What was going on when I was born?

North Korean troops and soldiers of the United Nations Command opened fire on each other Friday in a clash that erupted over an apparent defection by a Soviet citizen at the Demilitarized Zone. It was the most serious incident at the Panmunjom truce village in eight years. At least two North Korean soldiers and one South Korean were reported killed, and an American soldier, identified as Pfc. Michael A. Burgoyne, 20 years old, of Portland, Mich., was wounded. A military spokesman said Friday night that the condition of the American soldier was ''stable.''

The Administration said today that ''mutual restraint'' in such areas as the deployment of new nuclear missiles in Europe would be an appropriate item for discussion when arms control talks are renewed with the Soviet Union. A spokesman for President Reagan made the comment in response to reports that the Administration had already decided to slow the rate of deployment of the Pershing 2, one of two types of medium-range missiles that are being installed in Western Europe. ''There are no preconditions and no change in our deployment schedule,'' said the spokesman, Marlin M. Fitzwater. ''We do, however, believe that mutual restraint is an appropriate item in the talks.''

Doctors in Louisville, Ky., said last night that they had selected a 52-year- old man to be the recipient of the second permanent artificial heart and that they planned to implant it in him Sunday morning. The man, William J. Schroeder, is a retired quality assurance specialist and Army ammunition depot worker from Jasper, a town in southern Indiana. He and his wife, Margaret, have been married 32 years and they have six children, ranging in age from 19 to 31, and five grandchildren. Mr. Schroeder (pronounced SHRAY- der) is recuperating from gall bladder surgery he underwent Nov. 17, one day after he was unanimously chosen for an artificial heart by a selection committee at Humana Heart Institute International, where the operation is be performed at 8 A.M. Eastern standard time.

Delegates to Unesco said here today that a decision by Britain to withdraw from the agency unless major changes were made could threaten Unesco's survival in the long term. In announcing the plan, the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, told Parliament that Britain was not satisfied that it was getting its money's worth from the agency, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. He said Britain intended to quit by 1985 unless there was clear evidence the agency was moving to change itself. The move, combined with a decision by the Reagan Administration to leave the organization next month, is regarded as the most intense attack ever made by member nations on a part of the United Nations system.

Regular ferryboat service between New York and New Jersey would resume after nearly two decades under a proposal being completed for the Port Authority. ''The decision will be reached in the next two to three months,'' Alan Sagner, the chairman of the agency's Board of Commissioners, said in an interview. ''I'm a little concerned about saying it's for sure, but that's my conclusion based on the data they've given me so far.'' Mr. Sagner said that passenger ferry service could begin in 1987 and that a full complement of four boats could be plying the Hudson River between Hoboken and Battery Park by 1988.

There are still the scenes of horror: a mother who thrusts her baby at a visitor so that he may better view the baby's loose flesh, covered with sores, and the infant's sunken, yellowed eyes. There are the old men, sitting on the ground, their faces vacant, looking as if they are waiting for the dust to claim them. There are the rows of wasted bodies covered with ragged shrouds and innumerable flies, the dawn harvest of another night of hunger in this northeast African nation. But that is no longer the only kind of scene a visitor sees in Makale, the site of one of Ethiopia's largest famine refugee populations, about 300 miles north of the capital of Addis Ababa.

It can't perform bar mitzvahs or say a blessing over the wine, but the computer at Bar Ilan University is nonetheless challenging the traditional role of the rabbi as teacher and sage. The Bar Ilan IBM 3081 computer has been programmed for action by the Responsa Project team at Bar Ilan's Center for Computers and Jewish Heritage. So far it has ''memorized'' all the major works of responsa - Jewish legal questions and answers - and only recently completed ''learning'' the 36- volume Babylonian Talmud, which is the authoritative version of the Talmud, plus the Old Testament and, just for fun, the life works of the Nobel Prize-winning Israeli author S. Y. Agnon. Now it is working its way through the code of Maimonides and the Midrash commentaries on the Bible. ''For the first time,'' said Yaacov Choueka, director of the Responsa Project and a professor of computer sciences, ''the scholar in Jewish studies, the historian, the lawyer, the linguist or the rabbi will have immediate access to an enormous amount of information on any topic of Jewish interest that before would have either been impossible to collect manually or taken years. This will release the rabbis and scholars to devote the best part of their time to truly creative work. Our aim is to eventually put all of Jewish culture on computer.''

In what Washington describes as an attempt to counter countries that unabashedly subsidize their exports, the United States is using funds intended for foreign aid to reduce the price of American exports. About a month ago, the United States allocated $4.2 million, which was to have helped the southern African country of Botswana buy commodities, to reduce the interest rate that Botswana will pay on a loan if it buys locomotives from the General Electric Company or the General Motors Corporation. If Botswana signs the contract for the locomotives, it will get the $4.2 million, which it can apply to the financing costs. This is the first mixed credit - so called because foreign aid is mixed into a loan - that the United States has offered, aside from an experimental program confined by legislation to Egypt.

This northern mountain city, known for its cautious Roman Catholicism, sweet Alpine air and a love of peace and quiet, has become the center of charges of dark international conspiracies. The accusations involve drugs and arms, possibly even atomic bombs. Late last week 37 people were indicted in the case - 25 Italians, 9 Turks, 2 Syrians and an Egyptian. They were accused of providing missiles, tanks and other weapons to countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Ten people were injured today in violence on picket lines near struck coal mines, and the National Coal Board said 800 more miners had abandoned their eight-month-old walkout and returned to work. Seven policemen and three pickets were hurt outside mines in Scotland, Wales and Yorkshire, the police said.

A former Swazi Finance Minister, Sishayi S. Nxumalo, was detained by the police for questioning Thursday, sources close to his family said here today. Mr. Nxumalo was dismissed as Finance Minister in June, shortly after he charged that unidentified prominent figures in Swaziland were implicated in a $10.4 million customs fraud.

A majority of the West German Cabinet is now opposed to signing an international convention on controlling the use of the sea and its resources, a senior aide to Chancellor Helmut Kohl said this week. The United States has already announced it will not sign the accord, known as the International Law of the Sea Convention, and Bonn Government officials disclosed last month that President Reagan, in a letter to Mr. Kohl, had strongly urged West Germany to refrain as well because of provisions governing seabed mining. Five Common Market countries - France, Denmark, Greece, Ireland and the Netherlands - have signed the convention; three others - Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg - are understood to be awaiting a West German decision before committing themselves.