What was going on when I was born?

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1985 The Economy Accounting firms will be scrutinized by Congress this week, when a House panel opens the first of a series of inquiries seeking to learn why some firms gave a clean bill of health to companies that subsequently faced severe financial difficulties. One proposal may be to ban accounting firms from providing both management consulting and audit services for the same client. (Page D1.)

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1985 International Aid to the Sudan is being reduced by countries in an effort to persuade President Gaafar al-Nimeiry to change his country's ailing economy. American officials said the United States had frozen its economic assistance, and that other countries, including Saudi Arabia, were curtailing their aid. (Page A1, Column 1.) Thousands of homeless squatters have contributed to the large population increase in Managua, Nicaragua's capital. Managua's population has grown from 600,000 to nearly 900,000 since the Sandinista Government came to power in 1979. Thousands of the new residents are living in ''spontaneous settlements'' indistinquishable from similar slums in Brazil and Peru. (A1:5.)

Eric Jacobs lives in what people like to call the last house in Israel: his backyard is nestled up against the rusty barbed wire border fence with Lebanon. In the days before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Palestinian gunners occasionally bounced 130-millimeter shells down the street leading to his home. Sitting in his living room this afternoon, a day after the Israeli Army completed the first phase of its three-part withdrawal from Lebanon, Mr. Jacobs described how peaceful the last two and a half years had been for him. After he had painted a picture of quiet nights and calm afternoon siestas, he was asked if he would have approved the pullout if he had been in the Cabinet and was required to vote. Mr. Jacobs fell silent for several moments, twisted the coffee mug in his lap and finally pronounced, ''I think so.'' Attitude Generally Shared By all appearances Mr. Jacobs is not at all alone among his northern neighbors, for whom Operation Peace for Galilee - the Israeli invasion of Lebanon - was originally undertaken. Random interviews with kibbutzniks and villagers on Israel's northern border indicate that the overwhelming majority of them are happy to see the Israeli Army getting out of Lebanon and many are ready to pay the price in terms of their own security.

Auditors who are entrusted to scrutinize the books of corporate America on behalf of investors and creditors will come under Congressional scrutiny starting Wednesday, when a House subcommittee opens what promises to be a long inquiry into the integrity of the big accounting firms. The hearings, before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, follow a successsion of well-publicized incidents in the past few years in which auditors gave a client's financial statements a clean opinion shortly before the company met with financial disaster. These incidents - including the run on the Continental Illinois National Bank and the collapse of the Penn Square Bank, the United American Bank and others - renewed concerns on Capitol Hill over whether competitive cost pressures and the expansion of major accounting firms into other businesses have eroded the effectiveness and independence of auditors. The incidents also raised questions about whether the Securities and Exchange Commission had delegated too much of its oversight responsibility to self-regulatory bodies.

Some states have sent governors, and some towns have sent roses. They are all pursuing what many economic development officials consider the catch of the 1980's: General Motors' $5 billion factory to build the future Saturn car model and the 6,000 to 15,000 jobs it will create. Braving the snow and ice here, more than a dozen governors have been ushered into a small, sparsely furnished conference room in the suburb of Warren, Mich. There, they have delivered sales pitches for their states and answered questions from officials who are deciding where to manufacture the company's answer to the imported models that dominate the small- car market. Governor Kean of New Jersey had his turn on Friday, and the manufacturer has appointments with at least five more governors, including Governor Cuomo.

''Most Americans are so uninformed about Southeast Asia they couldn't tell you whether Singapore is north or south of Hong Kong,'' said David W. Clark, head of Lydall Inc. of Manchester, Conn., as he paused over coffee to explain to a group of Thai reporters why he and hundreds of other foreign business executives had descended on Bangkok last week. Mr. Clark, whose company produces specialty fiber materials, filters and seals for industrial and medical use, is a member of the New York- based Young Presidents' Organization. Nearly 500 members of the international business group from more than 20 countries, with an equal number of spouses and friends, had come for a weeklong study session on Southeast Asian cultures and economies. Not everyone may have left here this weekend knowing the latitude of Singapore (it is south of Hong Kong), but they probably learned almost everything else, from how to plant rice and how to give alms to a Buddhist monk to the laws governing joint venture agreements in Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia.

Solid economic growth continued to bolster corporate profits in the fourth quarter, but the rising dollar on currency markets took a toll on profits in industries that depend on exports or compete significantly with imports. Over all, after-tax earnings probably were about the same in the fourth quarter as in the third quarter, after adjusting for seasonal differences. But they were still high by historical levels, not much below the record set in the first quarter of 1984 when the economy was roaring at an annual growth rate of more than 10 percent. According to a compilation by The New York Times of fourth-quarter earnings reports from 247 companies, 129 corporations showed improved profits compared with the same period the previous year (including 13 that were in the red in the 1983 period), 72 showed a decline in profits, 3 were unchanged and 35 posted a loss. No comparison could be made for 8 concerns.

THERE are enough bad backs, necks and shoulders on the PGA Tour to keep a good- sized staff of orthopedic surgeons busy for years to come. Fuzzy Zoeller, George Archer, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Ray Floyd, Jerry Pate and Seve Ballesteros are among the more prominent active players to have suffered from back pain and injury in recent years. These seven golfers also have something else in common: Each has won at least one of the four major tournaments - the Masters, the United States Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship. Zoeller became the most recent tour member to undergo surgery when he had a laminectomy last Sept. 25. The surgery entails the removal of all or part of the bony arch of a spinal vertebra. It was an abrupt and painful removal from the tour for the player who had scored one of the year's most popular victories when he won the Open at Winged Foot in June. Cheerful and quick-witted, Zoeller is a gallery favorite and always one of the biggest draws for any tournament.

In a three-and-a-half-hour operation, a 58- year-old Louisville man today became the third person to receive a permanent artificial heart. The dying heart of Murray P. Haydon was replaced with a plastic and metal device, the Jarvik-7, at Humana Hospital Audubon. When the surgery was over, Dr. William C. DeVries, who has performed all three implant operations, said today's was ''perfect, it couldn't have gone better.'' He Squeezed Wife's Hand Tonight, doctors described Mr. Haydon's condition as ''stable,'' and said at 6 P.M. that he squeezed his wife's hand as he awakened from the anesthesia. Mr. Haydon's was the fastest of the three implant operations. But Dr. Alan M. Lansing, the chief spokesman for the heart team, said the speed of the operation would not have a direct bearing on his recovery.

The curtain fell in the seventh round, just when it appeared that Ray Mancini might have been writing a happy ending to the sequel, ''Boom Boom II.'' It fell suddenly over Mancini's bloody and swollen left eye, through which he could not see, and erased any vision of an upset over Livingstone Bramble that would have allowed the 23-year-old to quit boxing as a world champion. Mancini, for the only time in two fights against Bramble, had been effective in the sixth round. After the seventh, though, he complained to his corner, ''I can't see.'' Blood was streaming from a nasty cut over his right eye - he needed 27 stiches to close four cuts - but it was the cut and swelling over the left that in effect ended the drama in what still was a magnificent 15-round fight.

It may be hard to imagine a company called the United Stockyards Corporation, whose stock symbol is ''COW,'' in Wall Street's fast lane. But Asher B. Edelman, the takeover specialist who controls United Stockyards, says he will make it run like a thoroughbred. Mr. Edelman, 45 years old, is a brash, and so far highly successful, new player in the corporate takeover game. Handsome, shorter than average and sturdily built, he has created what is said to be a fortune through his dealings - and has worked with equal determination to win a place in the high society worlds of art collecting and dance theater. While he has impressed financial analysts with his skill at creating unusually large profits, his recent takeover moves have left the experts wondering if his string of successes will hold out.

The faithful knew this would happen all along, didn't they? Eventually, the believers said, the Rangers would get healthy, find their scoring touch and play with some heart. After a season full of injuries, explanations and the dismissal of a coach, they would find a peak - somewhere, somehow. ''We shouldn't be in the position we're in,'' said their captain, Barry Beck. ''But we're in it. And now's the time to get out.''