What was going on when I was born?

Evidence of widespread abuse - including the beating of mentally ill patients with blackjacks and bamboo poles - has been uncovered in a special ward of the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, according to state investigators. A beating by a therapy aide, they say, may have led to the death of a 39- year-old patient in the ward last month while in a straitjacket. The ward, the so-called secure unit, houses the center's most violent patients. The patient, Roberto Venegas, died of asphyxiation after his throat was crushed. More Supervision Called For Investigators for a state commission say staff members on the ward have told them that patients were beaten, sometimes with weapons.

Negotiations are going ''very well'' between the United States and Japan on ways to promote the use of the yen in international transactions, Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan said today. Mr. Regan told a news conference here that he was ''reasonably confident'' that finance officials of the two countries would be able to agree on a draft proposal within a week. Mr. Regan, who spoke at American University after receiving an honorary doctor of laws degree, offered no details. Treasury officials said later that no details were available because the chief American negotiator, Beryl W. Sprinkel, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs, was on his way back from several days of talks in Tokyo. Mr. Regan said Mr. Sprinkel had called him from Honolulu on Saturday with an optimistic report.

Too much Larry Bird and not enough Bernard King were the reasons the Knicks' season ended today. Bird scored his career playoff high of 39 points and King had 24, and the 15-point difference was virtually the difference in the Boston Celtics' 121- 104 victory at Boston Garden that advanced the Boston Celtics into the Eastern Conference final. The Celtics, who won all four games on their home court in this series, begin a four-of-seven playoff against the Milwaukee Bucks here Tuesday night. ''New York's m.v.p. won it for the Knicks Friday night in New York and the N.B.A.'s m.v.p. won it for us today,'' said Kevin McHale, one of the many Celtics who hounded and double- and triple-teamed King into an 8-for-17 shooting performance.

''I had the feeling that before it was too late I should come back to give what I have to give to a whole young generation of Chileans who have never heard me play in person.

Every overseas bank that sets up shop in New York faces the same choice as other immigrants - whether to shed or retain roots from abroad. Some of the large international banks have chosen to assimilate. But the Bank Leumi Trust Company of New York, whose parent company is one of Israel's largest banks, has followed the other path, appealing to ethnic ties with Israel. To spread the word, Bank Leumi, which has $3 billion in assets, has embarked on a $1 million advertising campaign that is meant to reach out to American Jews without excluding other potential customers.

BOSTON W ITH the Celtics leading, 34-26, late in the first quarter yesterday, the Boston Garden public-address announcer intoned, ''Will the Knicks' bus driver please report to the East lobby.'' The Knicks could have reported to the East lobby, too. For all practical purposes, their decisive seventh game of the Eastern Conference semifinal series was over. So was their season. And so, perhaps, was Leonard (Truck) Robinson's career with the Knicks. In the 121-104 loss, Bernard King scored 24 points, but he had only 9 in the first half when the game was being decided.

Theirs had been a simple life. He was a librarian at a preparatory school in Vermont. She taught English. They both sang in the local glee club and enjoyed long walks in the woods. He jogged four miles a day. She baked bread. Both were 44 years old and in perfect health. So it seemed absurd that day last year when Jerry Morgan, feeling uncharacteristically exhausted, went for a checkup and was told he had a diseased heart and less than six months to live. That he is alive today is a testament to the most recent advances in medical science and the following truth: that within him beats the heart of someone else.

President Reagan's national security adviser said today that covert action in such regions as Central America was increasingly necessary to give the United States an alternative between going to war and doing nothing when a friendly nation is under attack. His comments constituted one of the strongest Administration justifications for the activities being carried out in Central America under the supervision of the Central Intelligence Agency. The security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane, said Americans have to wrestle with the question of ''should we or should we not have some intermediate option of policy, covert action?'' ''The real issue which is being challenged by people on the Hill and publicly is should you do these kinds of things at all, and I think we ought to come to terms with that,'' he said, referring to the Congressional opposition to covert activities.

With only the slightest nudge from the Federal Reserve, interest rates have increased sharply this month amid large sales of notes and bonds by the Treasury and rapid growth in borrowing by business and individuals. ''What we are witnessing is the long-awaited collision between public and private borrowings,'' said Norman Robertson, chief economist at the Mellon National Bank in Pittsburgh. ''The growth in loan demands is as strong as any time in the last five or 10 years, so this is very much a market-driven increase in rates,'' he added. Even if the Federal Reserve raises the discount rate it charges on loans to financial institions, Mr. Robertson said, that would indicate that the central bank was ''being swept along with the tide'' of economic forces rather than choosing to push rates higher of its own volition.

The 17th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina is a hotshot outfit by almost every measure. But senior Air Force officers say it is officially rated not ready for sustained combat. The 17th, the newest fighter squadron in the Air Force, is led by a veteran of the war in Vietnam. More than half its pilots are rated experienced, and its younger fliers are considered among the best in the service. It has most of the trained technicians it is authorized to have. The 17th Squadron is fully equipped, with the last of its 24 F-16 fighters delivered recently. Each pilot logs more than 20 hours of training sorties a month. Skilled ground crews maintain the planes under the watchful eyes of senior sergeants. Morale seems high.

The Finance/New Issues column in Business Day Friday incorrectly quoted a spokesman for the Charter Company in explaining why the company had rejected a $20 million loan. He said the loan ''was not in the company's best interest.''

Almost overnight, the plight of the Latin American economies, where most of the third world debt is concentrated, has produced a frenzy of conferences, speeches, hearings in Congress and globe-hopping trips of dignitaries searching for solutions. It is more activity even than in the fall of 1982, when concern sprouted over Mexico's debts. The search acquired a new urgency with the rise last week, to 12 1/2 percent, in the critical prime lending rate in the United States, on which many of the loans to debtor countries are based. It was the third half-point rise in two months. On Thursday, Argentine President Raul Alfonsin called American rates ''madness'' and said the last two increases would add $600 million to Argentina's annual interest payments. On Saturday, Paul A. Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the increases should be ''dealt with'' to avert the threat they posed to the third world's financial stability.