What was going on when I was born?

Judge Irving R. Kaufman, chairman of the President's Commission on Organized Crime, has refused to sign a pledge prepared by the White House for all panel members to abide by Justice Department ethical standards and not to disclose information without authorization. The judge, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, has told White House and Justice Department officials that he does not object to the substance of the agreement. Rather, according to those involved, Judge Kaufman thought it improper for a Federal judge to be asked to sign such a pledge. ''Judge Kaufman refused to sign because he felt it was offensive for a Federal judge and because it was contrary to principle and conscience,'' said one of those familiar with his position.

Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth W. Dam said today that right-wing terrorists in El Salvador and Guatemala were largely responsible for the successes of Marxism in the Caribbean region. ''The death squads and their backers in El Salvador and Guatemala are enemies of democracy every bit as much as the guerrillas and their Cuban and Soviet sponsors,'' Mr. Dam said in an address to the seventh annual conference on trade, investment and development in the Caribbean basin. In Washington, President Reagan said he had killed legislation requiring that he report regularly on human rights conditions in El Salvador because the reports might actually invite rather than discourage death-squad violence. (Page 6.)

The bride and bridegroom were led to their wedding reception by a parade of clowns. Also by 21 elephants, 13 tigers, 6 camels and 2 llamas. And then what did the newlyweds do? They performed a duet on the flying trapeze, and, while love was in the air, the bride tossed her bouquet into a crowd of 3,000 onlookers. In short, it was the sort of wedding that suited the marriage of the most daring young man on the flying trapeze to his aerial partner. Miguel Angel Vazquez, the first and only circus flyer to achieve the quadruple somersault, wed the aerialist Rosa America Segrera today in a church near the winter quarters of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The new chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said yesterday that he planned to recommend that New York City's bus and subway fare be increased next month to 90 cents, a rise of 15 cents. The chairman, Robert R. Kiley, said he also planned to propose fare increases of 20 to 25 percent on the Metro- North Commuter Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road for 1984. The fare increases would be the first in two and a half years on the buses, subways and commuter lines. In addition, Mr. Kiley said, the authority's board will probably be asked to raise tolls on the bridges and tunnels of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, an M.T.A. subsidiary, for the first time since April 1982. Tolls that are now $1.25 would be raised to $1.50; those at 90 cents would be raised to $1.00.

With 740,000 more people working in November than in October, the national unemployment rate fell again, dropping from 8.7 percent to 8.2 percent, the lowest level since January 1982, the Department of Labor reported today. The last time the unemployment rate fell by that much was January 1983, when the decline was also five- tenths of a percentage point. Despite a warning that the jobless rate might be understated, the report was another sign that the yearlong economic expansion had continued into the autumn at a brisk but not boom pace. Economists expect it to roll on in 1984, possibly at a slower rate in the latter part of the year.

For the first time, the Reagan Administration today raised with the Supreme Court the argument that affirmative action plans were unconstitutional if they included explicit racial criteria for the selection of employees. The Justice Department made the argument in the case of the Detroit Police Department, which voluntarily adopted a plan in 1974 to hire and promote equal numbers of blacks and whites. The plan, put in place as a remedy for past discrimination, was challenged in court by white officers. The Government said the Detroit case differed from two resolved by the Supreme Court in the late 1970's.

Governor Cuomo said today that public assistance for rent and other housing costs of welfare recipients would be increased an average of 25 percent beginning Jan. 1. The increase, the first since 1975, will apply to about 570,000 households statewide and will cost $225 million in the first year, according to the State Department of Social Services. The cost will be ''shared equally'' by the Federal, state and local governments, the Governor's office said. The administrative action by Mr. Cuomo is all that is needed to institute the increase, and the Federal Government automatically matches the higher local share.

Several former heads of the Council of Economic Advisers indicated that the current chairman had been too outspoken. Page 29. WASHINGTON. Dec. 2 - A senior White House official said today that President Reagan had been angered by the tone taken by Larry Speakes, his spokesman, in commenting on Wednesday about Martin S. Feldstein, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. The official said Mr. Reagan objected to the manner, but not the substance, of Mr. Speakes's repeated criticism of Mr. Feldstein for his public insistence on the need to reduce the Federal deficit through tax increases.

Ephraim Tshabalala is, by his own account, a man of ''background.'' And that, he said, is important in politics. ''The Americans,'' he told a reporter, ''would never put a man without background into the White House, would they?'' By background, he said, he meant a certain degree of financial worth. Mr. Tshabalala certainly has that. He is one of the most prominent, and wealthy, candidates seeking the post of Mayor of this huge and bleak black township from which Johannesburg appears as a crenellation of high-rise buildings on a distant skyline. The election, shunned by radical blacks and probably destined to be the target of a sizable boycott, is to be held Saturday.

Louis Nel, South Africa's newly appointed information chief, set out today to convince foreign reporters that there was another side to the well-publicized removal of villagers from a place where they have lived for 70 years to this fledgling settlement of tin huts and frail hopes. But along the way, Mr. Nel, a robust 46-year-old, did what few, if any, South African Cabinet ministers have ever done: He become embroiled in a black protest meeting at the village of Magopa, from where the people are being resettled. Clambering onto a dining chair, in the shade of the villagers' traditional meeting tree, Mr. Nel, in shirt sleeves, told 200 people that rumors that they were to be thrown out into the streets were not true. The villagers at one point sang a hymn. Mr. Nel shook hands with them - not including a young black man who, refusing to acknowledge the gesture, turned away - and told them, ''We want to work together.''

Soviet leaders announced steps today to create a unified air-traffic-control system for the Soviet Union, a step Western diplomats said might be related to efforts to prevent further military attacks on civilian airliners. A regular communique on the meeting of the Politburo, the Communist Party's ruling group, said it had approved measures to establish the system.

Turkish Cypriots established a 70-member constituent assembly today to draft a constitution for their newly-proclaimed republic and to prepare legislation for presidential and parliamentary elections. The new assembly, which is due to convene on Tuesday, was voted by the legislature of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus, the autonomous administration that preceded the newly- declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The assembly is to consist of the 40 members of the present legislature, 11 representatives of unions and professional organizations and nine people to be named by Rauf Denktash, who was president of the Turkish Federated State and is acting president of the republic. The vote to set up the assembly was 26 to 14. It took place after a stormy debate, with some members accusing Mr. Denktash, who drew up the plans, of dicatatorial tactics.