,'' she said. Those are tough words in East Hampton, where most everyone takes pride in being an expert on land planning. A Picture-Book Community The Supervisor, a Republican, denied Mrs. Morrison's charge (entering into a long, spirited discussion on wells), but there is no denying that this affluent East End town, summer home for some of America's wealthiest citizens, has never been more politically divided. And no matter where an argument starts these days, it seems to end up over the same issue: planning. From the earliest days of the Ladies Village Improvement Society, planning has always been a grand passion in this picture-book community by the sea, and recent pressures concerning development have made everyone that much more excitable.

International For years, China's policies in Tibet were a lesson in how not to treat an ethnic minority. Peking forced an alien language, culture and even ideology on the Tibetans, and Chinese agricultural policies pushed thousands of Tibetans to the brink of starvation. Now Peking is trying to undo the damage. (Page A1, Col. 2.) American Motors Corporation expects to sign an accord with China later this week to jointly produce Jeep-type vehicles in Peking and export some of them to other nations in the Far East. (A1:1.)

A report requested by Governor Cuomo recommends that New York State abandon the Westway highway project in Manhattan and trade in its Federal highway funds for money to help mass transit. ''Whatever merit the Westway project originally had, it has now become a luxury the city and state probably cannot afford,'' said the report, written by Thomas P. Puccio, a Manhattan lawyer and former assistant United States Attorney. The report was released today by the Governor's office. Governor Cuomo, who commissioned the report during his campaign last year, said through spokesmen that the findings did not alter his support for the Westway.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged AM International Inc., the old Addressograph-Multigraph Corporation, with engaging in a wide-ranging fraud to inflate its financial statements in violation of Federal securities laws. The company, which filed for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the Federal bankruptcy laws last year, immediately settled the complaint, without admitting or denying the allegations. But in a highly unusual statement included in the court documents, the S.E.C. said it was continuing its ''private investigation'' of the company. The complaint filed today did not name any of AM's past or current management, accountants or outside auditors in the reportedly fraudulent practices. But it dealt with the 1980 and 1981 fiscal years. During most of that the company was headed by Roy L. Ash. Mr. Ash was chief executive of AM for four years, and before that served as director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1972 through 1975 in the Nixon and Ford Administrations.

The Senate began debate today on a budget for the fiscal year 1984 with the Republicans near agreement on how much to raise military spending but still struggling over how much to increase taxes. The Republicans, whose 54 seats give them a majority in the 100-seat Senate, met privately twice, for nearly two hours this morning and for an hour late this afternoon, in an effort to reach a consensus. Another round of debate is scheduled for the regular Tuesday Senate Republican policy luncheon. ''Taxes still remains the big problem,'' Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, chairman of the Budget Committee, said tonight.

From a 24th-floor office window here, John P. LaBorde looked out over the city that has become the base for a large segment of the nation's offshore oil industry. ''What we've seen take place is too much growth, over too short a period,'' he said, turning his gaze past the French Quarter to an oil tanker chugging down the Mississippi. Mr. LaBorde, 59 years old, is chairman of Tidewater Inc., a company that owns and operates the world's largest fleet of boats designed to support the offshore industry. Its 353 vessels, 80 percent of them stationed in foreign waters, include the tugboats, crew carriers and supply boats that tow and service offshore rigs.

When the snows vanish from Tibet's high valleys, the farmers yoke their shaggy yaks to wooden plows that break open the hard brown earth. Colored cockades and even red flags adorn the worn yokes of the plodding yaks in celebration that the spring planting has arrived. The ritual, witnessed time and again on the Tibetan plateau, has more than casual significance this year. Duojiecaiden@, a senior Tibetan official, recently reported that 37,800 acres had been taken out of winter wheat and restored for grazing and for growing highland barley that is the staple of the Tibetan diet. In the 1970's, Tibetans had to obey Mao Zedong's order to ''take grain as the key link'' and grow more wheat and less barley. Their preference for barley, which is ground with yak butter, tea and salt for the traditional zampa that Tibetans eat, was ignored. So was the cold, windy climate.

Three influential Senators said today that they had written to President Reagan to say they would not vote for deployment of the MX missile unless his Administration adopted a new and more flexible approach to arms control. Another letter voicing similar concerns was released today by nine members of the House. Taken together, these developments pose a threat to Mr. Reagan's plan to put the huge missiles in existing underground shelters in Wyoming and Nebraska, which now house Minuteman 3 missiles. ''I cannot support the MX package unless it is tied to arms control,'' asserted Senator Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. ''The President has so far not made his position abundantly clear on that.''

Orders to factories for new manufactured goods rose a strong 3.2 percent in March, reaching the highest dollar total since the summer of 1981, Government figures showed today. The gain over February's level was the third big increase in orders in four months. And, since orders should mean increased production, the increase was another encouraging sign that the nation's economy was recovering.