What was going on when I was born?

Until 1981, when his company's earnings headed downward for the first time, Michel C. Bergerac, chairman of Revlon Inc., was eager to talk about the cosmetics and health care giant he was building. Then Revlon's glamour faded. The company's market share in cosmetics began to slide as more aggressive companies moved ahead in such growing areas as skin care treatment. A rapid diversification accompanied by the acquisition of several companies that make health care products, analysts said, distracted Revlon from its cosmetics operation. Add to that the recession. Suddenly Revlon, like the rest of the industry, discovered that regardless of the advertising budget, the days of rapid growth in cosmetics were over. And Mr. Bergerac's romance with Wall Street ended.

President Reagan honored the nation's military heroes yesterday and declared that while ''tyrants are tempted'' by weakness, his military rebuilding program now has the armed forces ''standing tall.'' ''We have tried turning our swords into plowshares, hoping others would follow,'' the President said, referring to the biblical dictum for peace. ''Well, our days of weakness are over. Our military forces are back on their feet and standing tall.''

Random House announced yesterday that it was recalling 58,000 copies of a book about the late Barbara Hutton, the heiress to $26 million of the Woolworth fortune, because of errors about one of the physicians who treated her. Random House said it would destroy the copies after the recall, which industry experts said was one of the largest of its kind in publishing history. The book, ''Poor Little Rich Girl: The Life and Legend of Barbara Hutton'' by C. David Heymann, was excerpted in Vanity Fair magazine, was an alternate selection of the Book-of- the-Month Club and seemed headed for the best-seller lists. The official publication date was to be Jan. 2, but the book has been available in bookstores since November.

AFEDERALLY appointed panel has found ''signs of trouble, signs of erosion, in the nation's graduate capacity - signs that in some areas point to serious distress.'' ''Unless our graduate schools receive the support they require, they will not by the year 2000 be able to respond effectively to the nation's imperatives and expectations,'' the National Commission on Student Financial Assistance asserted yesterday in Washington in a report to President Reagan. The commission was established by Congress under the Education Amendments of 1980, with four members appointed by the President and four each by the House and the Senate. Its report is titled ''Signs of Trouble and Erosion: A Report on Graduate Education in America.''

TENS of thousands of domesticated dogs are reverting to the wild in Italy and threatening to drive the small remnant of wolves there into extinction. In sparsely populated rural areas of central and southern Italy, including the rugged Apennine mountains, the dogs are apparently gaining ground in a new Darwinian struggle for survival against their more powerful but less numerous competitors. By one informed estimate, some 80,000 feral dogs are now competing for territory, food and genetic supremacy against perhaps 250 surviving wolves. Although wolves often attack, kill and eat dogs when their numbers are roughly equal or favor the wolf, the vastly greater number of dogs that exist at present gives them the advantage. The innocent-looking dogs are also far better adapted to survival in close proximity to humans than the more feared and hated wolves, which are often poisoned or shot on sight.

Henry A. Kissinger, chairman of the Presidential commission on Central America, has clashed with some Democrats on the panel who favor making new American aid to El Salvador conditional on an end to right-wing death- squad violence, commission officials said today. A commission spokesman, Herbert Hetu, said that while no final recommendations had been drafted, the group was expected to propose a large new aid program for Central America in its report to President Reagan early in January. Other commission officials said the aid package could total several billion dollars over 5 to 10 years. These officials, speaking on condition that they not be identified, said several Democrats on the 12-member commission had asserted that American aid to El Salvador should be linked to a halt in right-wing death squads. But they said that former Secretary of State Kissinger, among others, had argued that since El Salvador was of vital interest to the United States, aid should not be made conditional.

The developers of a Third Avenue office building agreed yesterday to pay the city $750,000 in damages and formally apologized for zoning violations of which they had been accused. The agreement ends a court battle begun by the city, which charged that the developers had failed to honor a pledge to keep vacant the top two floors of the building until they began - or at least moved to begin - the expansion of a nearby subway station. The developers, Kenneth and Robert Gladstone, also agreed to post a $6 million performance bond to insure that they complete the expansion of the 53d Street station of the IND E and F lines. The station is next to their new 29-story building, at 875 Third Avenue between 52d and 53d Streets.

Because of an editing error, an article in some copies of Sports Pages on Saturday about the winter baseball meetings misidentified the member of the Oakland front office who was elected to the Executive Council. He is Roy Eisenhardt.

The American Express Company announced yesterday that its earnings for 1983 would be 10 percent below the 1982 level, because it had added $230 million to the reserves of the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, its insurance subsidiary. In 1982, the company earned $581 million, or $3.02 a share. American Express also said that it was replacing Edwin F. Cutler, 59 years old, who has been chairman and chief executive of Fireman's Fund since last Jan. 1.

Vehicle bombings in Kuwait demolished the American Embassy and damaged the French Embassy and four other sites. A total of five people were killed and 62 injured in the attacks, which were attributed to an Islamic extremist group with ties to Iran. (Page A1, Column 6.) Consideration of retaliation by the United States, perhaps in coordination with France, is probable if an investigation proves that a pro-Iranian group was responsible for the bombing of the American Embassy in Kuwait, according to a senior American official. (A18:1.)

In the 1970's, a consensus developed among liberals and conservatives, prisoners' advocates and prosecutors that the wide disparity in the punishment of criminals who had committed similar crimes was unfair and that sentences should be made more nearly uniform. This provided much of the impetus for new sentencing laws in many states limiting the discretion of judges and parole boards. But now there is a growing belief among many of these same experts that the new laws have made things worse, and the consensus has disintegrated into a clash of opinions about what should be done next. Most of the new laws led to longer prison terms, contributing to prison overcrowding and leading to such emergency actions as the release of 610 defendants from New York City's jails last month in response to a Federal judge's order. Some Deplore Heavier Sentences Many civil libertarians, defense lawyers and others deplore the trend of increasing penalties that they say were already too heavy. The new laws have also had the effect of increasing the arbitrary powers of prosecutors, critics say, continuing the disparities in punishment that helped spur the changes.

Lear Siegler Inc. and an initially reluctant Bangor Punta Corporation announced a merger agreement yesterday under which Lear Siegler is to buy all af Bangor Punta's common shares for $27.50 each, $1.50 more than Lear Siegler offered last week. The agreement calls for a cash tender offer under which Lear Siegler could start buying tendered shares as early as Jan. 5. Bangor Punta's preferred stock, which is convertible into common stock at the rate of 2.11 common for each preferred, will get a proportionate price of $58.03 a share.