What was going on when I was born?

Although the rhetoric sounded revolutionary, the suggestions by the Independent Commission on the Future of the State University of New York to give the university more autonomy represent an effort to bring higher-educational policies in New York State in line with those that are normal in most other major states. The recommendations come at a time when other states are moving in the direction of decentralization and when the economic and other consequences of such policies are becoming increasingly significant. ''Like it or not,'' said Harold L. Enarson, president emeritus of Ohio State University and co-chairman of the commission, ''New York and other states are involved in a high- stakes poker game to attract the country's top talent.'' In the report, released Wednesday, the 15- member panel painted a picture of the 370,000-student State Univerity of New York as an ''unfulfilled'' institution. The drive for academic excellence of the 64 individual colleges and universities has been hampered by ''overregulation,'' the panel said.

The pound's collapse during the past month is proving a painfully nostalgic experience for Britain - a poignant reminder of similar chances missed before and a sign that the nation's long history of economic decline is still not over. At the same time, however, a cheapening pound has once again offered Britain's business community a chance to sell more competitively abroad. After five years of rigorous Conservative rule, with inflation low and with North Sea oil revenues approaching their peak, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher finds herself striving to shore up the tumbling British currency with higher interest rates and promises of austerity to come, just as Prime Ministers Heath, Callaghan and Wilson did before her. Today the pound weakened further in the London foreign-exchange market, closing at $1.1195, although in later New York trading it rallied a bit, to $1.1210.

''I never saw a defense budget that couldn't be cut and I would expect the same would hold true this year.'' - Robert H. Michel, house minority Leader. (A15:1.)

The House Task Force on Elections will hold hearings on the merits of adopting a standard law on poll closing hours in national elections, leaders of the panel announced today. The stage was set for the hearings, the leaders said, when news executives of all three major broadcasting networks gave written commitments not to predict election results in any state until the polls had closed. Previously, only ABC News had announced such a policy.

Making a rare New York appearance, Saul Bellow will read from his works tonight at 8 in the Writer's Voice series at the West Side Y.M.C.A., 5 West 63d Street. Mr. Bellow, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for ''Humboldt's Gift'' and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, will answer questions from the audience after the reading, then attend a reception. Tickets are $10 and will be available at the box office starting at 5 P.M. The information number is 787- 6557. BENITA VALENTE RECITAL In her only New York recital this season, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art tonight at 8, the soprano Benita Valente will be joined by eight cellists, including Timothy Eddy, in a performance of the Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Villa-Lobos. She will perform with the harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper and Mr. Eddy in a seldom-performed Handel cantata, ''Lucrezia,'' and she will be accompanied by the pianist Cynthia Raim in songs by Schubert, Wolf and Rodrigo. Tickets: $15. The information number is 570-3949. WILDE AND WERFEL

American Airlines announced yesterday that it would offer deeper discounts - up to about 70 percent - on many of its fares but with tighter restrictions. Mike Gunn, vice president at American for passenger sales and advertising, who announced the new discounts at a news conference in New York, said ''this is a prudent, controlled move'' that would not lead to a fare war. While some airline analysts agreed, the stock market took a negative view. The AMR Corporation, American's parent, dropped $1.875, to $35.25, in active trading, and other carriers also plunged. (Page D3.)

Three internal audits of the military medical care system have reported serious deficiencies in appointing and evaluating doctors in the military. The audits also found that emergency rooms of military hospitals were often staffed by unqualified personnel, that lax drug-dispensing systems allowed some doctors to precribe drugs for themselves or for friends, and that poorly supervised physicians' assistants sometimes gave improper care without bothering to refer patients to doctors. Audits Raise Challenges The problems with military medical care have come to light as the Defense Department's top military and health officials focused renewed attention on the need to assure the quality of care dispensed in the military hospitals. The most serious challenges to the Defense Department's medical system were raised by the three internal audits. These audits, by the Defense Department's Inspector General, the Naval Audit Service and the Army Audit Agency, were completed last year and were made available this week by the office of Senator Jim Sasser, Democrat of Tennessee, who became interested in military medical care because of complaints from constituents.

Most of the mobile robots at I.B.M.'s sprawling personal computer plant here really earn their keep. The ones that pluck up just-completed PC's and PC-XT's work so fast they turn their six production lines into a blur of fast-moving gray boxes. Life is easier for the robots on the single production line dedicated to I.B.M.'s newest, most sophisticated personal computer, the PC-AT. They can take their time, and the finished computers pass by slowly enough so that even humans can read their serial numbers. But what is good news for these robots is not necessarily good news for the International Business Machines Corporation. While nearly every major corporation in America is clamoring for the new PC-AT - a much faster, more capable machine, whose initials stand for ''Advanced Technology'' - I.B.M. has discovered, to its surprise and chagrin, that it cannot make the new computers fast enough. So far advanced is the AT technology, in fact, that some of I.B.M.'s eager bevy of suppliers cannot keep up.

The Reagan Administration has expressed its concern to Israel about reports that some Ethiopian Jewish refugees have been settled in the West Bank, State Department officials said today. According to the officials, the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv was instructed to complain to the Israelis about reports that hundreds of the Ethiopian Jews - part of an airlift of some 10,000 - had been sent to the Kiryat Arba settlement outside Hebron in the West Bank. The United States has given Israel some $12.5 million for the resettlement expenses of new immigrants this fiscal year and Washington wants to make sure that none of the money is spent on enlarging Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Area Remains in Dispute The West Bank of the Jordan River, populated mostly by Palestinian Arabs, has been under Israeli control since it was captured from Jordan in the June 1967 war. Jordan seized the West Bank in 1948, and the area's sovereignty remains in dispute.

Gearing up for the $20 billion- a-year market for factory automation equipment envisioned in just five years, the Rockwell International Corporation announced yesterday that it had won an auction sale to buy the Allen-Bradley Company of Milwaukee with a sealed bid of $1.65 billion in cash. Allen-Bradley, a private company, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of industrial computers used to run production equipment and of computerized devices to operate machine tools. Almost 40 percent of its business comes from the automotive industry. As part of the deal, Claude R. Whitney, the 61-year-old chairman and chief executive of Allen-Bradley, and J. Tracy O'Rourke, 49, its president, would continue in those posts.

One day last spring, the Governor of Colorado, Richard D. Lamm, lapsed into a frustrated complaint about the soaring costs of medical care in the United States. It shocked many Americans. ''We've got a duty to die,'' he declared, referring to the terminally ill. ''To get out of the way.'' Some months later, at a conference in New York City on the ethical issues of medical care, Morris B. Abram, former chairman of a Presidential commission on medical ethics, put it more diplomatically.

Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan suggested today that the United States may have eased the conditions under which the Government would try to influence prices in the currency markets. Over the last four years of the rise of the dollar, the Administration has repeatedly said it would intervene in the market, by buying and selling currencies, when the markets turned ''disorderly'' following such shocks as the shooting of President Reagan in March 1981 or the run last May on the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago. Second Guideline Offered But today, in speaking to reporters after a meeting of the top economic officials of the world's major industrial countries, Mr. Regan offered a second guideline. ''Helpful is the other one,'' he said. ''We are willing to undertake coordinated intervention when we agree that it would be helpful.''