What was going on when I was born?

The chief of the Soviet General Staff, Marshal Nikolai V. Ogarkov, said today that the decision to shoot down a Korean Air Lines 747 was made by a local commander and that it was ''not an accident or an error.'' The marshal said at a news conference here that the decision ''to stop the flight'' of the plane was made by a district commander of the Air Defense Forces when he and other local officers concluded that it was on a spying mission over top-secret military bases. Marshal Ogarkov's appearance before a packed auditorium in the Foreign Ministry Press Center marked one of the most extraordinary moments in the events surrounding the fate of the South Korean airliner. For two hours Western and Soviet reporters questioned the marshal and two other senior officials in what was one of the very few occasions since World War II that the country's top-ranking officer has submitted to spontaneous questioning at a news conference.

Five new movies dealing with sensitive political and social issues will reach movie theaters this fall, all in an eight-week period. Their release is considered noteworthy by the film industry because in the last six years only about half a dozen Hollywood movies have addressed such highly charged issues. In the view of people familiar with the films, two of the five are critical of American business practices. The third is pro-Sandinista, the fourth leans to the Palestinian side, and the fifth - the only one expected to appeal to conservatives - treats antinuclear protesters as Soviet dupes. No one in the industry is prepared to say if five such films make a trend, but the box-office results of these movies will be watched closely by movie executives. If they are successful, a rash of films with strong political points of view might well result.

Following are some of the major contradictions between the American version of the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 7 and the Soviet version. Soviet accounts have changed; this is the version presented today in Moscow. Soviet Version American Version The South Korean jetliner deliberately entered Soviet airspace and was proceeding ''under the surveillance of electronic devices and flight control systems controlled by Americans,'' Marshal Nikolai V. Ogarkov, chief of the Soviet General Staff, said. ''To lose a plane under these conditions and to allow such a major deviation from the internationally accepted routes is - must be excluded as an error.'' Officials have confirmed that the 747 entered Soviet airspace but have not speculated on the reason. ''No one will ever know whether a mistake was made in giving the computer the course or whether there was a malfunction,'' President Reagan said Monday. The State Department said today that the plane's ''black box'' would ''provide data which would help clear up questions about the K.A.L. flight's movements.''

Asian- American leaders say they are alarmed by what they regard as rising discrimination against their people. As a result, they are forming political action organizations around the country that are unifying traditionally rival ethnic groups, including Japanese, Koreans, Chinese and Vietnamese. ''It's come to the point that as long as you 'look' Asian, you're open to attack, regardless of which group you belong to,'' said Stewart Kwoh, director of the Asian Pacific Legal Center, a leader of efforts to unify Asian groups in Los Angeles, which has the country's largest and most diverse Asian population. Speaking 'With One Voice' Urged ''The only road open for us is to get active politically, by unifying all the Asians to form a viable force, so when we speak, we speak in one voice,'' said Lin Chung, an officer of the recently formed Alliance of Asian-Americans for Greater Chicago. Asian-American leaders and others attribute what they see as a resurgence of anti-Asian sentiment principally to two factors. The first is the large influx of Southeast Asian immigrants and, to a lesser extent, South Koreans and Chinese, in the last decade. The second, is the country's economic troubles, which have intensified competition for jobs and which some Americans have attributed to imports from the Orient.

A state bridge inspector was charged today with forgery and altering his inspection notes to make it appear that he had warned Connecticut officials about the condition of the Mianus River Bridge in Greenwich nine months before it collapsed. Austin J. McGuigan, the Chief State's Attorney, said that after a section of the bridge collapsed on June 28, killing three people, the inspector, Jerry White, altered the original field notations he had made about the bridge during a routine inspection in September 1982. The alterations warned of rust and other problems on the bridge that required repairs and a more thorough inspection, Mr. McGuigan said. ''The explanation is clear,'' Mr. McGuigan said of Mr. White. ''He was concerned, and panicked about the situation. He was concerned about whether or not his inspection was deemed adequate.''

Another French member of the peacekeeping force was wounded by artillery fire today as intense negotiations were under way on a cease-fire. President Reagan's special Middle East envoy, Robert C. MacFarlane, held talks with Christian and Moslem groups as well as the Lebanese Government in an effort to halt the fighting. There were indications that the leader of the Druse militia forces that have been involved in mountain battles with the Lebanese Army for the last six days had accepted Mr. MacFarlane's proposals. Officials of the Shiite Moslem groups, which are allied with the Druse, said they were in general agreement with the proposals.

Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, has hinted that he might compromise with the opposition and call general elections earlier than the promised March 1985 date.

Ethiopia says it has freed 1,163 prisoners, including 117 who were being held for political reasons, to mark the ninth anniversary of the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie. Announcing the measure Thursday, the Ethiopian television said the move was part of an amnesty similar to one last September, in which more than 700 political prisoners were released. It is not known exactly how many political prisoners are still in Ethiopian jails as a consequence of the civil war that flared after the 1974 revolution.

A five-ship battle group led by the aircraft carrier Coral Sea has completed training operations and left today from the Caribbean coast of Central America, the Navy said. The carrier is on its way to its new home port of Norfolk, Va.

With Prime Minister Robert D. Mugabe about to arrive in the United States on a visit he hopes will repair Zimbabwe's image in the West and stimulate foreign investment, his Government today ordered the release and immediate deportation of two of six white air force officers who last week were sent back to their cells after a judge had dismissed sabotage charges against them. The order to remand the men after their acquital has raised a furor abroad, particularly in London, where some Conservative Members of Parliament have called for a suspension of British aid to Zimbabwe until all six men have been released and the principle of an independent judiciary has been reaffirmed. The six men, all of whom switched over to Zimbabwe's armed forces after earlier service in white-dominated Rhodesia, have been in prison for more than a year on charges that they directed or aided saboteurs who blew up 13 warplanes at the Thornhill Air Base. Last Wednesday Justice Ennock Dumbutshena of Zimbabwe's High Court acquitted the defendants because their signed confessions, which formed much of the prosecution's case, had been obtained through torture.

The Government of President Hissen Habre said today that Libyan- backed rebels were preparing to attack again, while the official press increased its criticism of France for not reacting to earlier clashes.

South Africa's white parliament completed action today on a newconstitution that would give nonwhites a role in the national Government for the first time in the country's history. The constitution will now be presented to the white electorate in a referendum on Nov. 2. Its approval then is regarded as likely but something less than a foregone conclusion. If it is rejected, the governing National Party will have suffered its most severe setback in 35 years of uninterrupted rule.