What was going on when I was born?

A report in Sports Pages yesterday about the Columbia-Fairleigh Dickinson soccer game incorrectly reported the scheduled date. It is 1 P.M. Sunday, at Baker Field.

The International Monetary Fund today gave its seal of approval to a new austerity program for Brazil in a decision expected to unlock more than $12 billion of fresh credits for the world's biggest debtor country and help it stave off default. The action, authorized after a day- long meeting of the Board of Governors, permits Brazil to draw an additional $1.2 billion from the I.M.F. and $11 billion from commercial banks and government lenders such as the United States Export-Import Bank. The board issued a terse 150-word statement saying that Brazil had now been granted ''a waiver'' on some of the earlier economic performance conditions and that a new ''understanding'' had been reached on ''modifications of existing performance criteria and on new performance criteria.'' The 146-nation lending agency, which has been acting as manager of the world debt crisis, helps cash- strapped countries meet their immediate financing needs; in exchange it requires that the borrowers cut subsidies, curb wage increases, raise taxes and take other steps to improve their economic performance and shrink their imports.

SOMEONE invites you to a dinner party. You accept, and then you realize that you cannot remember the last time you entertained. For three years you have been telling friends that you will have them over as soon as the chairs are recovered, but you are still waiting for the fabric. Now there is another excuse: You cannot think about giving a dinner party with Thanksgiving at hand. Well, wait until the last turkey leftover is put away and then consider this: The small dinner party, which seems to have made a comeback lately, can be among the warmest, most convivial of occasions. Few experiences have more innate appeal than an evening of conversation and good food, shared with friends in the surroundings of your home - and few times are more appropriate than the festive season. Of course, the reason you have been procrastinating is that the occasion, warm and convivial as it may be, simply

President Reagan has directed the Justice Department to investigate the unauthorized disclosure of details about National Security Council meetings in September on the situation in Lebanon, an Administration source said tonight. The source said that the inquiry, which the President was said to have initiated in mid-September with a letter to Attorney General William French Smith, is focusing on people present at the meetings last Sept. 10 and 11. They were said to include top White House staff members, National Security Council members, and officials of the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.

On the 20th anniversary of his assassination, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was remembered by his family and political clan today as the enduring leader of a multitude ''still in the arena at the center of the struggle.'' On a brilliant day that surged with bitter memory, Senator Edward M. Kennedy echoed the hopes of his slain Text of the tribute is on page A18. brother and predicted that the thousand days of the Kennedy Presidency would be remembered for a thousand years. ''All of us in this church may not gather all together again,'' the Massachusetts Senator told a crowd of Kennedy family members and gray-haired political supporters at Holy Trinity Church. ''But for those of us who share the commitments, the compassion and the high hopes of John Kennedy, there will never be a last assembly.''

A plan to deploy American missiles in West Germany was approved by a vote of 286 to 226 in Bonn's Parliament after an acrimonious two-day debate. A Government spokesman said deployment would begin today. (Page A1, Column 6.) It was Iranians who exploded the truck bomb in the American Marine compound in Beirut on Oct. 23 with the ''sponsorship and authority of the Syrian Government,'' Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger said. His statement marked the strongest public accusation by the Reagan Administration to date on who was responsible for the attack that killed 239 American servicemen. (A1:5.)

LAST Thursday Christina Hagan, a lawyer, had lunch with a group of friends and acquaintances at the Water Club in Manhattan. They dined on hors d'oeuvres including melon and prosciutto, crudites and breaded zucchini spears with mustard and marinara sauces; a cold antipasto salad a la Esposito, and pasta a la Esposito. It cost each of them $100, and they didn't even flinch. It was for a good cause, Miss Hagan said - to help feed elderly shut-ins. The Esposito whose chef's signature marked two of the luncheon's courses was Meade H. Esposito, the Brooklyn Democratic leader. As part of the Citymeals-on-Wheels Restaurant Week, the Water Club had given him free rein in its kitchen to make marinara sauce for the pasta and the mozarella, tomato and sweet onion antipasto from his family's recipes.

Contending that care for the mentally ill is the ''shame of the State of New York,'' Mayor Koch said yesterday that the city would provide $2.6 million to 15 private hospitals to prevent their overcrowded psychiatric clinics from closing. The Mayor described state mental health policies as ''vile, cruel and heartless,'' particularly in denying psychiatric care to elderly people who suffer from senility or ''other minor medical problems.'' Testifying before the Governor's Select Commission on the Future of the State-Local Mental Health System, Mr. Koch called the discharge of thousands of chronically ill mental patients from state institutions under a 28-year state policy ''a travesty and a disgrace.'' Call for Action Made ''The city can no longer stand by and allow the state to continue to abrogate its responsibility to the chronically mentally ill,'' the Mayor said.

Trading in telephone company stocks dominated the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, accounting for almost 8 percent of all shares that changed hands and helping to push up stock prices in general. The Dow Jones industrial average, which was in the plus column throughout the session, closed up 7.01 points, to 1,275.81 after having climbed 17.78 points the day before. Trading in the shares of the ''old'' and ''new'' American Telephone and Telegraph Company totaled just over 9 million. Total Big Board volume was 117.6 million shares, the largest since Oct. 6 when 118.3 million shares were traded.

''All of us in this church may not gather all together again.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1983 The Economy Corporate profits continued to climb sharply in the third quarter, reflecting an easing of wage demands and higher productivity, the Commerce Department reported. It said that the rate of increase is higher now than in any other recovery since World War II. Officials also revised downward the figure for the overall growth of the economy during the period to 7.7 percent. (Page D1.)

The West German Parliament approved a plan tonight to deploy American Pershing 2 and cruise missiles. A Government spokesman said deployment would begin Wednesday. By a vote of 286 to 226, Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right coalition of Christian Democrats and Free Democrats carried a long resolution that endorsed the Government's decision to start the missile deployment in light of the stalemate at the arms talks in Geneva between the United States and the Soviet Union. One deputy abstained. The vote on deploying the missiles, which came after a two-day debate, had been expected.