What was going on when I was born?

''In view of the projected developments, in which I cannot possibly participate, as of today I terminate my services as President of the Republic, resigning from the rest of my term.'' - Constantine Caramanlis of Greece. (A1:6.)

Just south of the Brooklyn Bridge, hard by the Fulton Fish Market, a vast red steel-and- glass pavilion is rising on a newly rebuilt Pier 17. The pavilion, built at a cost of more than $45 million in public and private funds, is the largest structure in the South Street Seaport development. But as crews rush to finish construction by July, community groups are charging that they were misled by the private developer and a city agency and that despite promises of open public space, the project is little more than a shopping mall. When the three-story pavilion opens later this year, it will house about 120 stores, restaurants and cafes, many with a dramatic view of the Brooklyn Bridge and the harbor.

Doug Flutie put on his kind of show today. The best part came in the final period of the first home game of the season for the Generals before the largest crowd this team had ever attracted to Giants Stadium. Flutie did a little bit of everything as the Generals overcame a 10-point deficit and defeated the Los Angeles Express, 35-24. The 58,741 spectators were ecstatic and a cheer new to Giants Stadium, ''F-L-O-O-T-I-E,'' came forth.

Not long ago, the Langley Air Force Base outside Norfolk, Va., resolved to cut its long-distance phone bill. So telecommunications experts at the base began planning to have a microwave radio system installed to link the base directly to its long-distance carrier, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. That was bad news for the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia. For years, Chesapeake and Potomac had provided the base with local phone service, including access to long distance. Now, the military was proposing to bypass Chesapeake and Potomac, depriving the phone company of nearly $1 million a year in long- distance connection charges. The result was surprising. Rather than lose Langley's business entirely to a bypass company, Chesapeake and Potomac decided to enter the bypass business itself. It won a contract to build the link to A.T.&T. that the Air Force desired. The Air Force now leases that link from Chesapeake and Potomac.

He was built all wrong, with spindly ankles and thin calves that would never be able to support the heavyweight bulk above, except the bulk was hollow. It had no heart. He was a frightened boxer - the word often used was ''yellow'' - whom people remembered as trying to crawl out of the ring against Duane Bobick in an amateur bout in 1972. For seven years, Larry Holmes had this reputation. Seven years of famine, sleeping in the same cheap hotel rooms with his manager and trainer, Richie Giachetti. Seven years of sparring with Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and Earnie Shavers while fighting for the small bucks, with the detractors saying it was a waste of time. Gil Clancy suggested he should go back to driving a truck.

Reuters Holdings P.L.C. and Rich Inc. met in the office about 10 years ago. Now, they are engaged and expected to be married next month. The London-based news and information service agreed in late February to purchase Rich, a custom designer of telecommunications systems for financial trading rooms, for about $2 million in cash and $55.5 million in Reuters stock. Rich, which is based in Franklin Park, Ill., was founded by Anthony J. Rich in 1949. He is chairman; his son, Jerome A. Rich, is president.

Because of an editing error, a dispatch from Miami yesterday on an accident at Jackson Memorial Hospital that left a patient brain dead misidentified the head of the surgical team. He is Dr. James Ryan Chandler.

The Reagan Administration has heightened its efforts to transfer a wide range of public assets and programs to private enterprise, and it estimates that the changes will save more than $200 million a year by 1989. As a major part of this strategy, the Administration has identified 11,000 commercial activities to be performed by private contractors when economically feasible. These include movie making, health services, fire protection, medical laboratories, geological surveys, industrial shops, maintenance, landscaping, protective services, laundry and food services, data processing, and transportation. Entire Programs Considered At the same time, the Administration has intensified efforts to put entire programs in private hands. Officials contend that business and industry can often do a better, cheaper job than government in providing such services as rail transportation and space satellites, correctional facilities and low-income housing, health care and education.

The chief Soviet arms negotiator, arriving here with his delegation Sunday, said that Moscow's goal in renewed arms talks with the United States is ''preventing an arms race in space and terminating it on earth.'' In pointed contrast to the American negotiators' arrival statement, issued 28 hours earlier, which did not mention space, Moscow's chief negotiator, Viktor P. Karpov, stressed that the negotiations would deal with ''a complex of questions concerning nuclear and space arms in their interrelationship.'' The Soviet diplomat's language was borrowed almost verbatim from the Jan. 8 joint statement in which Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko announced the format for the new talks that are to begin here Tuesday. Highlighting Space Arms The Russians have treated that statement as a sort of semantic victory in their effort to highlight the issue of space weapons, which have become central to American military plans.

The apparent hurried return of three Kremlin officials from visits abroad signaled the possibility today that the Soviet leader, Konstantin U. Chernenko, had died. Solemn music on the radio and the cancellation of normal programming on morning television were also signs of a possible death in the Soviet leadership. Vitaly I. Vorotnikov, a member of the Communist Party Politburo, cut short by one day a visit to Yugoslavia, Eastern European sources said. They said he canceled a final visit to the Yugoslavian capital, Belgrade, flying directly home Sunday night from Titograd. He reportedly arrived in Moscow at 3 A.M.

Costly environmental disasters in recent years are leading the insurance industry to curtail pollution coverage. This leaves thousands of companies with little protection from damage claims and confounds the Government's ability to secure payment for the nation's toxic-waste bill. In the past six months, nearly all major insurers have decided to reduce or eliminate pollution policies, insurance officials say. The small amount of pollution insurance that remains often carries rates two to five times higher and at reduced coverage. Adverse court cases, general underwriting losses and multibillion-dollar claims - from toxic-dump pollution to asbestos exposure to a Dec. 3 chemical accident that killed more than 2,000 people in Bhopal, India - have spurred the insurance industry's action, company executives say.

A suicide bomber slammed a car into an Israeli Army convoy in southern Lebanon today, killing 12 soldiers and wounding 14. The attack was the biggest single blow against the Israeli forces in Lebanon since a similar bombing blew up a building used as an Israeli intelligence center in Tyre in November 1983. That attack left 80 people dead, including 43 Israeli soldiers and other officials. May Have Been Retaliatory The bombing today was believed to be a retaliation for an explosion last Monday in the Shiite Moslem resistance stronghold of Marakah that killed the two key Shiite guerrilla leaders in the south, Mohammed Saad and Khalil Jeradi.