What was going on when I was born?

Text of statement, page 6. MOSCOW, Nov. 16 - Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, said today that she had returned to the Soviet Union because in her 17 years in the West she was never free for a single day and lived tormented by guilt and longing for her children in Russia. Miss Alliluyeva, who brought her American-born daughter with her when she returned after living for 15 years in the United States and two in England, said her decision was ''purely human'' and voluntary. She said she had contemplated coming back twice before. She said her final decision on Sept. 10, which was announced by the Soviet Union on Nov. 2, was prompted by the illness of her son and the loss of contact with her oldest daughter. Both are Soviet citizens.

In a week of startling images of the shuttle Discovery on a salvage mission in space, one stands out as a vision of the future: astronauts manipulating wrenches as they worked methodically in the cold void. They plucked satellites from orbit, wrestled them into the payload bay and bolted them into place. It was a mission that demonstrated the skills and daring needed for an impending era in which construction crews in spacesuits may be called on to erect platforms or stations or even whole vehicles while floating in space. This mission also highlighted a new physics of danger never faced by workers on earth.

A Salvadoran opposition leader said today that the insurgents were willing to modify a longstanding policy of refusing to participate in elections until they gain a formal role in the Government. The opposition leader, Guillermo Ungo, head of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, the political wing of the guerrilla opposition, said in an interview here that the insurgents were prepared in principle to participate in elections organized by the Government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte. The Salvadoran Government and the Reagan Administration have repeatedly said that the guerrillas cannot gain a share of power unless they stop fighting and participate in elections. 'Right to Participate' Mr. Ungo said a political settlement of the Salvadoran civil war would be impossible unless the insurgents gained some share of power. But he said that the exact shape of their involvement remained open to negotiation and that their participation in elections was not necessarily contingent on their gaining a share of power.

Reagan Administration officials have set an objective of driving the annual Federal deficit below $150 billion by 1988, high level officials said today. To reach that goal, the officials said, the Administration budget would have to propose deep cuts in such domestic programs as Medicare, civil service retirement, student loans and farm subsidies. Specific options for spending cuts to reach the target by the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1988, will be presented to President Reagan after his Thanksgiving vacation in California. No Balanced Budgets Sought The projected deficits for this fiscal year and next are running at about $200 billion. Mr. Reagan has ruled out two possible ways to reduce them, raising taxes or cutting Social Security, and has expressed opposition to any slowing of military spending. Congress is expected to resist any proposal to slash domestic spending.

The Soviet leader, Konstantin U. Chernenko, called today for a return to the era of Soviet-American detente. He said this could open the way to ''broad possibilities for cooperation'' in such things as combating famine and protecting the world's environment. In answers to written questions submitted by an NBC News correspondent, Marvin Kalb, Mr. Chernenko also said that if the Reagan Administration was sincere, the way was open to resolving key arms-control questions. ''If the statements that are being made lately in Washington with regard to the desire to seek solutions to problems of arms limitation do not remain just words, we could, at last, start moving toward more normal relations between our two countries and toward a more secure world,'' Mr. Chernenko said.

The space shuttle Discovery, carrying the first two salvaged satellites, landed just after sunrise today in the successful conclusion of a mission that delighted officials of the shuttle program and sent satellite insurers ''absolutely over the moon.'' The winged spaceship soared out of the west into the blue of dawn, made a wide left turn out over the Atlantic and glided to a smooth touchdown on the long runway at the Kennedy Space Center a few seconds before 7 A.M. In the Discovery's eight days in orbit, the crew of five astronauts deployed two new communications satellites and, in daring space walks, retrieved two others that were misfired into useless orbits last February. The retrieved satellites, brought back in the cargo bay, are to be refurbished and sold for re-launching. 'A Spectacular Mission' ''We had a wonderful time up there doing a spectacular mission,'' said Capt. Frederick H. Hauck of the Navy, the mission commander, after the landing. Calling this ''a very historic day in the American space program,'' Jesse W. Moore, the shuttle program chief for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said that the salvage operation ''clearly demonstrated'' the ability of astronauts and machines to accomplish a wide range of tasks in orbit.

The Suffolk County Legislature this week voted to require seat belts in all new school buses starting in 1986. School officials in West Orange, N.J., took delivery of nine school buses equipped with seat belts in September. A school district in the Town of Brookhaven on Long Island bolted belts into 20 of its buses last summer. School buses in West Windsor, N.J., will begin getting buses with seat belts next year. These actions reflect a growing interest, prompted largely by pressure from parents, in requiring seat belts in the buses ridden by 22 million children across the country every school day. Some proponents see the movement as a natural complement to recently enacted laws in New York and New Jersey requiring the use of seat belts in private cars, the first such laws in the country.

Baby Fae died Thursday night, but her doctor said today that the operation in which she received a baboon's heart had advanced science and one day would save the lives of many children. The infant apparently died of complications that developed when her body rejected the transplanted heart. Dr. Leonard L. Bailey, the surgeon who performed the transplant operation, said at a news conference that he would attempt another baboon-to- human heart transplant. ''Baby Fae has opened new vistas for all, including the as-yet unborn infants with lethal heart diseases,'' he said. Parents Offered 'A Ray of Hope' Dr. Bailey thanked Baby Fae's parents for offering ''a ray of hope for the babies to come.'' He said her family felt ''the surgery was worth it'' and told him ''not to let this opportunity be wasted.''

When the workday begins, this small Chinese port on the Gulf of Tonkin takes on a distinctly Vietnamese air. Women in their conical Vietnamese- style straw hats unload the catch of shrimp and fish from trawlers at the dock. At an adjoining wharf, boat builders fashion Southeast Asian teakwood into traditional Vietnamese fishing craft. These Beihai fishermen and their families were Vietnamese boat people five or six years ago. Today, they are prosperous business people with a 706- boat fleet, an up-to-date packing plant and export contracts in Hong Kong.

The rector of an Argentine Roman Catholic university defied church authorities and awarded an honorary degree to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the jailed head of the Unification Church, at a ceremony in a United Nations dining room, the Vatican Mission to the United Nations said today. A United Nations spokesman said an investigation was under way to determine whether the organization's guidelines permitted the catering and security services that were provided for Thursday's ceremony.

Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish leader, made an unannounced visit to East Berlin today and met with Erich Honecker, the East German leader. No communique was issued about the visit, which came after General Jaruzelski's equally abrupt trip to Hungary last week. Some party members have privately suggested that the Polish leader wanted to assure his allies that he was in control after the killing of a pro-Solidarity priest in October.

Ethiopia's leader said today that he was grateful to the people of the United States and Europe for ''bringing pressure to bear on their governments'' to send emergency famine relief to this country. But he said the American aid would not lead to a thaw in relations with Washington. ''The differences that exist between Ethiopia and the U.S. do not emanate from the fact that we were not getting food aid,'' the Ethiopian leader, Lieut. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, said at a three-hour news conference at the end of the Organization of African Unity conference here.