What was going on when I was born?

After 40 years of almost continuous right-wing domination, Greece has lurched sharply to the left under Andreas Papandreou and his Socialist party that came to power in 1981. Under Mr. Papandreou, the country has adopted an aggressive foreign policy, clashing repeatedly with and criticizing the United States and its other partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in the European Economic Community. While building new links with Eastern Europe, Mr. Papandreou has dissented from American condemnation of the shooting down of the South Korean airliner last September, has sought to create a nuclear-free zone in southeast Europe, has attacked the deployment of American cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe and has denounced United States policy in Central America. Anti-American Image Created A strong impression of anti-Americanism has been created - so strong, in fact, that some officials in Washington and other capitals have begun to fear that the Prime Minister intends to lead his country out of the Western alliance into a policy of neutralism. On occasion he has seemed to visualize himself as a Tito for the 1980's.

Melvin Belli's job is suing people, but these days, many of the people he is suing are lawyers who used to work for him - and the suits tend to be ugly squabbles over who stole whose clients, complete with charges of incompetence, slander and fraud. Mr. Belli, who is best known for his unsuccessful defense of Jack Ruby, the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, has over the last two years been involved in litigation with his former partner, Vasilios Choulos; his former managing attorney, William Maas, and several other lawyers who have left the firm. ''It is almost a King Lear kind of situation,'' said one former Belli associate. ''I think he has driven away everyone who was ever close to him.'' Despite the lawsuits and the high turnover among the lawyers in Mr. Belli's offices, his reputation as one of the nation's leading personal injury lawyers, the so-called ''King of Torts,'' continues to attract a steady stream of cases that he says are both interesting and lucrative.

Not far from the sandlot baseball diamonds where Joseph Austin taught them how to play - and, they say, how to live - ''Joe's Boys'' and their neighbors jammed a Queens playground yesterday to wish the coach a happy 80th birthday. The main gift from the grown-ups was the naming of the playground in Mr. Austin's honor. But another big tribute came from young Ed Moore, who gave the coach a complete set of 1984 baseball cards. ''He's the Pied Piper of Jamaica,'' said Mary Kalafatis, who raised a Joe's Boy of her own.

International Argentina's new Government is struggling to solve the nation's severe debt and inflation problems in the face of opposition from unions allied to former military rulers. (Page A1.) The Common Market, pushed near bankruptcy by disputes over farm subsidies, begins a crucial meeting in Brussels. (A3.)

It has become the pat explanation for why Texaco is buying Getty, why Standard of California is swallowing Gulf and why Mobil is bidding for Superior - oil is cheaper to buy on Wall Street than to explore and drill for. But can that be? Why does the market sell reserves of established oil companies for much less than the companies routinely spend to find new reserves? Would the market not close the gap so that it is not cheaper, or at least not much cheaper, to buy than to drill? ''Either you have to conclude that the whole financial community and oil industry is composed of idiots, or there is something wrong with that explanation,'' said M. A. Adelman, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Indeed, many experts express skepticism about the explanation and offer their own. And some, like Professor Adelman, criticize the basic calculations used to support the contention that oil is cheaper to buy than to find.

It seems that no one is happy with antitrust policy. The Justice Department's opposition to the proposed merger of the LTV Corporation and the Republic Steel Corporation is being assailed as inflexible and niggardly. At the same time, a block east on Constitution Avenue in Washington, the Federal Trade Commission is drawing fire for failing to act more vigorously to block the spate of oil mergers. Where both sets of critics agree, however, is that antitrust enforcement should be concerned with more than whether mergers lessen price competition. They propose that antitrust enforcement should be sensitive to the needs of particular industries, for instance, by taking an industry's financial woes into account.

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into financial dealings of Edwin Meese 3d, the Presidential counselor, the White House said tonight. Mr. Meese said he had asked for a postponement of further Senate hearings on his nomination to be Attorney General. The White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, said this evening that Mr. Meese acted after being notified that the Justice Department had decided to start a preliminary investigation under the Ethics in Government Act. This could lead to appointment of an ''independent counsel,'' or special prosecutor. Meese Writes to Thurmond Mr. Speakes said: ''The President stands solidly behind the nomination and the President approved the request by Meese for a delay in the hearings.''

The Commerce Department has quietly imposed major restrictions on the Digital Equipment Corporation to control the export of its computers, several months after one of the company's most sophisticated machines was seized en route to the Soviet Union. The move requires Digital to go through the time-consuming task of obtaining individual export licenses from the Commerce Department before it can ship any of its computers to West Germany, Norway or Austria. All three countries are considered prime ''diversion points,'' where a major computer system can change hands quickly and be smuggled into Eastern bloc nations. Digital, the world's second-largest computer maker after the International Business Machines Corporation, is also being required to furnish the Government with detailed information about all of its overseas customers for its sophisticated line of VAX computers, and how those customers intend to use the equipment. The VAX is suitable for numerous military applications.

Tax legislation approved last week by the Senate Finance Committee marks a potentially major setback for the real-estate industry by threatening to slash the value of property as an investment, analysts and Capitol aides agreed on the weekend. The committee, virtually completing work late last week on a $74 billion deficit-reduction package, decided to raise to 20 years, from 15, the depreciation period for all commercial and residential structures, except those involving low-income housing. A longer period of depreciation means that write-offs must be taken in smaller increments, raising the tax bite in any given year. The longer depreciation period would not apply to those who have already been using the 15-year period.

When the final buzzer sounded, long after the outcome of their game had been in doubt, the basketball players from DePaul headed to where their coach had been working. The players were soon around Ray Meyer. There were so many arms wrapped so tightly round so many shoulders that there did not seem to be much room for a 70-year-old coach to breathe a sigh of relief. ''I have just been reprieved,'' Meyer said.

Jim Kelly, the Houston Gamblers' rookie quarterback, showed the Generals' veterans a thing or two about what to do with a football today. Playing only his fourth game as a professional, Kelly led the Gamblers to a victory that was more decisive than the final score, 32-25. Kelly passed for 271 yards and ran for 65 more. The running, 10.8 yards a carry, was what hurt the most in the opinion of Walt Michaels, the Generals' coach.

The Government of Raul Alfonsin, which restored democracy after eight years of a repressive military dictatorship, is struggling to pull Argentina back from the brink of financial collapse. ''We have an economic situation of such extreme gravity that it has no precedent in Argentine history,'' said Horatio Jaunarena, Under Secretary of Defense and a member of the Alfonsin team trying to reform the structure of Argentine society. Amid this economic crisis, the new Government faces opposition from Peronist labor unions that have been allied to the military. The Government's agonizing problem is whether it can stick to democratic means, provide the better living standards it has promised to working people and still bring inflation under control. Backed by Business Leaders So far, the Alfonsin administration is getting a remarkable degree of support from many business leaders, who view it as trying to lay the foundation for a more stable democratic society.