What was going on when I was born?

International OPEC agreed to cut its production ceiling by 1.5 million barrels a day, to 16 million. But the producers' group, meeting in an emergency session in Geneva, has failed so far to solve the knotty problem of distributing the cuts. Analysts expressed skepticism that the move would represent a real decrease from current output. And when demand rises, they said, it is unclear that OPEC members could stick to the lower quotas without cheating. Some traders accused the group of trying to prop up prices with rhetoric. (Page A1.) The Economy The F.C.C. reached agreement with state regulators to halve the access fee for residential telephone service, according to regulatory and Congressional sources. The fee, which would be reduced to $1 a month, has been criticized as a way of shifting telephone costs from businesses to households. (D1.)

The President's Commission on Organized Crime last week treated the galleries to the melodrama of which gangster B movies are made. Its hearings on the operations of Asian crime groups in the United States were enlivened by anonymous witnesses who, hidden under monklike hoods, testified behind screens and spoke into electronic voice scramblers to protect their identities. Investigators, without offering further evidence, identified as organized-crime figures a Chinatown businessman and the former Prime Minister of South Vietnam, neither of whom is known to have any criminal record. Purpose of Forums Historically, such performances have been dismissed by some officials as mere theatrics aimed less at eliciting information than serving as forums to present for public consumption what investigators have learned. Sometimes, that type of forum helps create a constituency for legislative and law-enforcement solutions. Similar hearings have been denounced by others for trampling the civil liberties of targets who have little recourses to defenses.

Walter Burr is worried. He has got the crow-quill plectrum licked. He has found a good supplier of boar bristles. He even knows where to find a dealer in Swiss spruce, which grows only at 3,000-foot altitudes. But what worries Mr. Burr is the wire.

Philip Caldwell, the chairman and chief executive of the Ford Motor Company, announced today that he would retire next year and that his successor would be Donald E. Petersen, the company's president and chief operating officer. Mr. Caldwell said he would step down as head of the nation's second- largest car maker on Feb. 1, four days after his 65th birthday. Ford has never had a mandatory retirement policy. Henry Ford - who founded the company, invented the Model T and pioneered the modern assembly line - was in his 80's when members of the Ford family forced him to retire during World War II.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries today agreed to cut its oil production by 1.5 million barrels a day, to 16 million, to bolster dropping prices. But the group failed to agree after a day of talks on the critical issue of how to distribute the cuts among its members. The decision to cut production was greeted with skepticism by many oil analysts, who said the 13 OPEC nations are already producing 1.5 million barrels a day less than their agreed-upon production ceiling of 17.5 million barrels because of an oversupply of oil. Thus the agreement to cut production to 16 million barrels is meaningless, the analysts said, at least until demand rises substantially during the winter. Problem of Members' Cheating When demand does rise, they added, it is unclear whether OPEC's member nations will be able to stick to their new lower quotas without cheating - a continuing problem that helped cause the current oversupply of oil.

President Reagan drew noisy, emotional responses from both supporters and protesters today as he opened the final week of a re-election drive that, his aides said, would concentrate on the traditional Democratic strongholds of the Northeast and Middle West. Mr. Reagan's advisers asserted that his current lead in the opinion polls made it possible for him to try for a 50- state victory and for heavy Republican inroads in Congress. The visit today to this economically ailing and heavily Democratic state, which has only six electoral votes, was described as part of the strategy. He Will Visit Industrial Areas After spending Tuesday and Wednesday at the White House, Mr. Reagan plans a final swing through economically troubled industrial sections of the Middle West, with forays into parts of the South and into the Middle Western farmlands.

David C. Cole, who helped develop Ashton-Tate Inc. into one of the leading personal computer software companies, resigned as chairman and chief executive yesterday in a move that surprised the industry. The resignation, which is effective next Monday, comes only two months after Mr. Cole became chairman, succeeding George Tate, one of the company's co-founders, who died in August. It also comes at a time when the company's profits have been sagging under the weight of a fierce marketing battle pitting its new product, Framework, against the archrival Lotus Development Corporation's Symphony. Ashton-Tate, based in Culver City, Calif., said Mr. Cole, who is 32 years old, was leaving to take a ''key executive post with a major East Coast corporation.'' Carmelo J. Santoro, an outside director of Ashton-Tate, will become interim chairman, the company said.

THE policy that led to the release of most of the nation's mentally ill patients from the hospital to the community is now widely regarded as a major failure. Sweeping critiques of the policy, notably the recent report of the American Psychiatric Association, have spread the blame everywhere, faulting politicians, civil libertarian lawyers and psychiatrists. But who, specifically, played some of the more important roles in the formation of this ill-fated policy? What motivated these influential people and what lessons are to be learned? A detailed picture has emerged from a series of interviews and a review of public records, research reports and institutional recommendations. The picture is one of cost-conscious policy makers, who were quick to buy optimistic projections that were, in some instances, buttressed by misinformation and by a willingness to suspend skepticism.

Under this heading, The Times amplifies articles or rectifies what the editors consider significant lapses of fairness, balance or perspective. A dispatch from Rome on Saturday described details of secret testimony given in 1982 and 1983 by Mehmet Ali Agca about a 1980 plot to assassinate Lech Walesa, the leader of Solidarity.

Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan, ending a months-long abstention from criticism of monetary policy, said today that the Federal Reserve should let interest rates drop further. In a speech to 5,000 savings bankers here, Mr. Regan also spelled out some of the Treasury's goals for changes in Federal deposit insurance for banks and thrift institutions. One such goal, said Mr. Regan, would be to ''permit experiments with state and private insurance systems.'' An aide said later that, in view of recent banking problems, the deposit insurance issue was becoming the most important item of the Administration's agenda for deregulation of the nation's financial institutions.

As Walter F. Mondale reaches the finale of his quest for the Presidency, his mood and campaign are tenaciously upbeat in the face of polls that show a widening lead for President Reagan. Taking note of the large and buoyant crowds he has been drawing, Mr. Mondale and his closest aides voice confidence that, in the week ahead, the Democratic Presidential candidate will spark the biggest political upset since 1948. Mr. Mondale constantly evokes the name of Harry S. Truman, the 1948 winner who also was behind in the polls. The other day Mr. Mondale removed a cigar from his mouth before photographers began snapping. ''Truman didn't smoke cigars,'' he said.

A majority of the Federal Communications Commission has agreed with state regulators that the F.C.C. should halve, to $1 a month, its proposed access charge on residential telephone service, Congressional aides and state and Federal regulators reported today. How long the charge would remain at $1 or when it might rise remained open to question. A $2 charge is scheduled to take effect in June 1985. Earlier this year the F.C.C., bowing to consumer and Congressional pressures, postponed the charge until then.