What was going on when I was born?

The United States Government's most important cocaine eradication program, in a valley between the Andes and the Peruvian jungles, has been suspended because of a wave of guerrilla raids in the area, United States officials say. The guerrillas are members of the Shining Path movement, who say they are fighting to impose a Chinese-style political system in Peru. In recent weeks, they have killed local policemen, attacked the installations of United States and Peruvian Government employees and routed the United States-trained narcotics strike force in Peru's cocaine-growing region and its center, Tingo Maria, a town 340 miles northeast of the Peruvian capital. Many Workers Withdrawn Many workers in the $30 million program in the area around Tingo Maria were withdrawn late last month, United States officials said in interviews last week, and efforts to destroy coca fields and the program to create alternative crops have been halted.

The debate in the United States over foreign steel subsidies is beginning to center on one theme: that existing trade laws have failed to bring order to the steel market. Neither recent United States legislation or the 1980 GATT Code of Conduct on subsidies have been able to bring about a lessening of tensions, steel experts say. ''It is ironic that world steel trade today is probably more encumbered by nontariff barriers than ever and more restraints are on the way,'' noted Charles O. Verril Jr., a trade lawyer with the Washington law firm of Patton, Bloggs & Blow, in a study presented to a recent meeting at this lakeside resort. Worldwide Conspiracy Charged At the meeting United States representatives presented themselves as innocent victims of a worldwide conspiracy by foreign governments and their steel companies to flood the American market with exports of cheap, subsidized steel. More protection was what they wanted.

An article in the Arts and Leisure section on Aug. 5 about Jazzmobile Inc. incorrectly described the Harlem Cultural Council. The council, founded in 1964, is still active; it provides assistance to minorities in arts programs.

As much as corporate treasurers wish to avoid risk, they have little choice these days but to finance their operations with floating-rate debt. And until recently, the only way they could hedge against a rate rise was by immersing themselves in the complexities of financial futures, a step that many refused to take. There is an easier way now to take some of the worry out of corporate financing, according to an increasing number of commercial banks and Wall Street investment banking firms. For a one-time fee, they will guarantee a company with floating- rate debt that it need not be concerned if rates rise above a certain level. The rate-protection programs are not for small corporations. Merrill Lynch, for instance, will guarantee protection only for a debt of more than $25 million. Currently it is protecting about $1.2 billion for corporations, savings and loan associations, real estate companies and the like. The smallest customer in Citibank's program is covering about $10 million in debt.

Only hours after an agreement was near in New York's hospital and nursing-home strike, the accord was jeopardized yesterday in a bitter disagreement over economic issues, representatives of both sides said. Saturday evening, amid mounting pressure to end the month-old walkout, hospital negotiators and union leaders said they were on the verge of agreeing to a package designed to give the striking union a 5 percent wage increase in each year of a two-year contract. But yesterday afternoon, William Abelow, the chief hospital negotiator, said in a brief statement, ''We are not anywhere near an agreement, and negotiations seem to be deteriorating.'' 'Back to Work' Bonus The disagreement centers on the hospitals' insistence on delaying the wage increase and the unions' counterdemand for a ''back to work'' bonus.

MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1984 The Economy The Administration opened the door to the possibility of tax increases in 1985. President Reagan and Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan said any increases would come only as ''a last resort'' and only if accompanied by some tax reductions. (Page A1.)

''The reaction was, 'Gerry, I'm not going to tell you how to run the country, you're not going to tell me how to run my business.'

There was singing and dancing. There were fireworks and a laser show and a 23,000-square-foot stage. There was a simulated flying saucer, suspended from a helicopter, with flashing lights that hovered overhead for a few minutes and then flew off. There were athletes walking in, arm in arm, undisciplined, happy and without regard to nation. Once inside, they started running round the track carrying flags and for a while ignoring announcements that they return to their places. There were athletes walking out the same way, obviously reluctantly.

Six members of Congress said here today that they would try to block the Reagan Administration's new population policy through legislation if changes cannot be achieved through compromise. The members of Congress - five Democrats and one Republican - objected to the Administration's new policy of denying family planning money to international private organizations that ''perform or actively promote'' abortion, regardless whether United States funds are used for that purpose. Representative James H. Scheuer, Democrat of Queens, called the policy ''a bizarre misapplication of United States power and influence'' and said it would give ammunition to critics who say the United States tries to exert undue power in the developing world. U.S. Contributions to Continue The chairman of the United States delegation to the International Conference on Population, James L. Buckley, appeared to have resolved one point of dispute Saturday by announcing that the United Nations Fund for Population Activities would continue to receive contributions from the United States.

Stock index options enjoyed record volume in the stock market's recent bull run. The activity encouraged those who predict that index options will eventually become an indispensable tool for equity investors. However, there are still plenty of sophisticated investors who consider them poor cousins to underlying equities; the ''real'' game, in their view. As a result, some market experts expect index option activity to decline if the rally persists. They reason that there is a stubborn preference for buying stocks outright, particularly among institutions and portfolio managers.

When the favorites had faded and most of the experienced marathoners had dropped from the front of one of the greatest fields ever assembled, it was left to Carlos Lopes of Portugal to grab a surprising victory in the men's marathon this evening in the final event of the Games of the XXIII Olympiad. He completed the 26-mile-385-yard course in an Olympic record time of 2 hours 9 minutes 21 seconds. He bettered the time of 2:09:55 set by Waldemar Cierpinski of East Germany at Montreal in 1976. Lopes finished 215 meters ahead of John Treacy of Ireland, who won his country's first medal in the 1984 Games with a second-place time of 2:09:56, just a second behind the Olympic record that had stood before this evening. Charles Spedding of Britain was third in 2:09:58. Lopes had won the world cross-country championship and had world-class success at 10,000 meters. But that did not explain how a 37-year-old loan officer from a Lisbon bank could run away from the best-known and most successful marathoners in the world to win his nation's first gold medal in track and field. Especially since he had suffered minor injuries on his left leg and arm after being hit by a car less than a month ago. ''There is no explanation,'' Lopes said. ''That's how it is.'' While the capacity crowd at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum waited for a field that included the dominant names of the last several years, it first saw Lopes emerge from the tunnel at the southwest corner of the stadium.

Japan's celebrated effort to catapult the nation to the world lead in creating computers that think like human beings - producing machines that can reason like a lawyer or simulate a doctor's deductive diagnostic skills, for example - is running into stumbling blocks. The goal, which was announced in 1981 under the name of the Fifth Generation project, is to develop a technology for artificial intelligence that would enable computers to move beyond existing limitations that largely restrict them to performing numerical problems at the orders of humans.For example, in a radical departure from traditional computers, the devices developed would be quite simple to use. People could speak to them or use regular language rather than having to learn special computer language. Those lofty ambitions have put Japan's technological pride on the line, and the project has become a test of whether the nation can innovate, rather than merely improve on ideas developed elsewhere. ''This is as close as Japan has come to a put-a-man-on- the-moon project,'' said George E. Lindamood, a technology watcher for the Burroughs Corporation in Tokyo.