What was going on when I was born?

Pope John Paul II issued one of his strongest condemnations of organized crime today, urging listeners in a southern Italian town to break ''the tragic chain of vendettas'' and end organized crime's code of silence. The Pope specifically used organized crime's traditional word ''omert a'' in referring to the code of silence. Speaking in the Calabrian coastal village of Paola, the Pope told a crowd ''to have the courage to wipe out omert a, which binds so many people in a type of squalid complicity dictated by fear.''

A State Supreme Court justice yesterday dismissed a manslaughter indictment against three transit police officers charged with the beating death of Michael Stewart, a 25-year-old Brooklyn artist. The dismissal was caused by a grand juror whose misconduct had ''permeated the entire presentation of this case,'' said the justice, George F. Roberts of Manhattan. Justice Roberts concluded that the panelist tainted the jury by conducting his own investigation of the death, which black activists have said resulted from a racially motivated beating. Mr. Stewart was black. The Manhattan District Attorney's office said it would present the case, one of the most contentious police- brutality cases in the city's history, to a new grand jury next week. If the officers are indicted again, the case probably would not go to trial until at least next summer, prosecutors said.

The stubbornly strong dollar has created a new watchword for the industrial Middle West. In the export-producing plants, the credo has become: Automate or emigrate. For more than a year, the Caterpillar Tractor Company has been hanging on, waiting for the dollar to break and begin its slide. In the meantime, Caterpillar has allowed its profit margins on exports to become razor thin and, what may be worse, it has swallowed losses in an effort to maintain its overseas market share. Its thinking has been that once the dollar dropped and Caterpillar products became relatively cheaper overseas, export sales - and margins - would swell.

When Paul Simien returned home to Port Arthur 10 years ago after a stint in the Air Force, he passed up college for a job paying $12.41 an hour filling cans with motor oil at the big Texaco refinery here. He fully expected to work for Texaco Inc. until he retired. A year ago, with petroleum demand slumping, Texaco laid off Mr. Simien, probably for good. Since then he has been unable to find steady work and, at the age of 35, he rues the day he spurned college. ''You're nothing unless you've got a degree today,'' he said. ''Getting hired at Texaco was one of the worst things that ever happened to me.'' Mr. Simien's plight parallels what has happened to this region of southeast Texas, the Golden Triangle, the heart of the Gulf Coast's refining and petrochemical industry and the place where Texas's oil wealth began. It was in nearby Beaumont that a gusher was struck at the great Spindletop Field in 1901, ushering in Texas' oil era.

House and Senate conferees bogged down today in a dispute over aid to Nicaraguan rebels and gave up efforts to compromise on a spending bill until Tuesday. The money bill provides nearly $500 billion to finance most Federal Government operations for the fiscal year 1985, which began Monday. The deadlock upset Congressional plans to adjourn today for the year. House conferees insisted on a provision of the House bill that would cut off aid to rebels fighting the Sandinista Government of Nicaragua. But Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, evidently reflecting the views of the Administration, adamantly opposed the end of aid to the rebels, whom he has praised as ''freedom fighters.''

More than 80 East Germans have entered the West German Embassy in Prague, demanding asylum in West Germany, the Bonn Government said today. The Bonn Government spokesman, Peter Boenisch, declined to disclose the exact number of people occupying the embassy, saying the disclosure could complicate negotiations to bring about their release. But he said it was ''double the number that was originally reported, when the first number of about 40 came up.'' He added, ''Among these are more than 20 children, which makes the situation psychologically and otherwise difficult.''

The national unemployment rate remained virtually unchanged at 7.3 percent in September, continuing the pattern of the past several months, the Labor Department reported today. Private economists said the continued steadiness in the jobless rate had been expected because of the slowdown in the economic expansion that has been developing since last spring. The stability of the unemployment rate did not presage another recession in the next few months, the analysts said. ''There was little change in most labor market indicators from August to September,'' the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Janet L. Norwood, told the Joint Economic Committee of Congress.

The space shuttle Challenger, carrying seven people, the largest crew in the history of space flight, rose through clouds lighted by the rising sun today to begin an eight- day scientific mission in orbit of the earth. Early this evening, about three hours later than scheduled, Dr. Sally K. Ride, one of two women on board, used the spaceship's long robotic arm to shake loose balky solar panels on a $40 million energy-monitoring satellite and nudge it gently into orbit. Metal hinges on the panels had become stuck in the cold. Today's launching took place exactly one month since the Challenger's sister ship Discovery returned from its maiden flight, and put United States space program into a stepped-up phase in which it plans to launch one of its three working shuttles each month for the next 14 months, and 16 in 1986. Ambitious Experiments The energy-measuring satellite, which will be used to aid in the understanding of weather and climate, and several on-board manned experiments are designed to make this the most ambitious scientific mission in a decade for observing the earth and its resources. The flight is also to include the first space walk by an American woman, Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan.

Sixty British agents, including frogmen, raided a yacht and seized 10 tons of marijuana worth $6.25 million, customs officials said today.

The Times of London used to call itself ''the top people's paper,'' and not-so-top people used to complain about its stuffy self- importance. But as it approaches its 200th birthday on Jan. 1, The Times has shed its tailcoat and donned a sports jacket. Along with more sober articles, the paper's readers in the last few months have been treated to cash giveaways, to a long account of the state of Brigitte Bardot's psyche at 50 and to an exploration of the love life of Czar Alexander II of Russia. Now those who don't like the paper these days say that its grammar is slipping, that its foreign coverage is trivial, that it pays too much attention to sports, that it is as mesmerized by the royal family as that proverbial British proletarian, the man on the Clapham omnibus.

United States and allied forces in Western Europe have improved measures to protect the security of American nuclear weapons there, a senior Defense Department official said today. The official, in a Pentagon briefing for reporters, said that seeking additional security improvements would be high on the agenda for a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers next week in Italy. The official asserted that threats to nuclear-weapons security by terrorists, political activists and Soviet commandos were increasing.

A Soviet official reiterated today that until the West removed its new nuclear missiles from Europe, there would be no arms limitation negotiations with the United States. The official, Vladimir Petrovsky, head of the international affairs department of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, said at the end of the first two weeks of the General Assembly debate that removal of the Pershing missiles was the ''only obstacle'' to such talks. Speaking at a news conference, Mr. Petrovsky promised a rich harvest of negotiations, once the weapons were withdrawn, on the limitation of nuclear and strategic arms, on chemical weapons and on banning the use of nuclear weapons in outer space.