What was going on when I was born?

''Before the people of Deaf Smith County will glow in the dark, sparks will fly.'' - Gov. Mark White of Texas, on possibility the state might be chosen for a nuclear waste dump. (A24:1.)

Abolishing Federal income-tax deductions for local and state taxes would cost New Yorkers $6 billion a year by 1986, the state's top officials said yesterday in bipartisan denunciation of the proposal by the Treasury. ''New York's efforts to rationalize its own taxes would be devastated,'' said Governor Cuomo, a Democrat. ''It would have a terrible anticompetitive effect,'' said Comptroller Edward V. Regan, a Republican. ''It violates the first principle of government to put a tax on taxes,'' said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat.

Ministers of the 13 OPEC countries adjourned a first round of formal talks on pricing today that has thus far yielded only a stern admonition to North Sea oil producers not to undermine OPEC prices. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' formal winter talks began with the conference president, Indonesia's oil minister, Subroto, warning North Sea oil producers that any attempt to link the price of their crude to spot, or non-contract, prices would ''destabilize the market'' and upset the ''delicately balanced world oil price structure.'' Subroto told reporters after the meeting that the ministers would take up discussion of a shift in price differentials, the only concrete proposal put forth thus far to support flagging crude oil prices, when the talks resume on Thursday. Seek to Halt Decline The foremost goal of the oil ministers is to halt the continued decline of crude oil prices that has resulted from slack demand brought on by usually mild weather in the Northern Hemisphere, increased oil conservation and slow economic activity in many parts of the world. The 13 members of the organization last met in emergency session in late October, agreeing then to slow the flow of OPEC oil and stabilize prices in a market softened by oversupply.

The Reagan Administration's effort to impose tight secrecy on the next mission of the space shuttle reflects both an urge to protect national security and what some intelligence specialists see as a broader, long-term drive to curb the flow of information on such issues to the public. Former Government officials support the Administration's assertions that this country has a legitimate need to keep Moscow in the dark about its satellite technology. But they quickly add that by making such a highly publicized shift to secrecy in the civilian space program, the Administration has provoked a foreseeable reaction and may have undermined its stated goal of denying Moscow information about a new generation of American intelligence satellites. The Administration has drawn attention to the shuttle flight for Jan. 23, they say, thus alerting Moscow to its importance and, in effect, inviting closer scrutiny from the press. Beyond that, the episode has touched off a political controversy over how far the Government should go in putting pressure on the press to protect security information without crimping the policy debate on arms in space. This echoes earlier controversies over the Administration's efforts to tighten up on policies and practices it inherited.

WASHINGTON IRVING, serving as the American Minister to Spain, wrote in 1843 to his niece Sara Irving in Tarrytown, N.Y.: ''I thought of you all at dear little Sunnyside on Christmas Day, and heartily wished myself there to eat my Christmas dinner among you. I hope you kept up Christmas in the usual style, and that the cottage was decked with evergreens. You must not let my absence cause any relaxations in the old rules and customs of the cottage: everything must go on the same as it did when I was there.'' Even today, Washington Irving could step into Sunnyside - his picturesque, Dutch-style cottage on the banks of the Hudson - and find it dressed for the season much as it was when he lived there. At Sunnyside and other historic houses open to the public in the New York area, Christmas decorations are today as in Christmases past: many historic preservation societies trim the interiors with period decorations corresponding to the time of the house.

The first event ever held in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York - yesterday's topping-out ceremony - turned into a celebration of the project itself, and, considering the possibilities, who could be surprised? Mayor Koch, casting a glance across a four-block-long lobby, told a crowd of several hundred that he looked forward to all the events he would be attending in the giant structure and to the ''millions of dollars'' it would bring to the coffers of the city and the state. Governor Cuomo spoke of it spearheading an ''urban transformation'' on the West Side. And a half dozen other officials lauded what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan termed the ''renaissance creativity'' employed by I. M. Pei in designing the center and the $2.3 billion a year in spending and 31,000 jobs that center officials say the project will generate either directly or indirectly. The construction problems that have plagued the project for more than a year appear to be over. But beyond the pluses that the project will almost certainly bring to the city, the center raises many questions about the often maligned public-development process in New York.

Unicef reported today that its effort to revolutionize children's health care, begun two years ago, was starting to save lives in dramatic numbers. It said there was now hope that over the next 10 to 15 years, infant death rates in many third world countries could fall by as much as 5 percent or more a year. The report, which is issued annually, was made public in London today. It comes at a time when 15 million children in Africa, Asia, and South America are thought to die each year - about 40,000 a day - from malnutrition, measles, tetanus and other vaccine-preventable diseases because of a lack of basic health services.

A article in Business Day on Tuesday about Conrail incorrectly described Colin Pease. He is a lobbyist for Guilford Industries but is not a lawyer.

IN one synagogue, the workshop was called ''The December Dilemma,'' in another, ''The Hanukkah-Christmas Question,'' and in many places, it was given no name. But the topic - the problem of the holidays for partners in interfaith marriages - has increasingly been the focus of workshops organized by major national organizations such as the American Jewish Committee and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations as well as by individual congregations. Across the country Jews and their non-Jewish mates, relatives of intermarried couples, and partners in whom the non-Jewish spouse has converted have been gathering to grapple with the problems posed for them by the convergence of two holidays: Christmas, a major event of the Christian year, which suffuses the atmosphere everywhere, and Hanukkah, a theologically less important but festive Jewish holiday, celebrated in the home. This year, Christmas and the last of the eight days of Hanukkah will coincide.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1984 The Economy A $1 monthly surcharge will be added to phone bills of residential and single-line business telephone customers starting June 1 as a result of action taken by the F.C.C. The telephone industry has argued that access charges are necessary so long-distance rates, which the industry contends have subsidized local service, could be reduced. The measure was supported by long-distance phone companies, but reaction was mixed by members of Congress and consumer groups contended that the charge was unfair. (Page A1.) The economy is expanding at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the current quarter, the Commerce Department's ''flash'' estimate of gross national product showed. The rate is faster than most analysts had been expecting but was less than robust and far below the booming gains of the first half of the year. (D1.)

The United States announced today that it would withdraw from Unesco at the end of this month. It said the agency had largely failed to meet American demands that it rid itself of mismanagement, politicization and ''endemic hostility'' toward a free press, free markets and individual human rights. The United States, which contributed 25 percent of this year's $187 million budget for Unesco - the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - told the 161-country, Paris- based group a year ago that it would pull out if changes were not made. In announcing the withdrawal today, Gregory J. Newell, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, said that while Unesco had made some effort to change, ''an unacceptable gap clearly remains.'' He added that an observer team would keep an eye on the agency with the hope that enough changes would eventually be made to permit the United States to rejoin.

The Federal Communications Commission today unanimously authorized the nation's 1,400 local telephone companies to add a $1 monthly charge to the phone bills of residential and single- line business telephone customers starting June 1, 1985. The fee will increase to $2 a month on June 1, 1986. State utility regulators were also given the option of adding up to 35 cents a month to the so-called access charge, which is intended to pay for connection to the local telephone network. The $1 charge, which is expected to add $80 million a month to phone bills nationwide, is part of an effort begun several years ago to shift to local telephone customers more of the costs for local equipment used in completing calls.