What was going on when I was born?

Concern is growing at the highest levels of the Reagan Administration that developments in Syria and Israel are producing trends that could set back any chances for a peaceful settlement in Lebanon and even touch off another conflict in the Middle East. The latest such sign was the disclosure Thursday that the Soviet Union was preparing to send Syria an advanced mobile missile, the SS-21, which could hit Israeli population centers. This was regarded yesterday in Washington as only the latest step by Syria to build up its armed forces so they could not only remain dominant in Lebanon but also successfully challenge Israel on the battlefield. Syria's overall goal is to end Israel's occupation of both the Golan Heights, which it lost to the Israelis in the 1967 war, and the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan. An Assumption Crumbles More than 7,000 Soviet soldiers have been sent to Syria this year, and the Russians have supplied Syria with $2.5 billion in military equipment, Administration officials said. This equipment, including advanced MIG-23 and MIG-25 fighter planes, up-to-date M-72 tanks and SA-5 antiaircraft missiles never before deployed outside the Soviet Union, goes well beyond what Syria possessed before suffering heavy losses to Israel in Lebanon in 1982. The SS-21 missile, an improved version of the less accurate Frog missile, has also never been assigned outside of Europe.

Political leaders today hailed an agreement between the Government and foreign banks to ease repayment terms on the country's $90 billion foreign debt, but some said it did not go far enough. Opposition leaders said the agreement, announced Thursday night in Washington, did not change their view that Brazil needs a moratorium on all debt payments - interest as well as principal - until it emerges from the severe recession that has afflicted its economy for the last three years. ''What was decided this week is much more realistic and gives us much more flexibility,'' said Raphael de Almeida Magalhaes, an economic adviser to the Brazilian Democratic Movement, the principal opposition party. ''It is a good starting point, the beginning of a real global renegotiation of the debt. But it is not enough.''

The Commissioner of Customs has recommended that three dozen products made in the Soviet Union be barred from the United States because he has reason to believe they were made with the help of forced labor. The Commissioner, William von Raab, said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan that he had information that ''reasonably indicates'' the products were manufactured with the help of prisoners or other forced labor. Any ban needs the approval of the Treasury Department.

The nation's unemployment rate fell by three- tenths of a percentage point to 9.1 percent in September, the lowest level in 18 months, the Labor Department reported today. This was a somewhat better performance than most economists had expected. The improvement was accompanied by a sharp rise in the average factory workweek and by another strong gain, nearly 400,000, in the overall number of people employed, which includes military personnel stationed in the United States. Except for an increase of one-tenth of a point in August in overall unemployment, this measure has either fallen or remained unchanged every month since reaching its peak of 10.7 percent last December. The level is now the lowest since March 1982, and the number of workers with jobs is at a record 103.64 million.

Pope John Paul II's personal representative in the United States will preside Monday at the funeral of Terence Cardinal Cooke at St. Patrick's Cathedral. The representative, Archbishop Pio Laghi, Apostolic Delegate to the United States, will be the principal celebrant for the funeral mass. Archbishop William Baum, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Education in the Vatican and the highest- ranking American prelate in the Vatican, will deliver the homily at the 2 P.M. service. More than 2,500 priests, bishops and invited guests from around the world are expected to attend.

Princeton University's honor code, a prescription for academic honesty conceived in part at the urging of Woodrow Wilson, is being examined in a court of law for the first time since its inception 90 years ago. The case, which is in its final stages, is expected to conclude next week. The code and the procedures of the student panel that enforces it are part of a suit in Federal District Court here filed by a former undergraduate who was convicted by his fellow students of cheating on a test in 1979 and is seeking to have his academic record expunged of the charges. Today, the president of the university, William G. Bowen, left a conference in Boston to testify here and defend his institution.

Nearly $100 million described by the Reagan Administration as aid to areas hurt by devaluation of the Mexican peso went to underwrite offshore oil rigs built in Mississippi and for development of rental property near Palm Springs, Calif., Federal officials said today. Much of the rest of the total of about $116 million described as aid to areas near the Mexican border is money that was previously earmarked for border areas under existing Federal programs, the Administration confirmed. Border area officials say some existing grant programs have been accelerated because of the peso crisis but that little new money has been made available.

The head of the nation's central bank expressed concern today that American businessmen and workers would ask for excessive wage and price increases because they did not realize how far inflation had fallen. Paul A. Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said at a news conference that he feared Americans still thought the Consumer Price Index was rising at about a 5 percent annual rate and might be trying to base wage and price increases on such a perception. The index rose 2.6 percent in the 12 months ended Aug. 31. ''I think we are entering a kind of testing period as to whether wage patterns lapse into what people thought was normal in the 70's, or what a lot of people think is normal during their whole working lives,'' Mr. Volcker said at the news conference after a private meeting with the 90 chief executives of major companies attending the semi- annual meeting of the Business Council.

President Samora M. Machel was unhappy, it is said, with the large painting depicting his ''liberation'' of this capital from Portuguese colonial rule that North Korean artists contributed to the Museum of the Revolution, where it now hangs at the head of the first flight of stairs. It is not fashionable in revolutionary Mozambique to dwell on racial characteristics, but there was a problem about the eyes. They looked more Korean than African. Even now, after considerable retouching at the President's behest, this representation of the arrival of the guerrilla leadership in the former Louren,co Marques might be subtitled, ''Springtime in Pyongyang.''

The Soviet Union has begun to shake up its Far Eastern air defense command, which was responsible for shooting down a South Korean passenger plane with the loss of 269 lives on Sept. 1, according to Administration officials. The officials said it was not known who had been removed or who might be in the future, how widespread the purge would be, how far down it would reach or what would happen to the military officers under scrutiny. But the officials said there was no doubt that a shake-up had begun and suggested at least three reasons for it: - Soviet political leaders and senior military officers in Moscow were displeased because the air defense command allowed the Korean Air Lines plane to fly across sensitive Soviet airspace for more than two hours before it was accosted by Soviet interceptors.

President Suharto has said he understands why President Reagan has postponed his visit to Indonesia and hopes a new date can be set for it.

The police and paramilitary forces, under orders to shoot lawbreakers on sight and empowered to raid the sanctuaries of suspected Sikh terrorists at will, patrolled parts of Punjab today. The Government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, invoking President's rule under the Indian Constitution, removed Punjab state officials, suspended the State Assembly and took over direct control of the northwestern Indian state Thursday night in an attempt to restore order to a part of the country that has been racked by political upheaval and sporadic killing. Mrs. Gandhi made another change tonight when she named B. D. Pande as Governor of Punjab to replace A. P. Sharma. Mr. Pande was Governor of the Communist-ruled state of West Bengal in eastern India until tonight's appointment. His place in Bengal has been taken by Mr. Sharma.