What was going on when I was born?

Four years ago when the leaders of the seven advanced industrial nations gathered in Tokyo, the power of the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf and North Africa was so much on their minds that it seemed as if the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was an uninvited guest at their dinner table. This year, the preoccupation with the political turmoil in Europe and the propaganda battle with Moscow over the touchy issue of deploying American nuclear missiles in Western Europe and the politially seductive prospect of an American-Soviet summit meeting made the Russians a palpable, though distant, presence at Williamsburg. ''Tokyo was the OPEC summit,'' recalled Chiaki Yamakawa, an anchorman for Fuji Television, who has covered several economic summit meetings. ''This is the Russia summit.''

The leaders of the seven nations at the economic summit meeting called on the Soviet Union tonight to negotiate constructively on reducing nuclear weapons and warned that any attempt to divide the West would fail. The statement came after daylong discussions on its wording, taking up unexpected portions of the leaders' agenda, and leaving an impression of divisions at a conference intended to express economic solidarity and converging views. But the statement, which was endorsed by France and Japan even though they are not members of the military wing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, had the mark of a success for the Reagan Administration, which pressed for a firm definition of the Western security stance at the conference. French Objections Raised French officials said they had initially raised objections to issuing a statement on arms control before a statement on the main work of the conference, economic matters, was made. They also said they did not wish to be committed to positions endorsed by the NATO allies but not specifically by France.

When Byron Chalfant Jr. was a child growing up in the summer resort of Beach Haven, N.J., Memorial Day weekend would always take him by surprise, but it never went unnoticed. ''All of a sudden, on Friday you'd be coming home from school on the bus,'' said Mr. Chalfant, ''and it would take half an hour. Then you'd know - it's Memorial Day.'' Life is not the same before and after Memorial Day weekend in many of the seaside towns of New Jersey and Long Island. Almost overnight, the towns' populations double or triple. The weekend known as the unofficial start of summer is often the official start of a summer's lease on a bungalow, and it triggers the migration of thousands.

Lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency and the American Civil Liberties Union say they may be close to agreement on a formula for amending the Freedom of Information Act to exempt numerous files relating to the agency's clandestine operations. Spokesmen for the civil liberties union said the formula would preserve public access to all documents that must be disclosed under current law. The C.I.A.'s support for the plan reflects a major change from its previous insistence that it should be entirely exempt from the disclosure law, according to Ernest Mayerfeld, deputy general counsel of the intelligence agency. Introduced by Goldwater The compromise is contained in a bill introduced recently by Senator Barry Goldwater, the Arizona Republican who is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

President Reagan removed Thomas O. Enders as the chief State Department officer on Latin American affairs because of frustration that Administration policies were being poorly managed and badly promoted in Congress, Administration officials said today. The officials asserted that ''policy implementation,'' rather than the policies themselves, was at issue in Mr. Reagan's decision to reassign Mr. Enders, the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, to an ambassadorial post and replace him with Langhorne A. Motley, the American envoy to Brazil. The shift was announced Friday by Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Mr. Enders declined to be interviewed today.

Five rebel junior officers in Al Fatah have reportedly seized control of six supply depots near Damascus from officers loyal to Yasir Arafat. Al Fatah is the largest of the eight groups that make up the Palestine Liberation Organization and is headed by Mr. Arafat. A statement by Wafa, the Palestinian press agency, said ''alien armed elements'' had seized the supply centers Saturday afternoon. But a rebel spokesman asserted that the junior officers had simply taken over control of the six depots.

This town is in France, not Poland. But you might guess otherwise. Consider the mantelpiece in Boleslaw Natakek's neat, modern row house here. It holds a picture of Mr. Natanek with Pope John Paul II; a miniature sewing machine presented to him by Lech Walesa, head of the Solidarity union movement in Poland, and an icon to Our Lady of Czestochowa. Nearby was the front page of a local newspaper from last October. It was dominated by two stories: one of Mr. Walesa's visit to this area, where he was honored by 6,000 Polish-French, and the other reporting Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski's accession to power.

A series of bombs exploded in public buildings in the French Caribbean territories of Guadeloupe, French Guiana and Martinique Saturday night and early today, killing one person and causing extensive property damage. At the same time, three people were injured when two bombs exploded in central Paris. One of the explosions took place near an employment agency for workers from France's overseas territories.

A Polish military court issued a death sentence in absentia Saturday for Zdzislaw Najder, the director of the Polish section of Radio Free Europe. Mr. Najder, a writer and former professor at Warsaw University, was accused of espionage for United States intelligence services, the official Polish press agency said.

Pope John Paul II announced today that he planned to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Lourdes on Aug. 15. John Paul had planned to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, at the foot of the Pyrenees in southwestern France, in July 1981, but the trip was canceled after the Pope was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in St. Peter's square in May of that year. A Vatican spokesman said no details of the trip, John Paul's second to France since he became Pope, had been settled, but that it was not expected to exceed 24 hours. The visit will take place on Assumption day, the feast celebrating what Roman Catholics believe to be the assumption of the the Virgin Mary into heaven.

Pakistani customs agents have seized about four tons of hashish and opium waiting to be smuggled into Europe, officials said today.

Iran has recently been making diplomatic moves seeking closer ties with the West, West German Government sources said today.