What was going on when I was born?

The 24th floor executive suite at the headquarters of the International Harvester Company hardly looks like the hub of a company that is supposed to be on the mend. More than half the offices stand bare, bereft of both executives and secretaries. Six of the company's 13 floors of office space in the building, like the company's Fort Wayne, Ind., truck plant and its Louisville, Ky., agricultural equipment components plant, have been abandoned. The numbers show the same pattern of shrinkage. Sales at Harvester are running at about half the $7 billion pace of 1979. Employment is off two-thirds, to 32,000. And Harvester's net worth, after plunging to $90 million in the red, is still sinking fast. Indeed, the first signs of a profit may not come until next spring.

The Yankees planned diligently and expensively all winter, then played determinedly for more than five months to ensure their presence in the September stretch drive for the American League East championship. Now, though, in the space of 24 hours, they - with help from the Baltimore Orioles - have removed themselves from that stretch drive, realistically if not mathematically. Following up their doubleheader loss to Baltimore Saturday night, the Yankees dropped a 5-3 decision yesterday and plummeted a season-high seven games out of first place, the spot now occupied by the Orioles. ''You can't never give up in this game,'' Billy Martin said stoically. But he acknowledged, ''If we're going to have a chance, I'd say we have to win 17 or 18.''

The staff of an Administration task group is drafting plans to consolidate most of the Government's regulation of commercial banks in a new, single Federal banking commission. The new agency would supplant entirely the Comptroller of the Currency and abolish the Federal Reserve Board's jurisdiction over most banks and bank holding companies. In addition, it would assume many of the non-insurance functions of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The plan is being drafted by aides to Vice President Bush, who heads an interagency task group that is reviewing Federal regulation of financial institutions. The plan, if recommended in this form by the staff and approved by the task group, would also expand the powers of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to include regulation of smaller commercial banks in addition to savings and loan associations. This agency would be renamed the Federal Community Bank Board.

International The Lebanese Army was battered by Druse militiamen and their allies at the key strategic town of Suk al Gharb, nine miles southeast of Beirut. The fighting spread fear in the capital that the town might fall, leaving Beirut exposed to more Druse shelling. Farther south, the Druse seized two towns from Christian militiamen. British warplanes flew over Beirut to show that they would protect the small British peacekeeping contingent. (Page A1, Column 6.) Cannon bursts were fired at the South Korean 747 nearly six minutes before a Soviet pilot launched two missiles that shot down the plane, a revised State Department transcript of the pilot's remarks indicates. The new version released by the department provides possible but inconclusive support for the Soviet contention that the pilot fired warning shots before eventually downing the plane with rockets. (A1:1.)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is using Army Green Berets to help determine whether nuclear power plants are vulnerable to attacks by saboteurs. The program began earlier this year, according to Robert F. Burnett, the director of the commission's safeguards office. So far, he said, four sites have been inspected, including the two Salem reactors in Lower Alloways Creek, N.J. In each inspection, he said, minor security problems were found and reported to the utilities that operate the reactors. The Green Berets are ''there to look at the facility through the eyes of an adversary,'' Mr. Burnett said in a telephone interview. ''They can help us see weaknesses we might overlook,'' he added.

Science Times on Aug. 23 failed to credit C. P. Vick as the source of a drawing of a Soviet rocket. It also mislabeled the payload of the rocket, which was a surveillance satellite.

''I was scared at first. I thought they were not going to let us in.

After a week of reluctance, the seas north of Japan have finally begun to give up the remains of Korean Air Lines Flight 7. One grim bit at a time this weekend, debris from the downed airplane, and possibly parts of bodies of some passengers as well, have washed ashore from the Sea of Okhotsk along the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. One chunk of metal has been positively identified by airline officials as a section of the plane's vertical tail. Another metal piece was pierced with some sort of bullet holes, which would be consistent with the ''cannon bursts'' that United States and Japanese Government officials said today had been fired at the jet before it was destroyed.

Jimmy Connors again showed Ivan Lendl what it takes to win a Grand Slam tournament with a four-set victory yesterday for his fifth United States Open men's singles title and second in succession. Connors's 6-3, 6-7, 7-5, 6-0 triumph repeated a four-set conquest of Lendl in the final last year at the National Tennis Center. But the defeat yesterday was easily more disheartening for the second-seeded Lendl, who had not dropped a set in six previous matches and was within a point of a 2-1 lead in sets only to lose the last 10 games of the 3-hour-5-minute match. At a time when Lendl needed his big serve the most, with a set-point at 5-4 in the third set, the lanky Czechoslovak double-faulted into the net, bothered by gusty winds and perhaps his own nerves. Revived by the roars of the crowd and Lendl's unexpected gift, the third-seeded Connors then broke serve with two winning volleys and swept the remaining games en route to the $120,000 first prize and his 100th career singles title, easily tops on the career list.

Each fall, the nation's business snaps back into high gear as summer's diversions recede farther into memory. As they return to work this season, business leaders will find more than enough in the way of pressing issues to claim their attention. Last week, The New York Times asked leaders in several key industries to identify what they believed would be the most important business developments in their fields between now and year-end. Following are some of their observations: George M. Keller Chairman and chief executive Standard Oil of California The political situation in the Middle East is overwhelmingly the one thing that could have a dramatic effect on the international oil market. I don't think it has been more troublesome since the Iranian crisis.

In an explosion of excitement comparable to that in science and mathematics at the time of Sputnik 25 years ago, public schools across the New York metropolitan area this fall are taking the plunge into computers. Despite high costs, tight budgets and shortages of teachers trained in the mysteries of mainframes and microprocessors, school systems in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are spending millions for computers, devising major curriculum changes and renovating classrooms to handle ballooning computer-course enrollments. For many of these school systems, the move into computers - a step most private schools have already taken - represents the largest single investment and the biggest change in curriculum in a generation. And it comes at a time of severe strain on public education budgets.

The State Department today issued a revised transcript of a Soviet pilot's remarks that quotes him as saying he fired ''cannon bursts'' nearly six minutes before launching two missiles that shot down the South Korean airliner with 269 people aboard. The new version provides possible but inconclusive substantiation for the Soviet contention that the pilot of the SU-15 jet fired warning shots before eventually downing the Boeing 747 with rockets. But the department said the shots might have been aimed at the plane, and added that in any case, the new information had not altered the previous contention that the Korean airliner never received any warning, and that ''the Soviets consciously made the decision to shoot down the aircraft.'' As the revisions in the transcipt were being released, Representative Larry P. McDonald, Democrat of Georgia, one of the 269 people killed on the Korean airliner. was memorialized by more than 3,000 people at a service here in Washington. Many at the service, held at Constitution Hall, were critical of what they called a tame response by President Reagan to the Soviet attack. (Page A10.)