What was going on when I was born?

Practically from the outset of the Reagan Administration's ''covert war'' against the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua, there has been confusion and controversy over American objectives. Periodically, President Reagan, reflecting divisions in his Administration, has fueled the argument with imprecision about his goals. The debate also flares with each increase of military pressure by American- backed Nicaraguan rebels. The latest furor has been set off by reports from Reagan Administration officials and members of Congress that Americans not only paid for but also supervised the rebel mining of Nicaraguan ports, prompting Nicaragua to go to the International Court of Justice seeking a legal order to halt the ''covert war.''

The Limited Inc., stepping up the pressure in its week-old tender offer for Carter Hawley Hale Stores, filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday saying that it would solicit written consent from Carter Hawley's shareholders to remove the company's board of directors. The Limited also sought authorization for a special shareholders meeting of Carter Hawley at which to replace the directors. But Leslie H. Wexner, chairman and chief executive of The Limited, said that the shareholder consents would not be exercised if Carter Hawley either approved The Limited's two-step offer or an alternative one more favorable to its shareholders.

The board of the Consumers Power Company today cut the company's dividend on common stock to 35 cents a share, from 63 cents. The reduced dividend is payable on May 21. The utility also increased its estimate of the cost of finishing the second unit at its Midland nuclear plant to $3.95 billion, from $2.5 billion. Completion is now scheduled for December 1986.

It was a conspiracy in which the two key figures were continents apart and never met or exchanged words as they purportedly masterminded the smuggling of $1.65 billion worth of heroin into the United States. In fact, almost no illicit heroin was seized by Federal authorities, who filed charges on Monday against 31 men accused of participating in a massive drug and money-laundering conspiracy in this country and in Europe. The four-year investigation, according to Federal officials, destroyed a major money-making unit within the Bonanno crime family, one of New York's five traditional organized-crime groups. Federal prosecutors described the two key leaders in the conspiracy as Salvatore Catalano, who is reputedly second in command of the Bonanno family, and Gaetano Badalamenti, a high-ranking member of the Sicilian Mafia. F.B.I. Agent's Brief But except for one undercover agent in Philadelphia, there was apparently no direct contact between Federal investigators and the suspects. Aspects of the investigation were disclosed in a 341-page affidavit from a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Charles J. Rooney, that was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The Challenger astronauts reached out with their long robotic arm today to catch a failing satellite, Solar Max, and take it aboard the 305-mile-high space shuttle for the first major repair job in orbit. ''O.K., we've got it,'' radioed Capt. Robert L. Crippen of the Navy, the Challenger's command pilot. Cheers and applause broke the expectant hush of Mission Control here. The mission had been plucked from the brink of failure after earlier frustrations. Terry J. Hart, the astronaut operating the 50-foot-long mechanical arm, grabbed the slowly rolling and wobbling satellite on the first try, locking on to a protruding knob the size of a fist. Then he hauled the 5,000-pound satellite into the shuttle's cargo bay, easing it into a cradle back near the tail section.

The chairman of the Alleghany Corporation yesterday delivered an offer to acquire Conrail, the Government- owned railroad, to Elizabeth H. Dole, the Secretary of Transportation. Alleghany estimated that the offer was worth $2 billion to the Government. The plan also includes a $700 million payment to Conrail employees.

An article in Business Day on Monday about the London Stock Exchange incorrectly described the minimum transaction affected by a reduction in commissions. It affects sales of British Government securities amounting to more than $:250,000 - about $357,000.

Walter F. Mondale won a big victory today in Pennsylvania's Democratic Presidential primary, re-establishing a firm claim to the leadership in the race for the nomination. On the basis of strong support throughout the state, Mr. Mondale ran well ahead of Senator Gary Hart, whose advisers acknowledged that after his defeat here he had little chance of gaining enough delegates in the remaining contests to win the nomination outright. The Rev. Jesse Jackson was in third place, but he drew support from enough black voters to carry this city. The Vote Tally With 76 percent of 9,560 precincts reporting, the vote was: Mondale 550,652 (46%)Hart 405,904 (34%)Jackson 227,433 (19%) Mr. Mondale achieved another very strong showing among voters from union households, according to a survey by The New York Times and CBS News of voters as they left polling places throughout the state. (Page B8.)

The planned acquisition of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb Inc. by Shearson/American Express is the latest sign of a trend on Wall Street to consolidate into ever-larger and more diverse financial empires. The Lehman acquisition is the most recent in a long string of acquisitions by Shearson's parent, the American Express Company, in its effort to become a full-service financial services operation offering securities, insurance, banking, real estate, credit cards and travel services. Shearson has grown into Wall Street's third-largest securities firm behind Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers. With the Lehman acquisition, it would move into second place, just ahead of Salomon in terms of total capital. The acquisition would also shore up two of Shearson's perceived weaknesses: investment banking and fixed-income trading.

Lewis L. Glucksman, already acknowledged as one of Wall Street's star traders, was in his glory last July. He had seized control of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb Inc., and said he was eager to demonstrate his skill at managing one of the nation's oldest and most prominent investment banks. Yesterday, however, Lehman's board gave Mr. Glucksman a resounding vote of no confidence by deciding to sell the 134-year-old private firm to Shearson/American Express Inc., rather than continue under his stewardship. The sale to Shearson solves a problem that Lehman had recently acknowledged: It needs more capital to compete with its bigger and publicly owned Wall Street brethren. But to those familiar with the inner workings of Lehman, the sale also showed that Mr. Glucksman was not the manager and statesman that he had hoped.

A listing in SportsMonday on April 2 of results in the Riverhead Kennel Club show misidentified the third- place dog in the herding group. He is Ch. Jac-A-Lor's-Apache-v-Mossland.

-Savarin, casting a sharp eye upon the effects of the table on business affairs, wrote in 1825 that ''men with great interests at stake have observed that a well-fed man is not at all the same as a hungry one; that the table constitutes a kind of tie between the bargainer and the bargained-with, making the diners more willing to receive certain impressions, to submit to certain influences.'' Nothing much has changed in the last 159 years. Today business executives still develop programs and conceive strategies over lunch, which often is served in private dining rooms away from prying eyes and ears. Although the rooms are opulent and the tables gleam with silver and crystal, the food often has all the inspiration of a corporate organizational manual.