What was going on when I was born?

President Reagan's top aides told him the Federal Reserve should be headed by either Paul A. Volcker, whose term as chairman expires Aug.5, or the economist Alan Greenspan, according to Administration officials. They said Mr. Reagan had made no decision yet, and might name someone else. (Page A1.) Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan criticized Democratic attempts to cap the third year of the personal tax cut. (D10.) The Supreme Court, in a setback for the I.R.S., ruled that the agency, like any other creditor, can be required to return property it has seized from a company that later files for bankruptcy. The Court also ruled that antitrust law permits individuals to serve simultaneously as directors of banks and rival insurers. And it ruled that Alabama may not bar natural gas producers from passing along to interstate consumers an increase in the state's severance tax. (D9.)

A Federal judge yesterday ordered a new vote in the bitter GAF Corporation proxy contest, thus upsetting the victory claimed only a month ago by Samuel J. Heyman, a dissident GAF shareholder. That unofficial outcome, which resulted in Mr. Heyman's slate of 10 directors unseating GAF's current management, was challenged by the company on the ground that Mr. Heyman withheld damaging information from his proxy material that might have cast doubt on his fitness to serve as a director. Mr. Heyman said he was ''shocked and surprised'' by the decision and would appeal it. In beginning the proxy fight earlier this year, he had charged that Jesse Werner, GAF's 66-year-old chairman, had mismanaged the company, selling off assets to stay in business despite poor profitability. He had called for the sale of GAF's two remaining major divisions, its chemical and roofing businesses.

President Francois Mitterrand, reacting to accusations that France has slipped into a crisis of authority, reasserted in a national television interview tonight that he is in firm control of the nation. ''I assume my responsibilities and I consider myself the first person responsible for public order,'' Mr. Mitterrand said in response to demonstrations that culminated last week in a protest march to the Justice Ministry by several thousand policemen. The statement, made in the fourth television appearance by Mr. Mitterrand since he took office two years ago, was aimed at combating a widening notion in the press and in public opinion here that France is sliding toward disorder and economic debility.

In the marketplace of ideas, Leonia has decided it pays to advertise. The town is selling an education in its public schools through a direct-mail blitz of several neighboring communities. A handful of public school systems in the metropolitan area, such as Greenwich, Conn., accept tuition students from outside the district. But advertise for them? Officials in the education circles of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut say they never heard of it, at least until now. Leonia believes the unusual strategy holds the answer to declining enrollment and potential reductions of teachers and courses - problems faced by scores of suburbs. Each out-of-town student would shore up enrollment and do so at a tuition ranging from $1,300 to $4,000, enough for Leonia to break even. The district does not receive state aid for the outside pupils.

Two account executives, who were responsible for supervising the 24-hour trading desk that Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. opened in January, used a phony account to make at least $80 million of unauthorized trades yielding them more than $600,000 in profits, according to criminal charges filed yesterday with Federal District Judge Charles S. Haight. The papers, filed by United States Attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, said the two registered commodity account executives, Shukry Mishrick and William Fellus, had misused their supervisory positions on the desk to engage in unauthorized commodity trading. The executives were accused of falsifying Dean Witter's trading records while crediting their profitable trades to an account they established in the name of Nessim Yaffe. According to Earl Nemser, the lawyer representing Dean Witter, Mr. Yaffe is a friend of Mr. Fellus and apparently had no knowledge of the account. Neither of the account executives disclosed their interest in the profits of the Yaffe account to Dean Witter, the papers said.

Education is emerging as a major issue in the 1984 Presidential campaign, and so far the debate is being shaped by President Reagan and Walter F. Mondale, the Democrat who is expected to win the endorsement of the nation's largest teacher organization. Mr. Mondale has delivered two major speeches attacking what he called the ''voodoo education'' policies of the Reagan Administration, hitting hard on Mr. Reagan's proposals to reduce the Federal education budget. The President has moved swiftly to establish his position in the debate as favoring a return to the basics in education and merit pay for teachers, positions that his aides say reflect a popular view. Mr. Reagan is planning a series of speeches on education, the first on Thursday in Hopkins, Minn., at a regional forum to discuss the report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education. It was that commission, created by the President, that brought the issue to the forefront of the political debate with an urgency not felt since the first Soviet space satellite shook American confidence in its public schools in 1957. In its recent report, the commission found a ''rising tide of mediocrity in the nation's schools'' and called for tougher academic standards, higher pay for teachers, more homework, stricter discipline and other changes in public education.