What was going on when I was born?

The Senate Budget Committee, on a straight party-line vote, approved a deficit reduction package tonight that would sharply lower projected military spending and eliminate for one year a cost-of-living increase for Social Security. The package would end some domestic programs and cut, but not abolish, many others that President Reagan wanted to eliminate. The plan, which would cut $55.1 billion from the projected deficit in 1986 and $296.7 billion over three years, includes no tax increases. Intense Negotiations The 11-to-9 vote, with one Republican and one Democrat voting present, followed a day of intense negotiating among the 12 Republican members of the committee, led by the chairman, Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, in an effort to break an impasse and get a plan out of the committee to the Senate floor. Earlier today, Mr. Reagan accused the committee of a ''full-scale retreat'' from the battle to reduce domestic spending and warned that he would veto any tax increase Congress might pass this year.

In the middle of a week when highly ornamented, decorative clothes were the norm, Giorgio Armani brought cheers with his showing of strictly tailored coats and suits. There were indeed some fanciful evening styles, but it was mainly the fabrics that were ornate. The evening cuts were simple and the designer maintained that they should be worn in a casual manner, much like his daytime styles. The collection was presented Tuesday night in the theater of the palace on the Via Borgonuovo, where the designer lives. At the end, the models posed in a double-tiered stage set, each in her own cubicle. The designer stepped to center stage and the audience exploded. The collection introduced a classic note to the wildly exuberant mood of the fall ready-to-wear shows and it was appreciated. Classic, for Armani, is not boring. The designer who popularized the oversize blazer after he started his business 10 years ago has other tricks up his sleeve.

It took the investigators looking into the collapse of E.S.M. Government Securities Inc. less than hour to discover that, for nearly a decade, the firm had hidden hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in an affiliated dummy company. But trying to determine precisely how the money was lost - and how E.S.M. operated - has led the investigators into a complex tangle of records providing no clear answers. But one persistent, puzzling question is how Marvin L. Warner, an unusually savvy and successful entrepreneur, could have been caught up in the E.S.M. web. Throughout the firm's nine-year history, there are strong and continuing links between Mr. Warner and Ronald Ewton, the 42-year-old founder of E.S.M. Mr. Warner, 65, is a politically influential man who is prominent in Florida and Ohio, as well as in his native Alabama. Mr. Warner initially made his fortune in home building, and then ventured into banking and professional sports. (Once a part owner of the New York Yankees, he is now the principal owner of the Birmingham Stallions football team.) A Democrat who supported his party financially, Mr. Warner was Ambassador to Switzerland from 1977 to 1979.

THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1985 International A Bush-Gorbachev meeting in Moscow that lasted 85 minutes prompted the Vice President to say he believed ''we can move forward with progress.'' The official Soviet press agency Tass said that Mr. Gorbachev, the new Soviet leader, had affirmed his readiness ''to work in practice'' to improve relations with the United States. (Page A1, Col. 6.) Chopin's funeral march echoed across Red Square as Konstantin U. Chernenko was buried in the Kremlin. The ceremony was rich in pomp and Russian circumstance. (A1:4-5.)

A dispatch from Austin on Feb. 25 about Republicans' political gains in Texas incorrectly described the move by two former Congressmen - Kent Hance and Jack Hightower - into law practice. They have joined an existing firm, Boyd, Veigel, Gay & McCall.

The mournful strains of Chopin's Funeral March echoed across Red Square once again today as Konstantin U. Chernenko was laid to rest beside the Kremlin wall. Once again, members of the ruling Politburo mounted the Lenin Mausoleum to part with one of their own in the now-familiar ceremony rich in pomp and Russian circumstance. Mr. Chernenko, who died Sunday at the age of 73, was interred in the row of graves where Yuri V. Andropov had been buried 13 months earlier and Leonid I. Brezhnev 15 months before that. Gorbachev Eager to Move On This time, the mourners were led by the youngest man to take charge of the Kremlin since the early Soviet rule. Today, as he did on being selected Monday, Mikhail S. Gorbachev showed himself a man eager to move on.

At a 9:30 A.M. meeting in the Oval Office on Monday, President Reagan conveyed two thoughts to his senior aides concerning his Administration's relations with the new Soviet leadership. The first was that he was reluctant to fly to Moscow for the funeral of Konstantin U. Chernenko, the Soviet leader, who died on Sunday night - partly because of his schedule and partly because he was uneasy that a quick trip to the Soviet Union would be construed, according to one aide, as ''grandstanding'' and ''gimmicky.'' The second opinion expressed by Mr. Reagan, according to a White House official, was that he ''wanted something other than a bland letter'' to be presented from him to Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the new Soviet leader. Invitation Decided Upon ''In the Monday morning meeting the strategy developed to send a personal letter to Gorbachev to cover our desire for an improvement in relations, our assessment of the progress made to date and an outreach in the form of an invitation to Gorbachev to come to Washington for a visit when he was ready,'' one White House official said.

The Economy Retail sales in February jumped 1.4 percent from January in their biggest increase since November. Demand for new cars remained strong and department store sales rebounded. The credit and stock markets took a negative view of the report, apparently fearing that the Fed would not ease credit. (Page D1.) Sales of new American-made automobiles increased 3.3 percent in the March 1-10 period from last year. (D4.)

MORE space, differently organized space, one's own space - it seems to be the universal litany of the city dweller today. In apartments of fixed size, people want more: they want to have both work and living areas yet maintain separate public and private spaces. To these apparently impossible requests, architects and designers have responded with some imaginative solutions: A 900-square- foot one-bedroom apartment, for example, was redesigned to yield two private offices and a large open area for entertaining. A standard L-shaped studio became a pied- a-terre that can function for family life as well as for business meetings. And the redesign of a clumsily shaped loft produced a lively, idiosyncratic scheme that includes a work area as well as four bedrooms. Melinda Blau, a partner in a product development firm, who had recently moved out of a 4,000-square-foot loft, was looking for a place to share with her 12-year-old son, Jeremy, and 15-year-old daughter, Jennifer, as well as her business associate, Pamela Serure. Mrs. Blau was clear on her necessities - four bedrooms, an office, a large kitchen, an open living area, plenty of light and lots of storage room.

The Coastal Corporation increased its offer for the American Natural Resources Corporation yesterday and appeared to be near agreement on a $2.5 billion merger. If completed, the merger would create the second-biggest gas pipeline complex in the country. It would provide for American's stockholders to receive $65 a share, $5 a share more than Coastal offered when it began its takeover bid two weeks ago. In Detroit, employees of American, many of whom were visibly upset by the news, were said to have been told that the deal had been completed but that the official announcement would not be made until today. American called a news conference for this morning to issue the announcement.

For the Bradford Trust Company, last week's closing of E.S.M. Government Securities of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was a nightmare revisited. Only four months earlier, Bradford disentangled itself from the collapse of the Lion Capital Group - another government securities dealer for which it acted as clearing agent - at a loss of $13 million. As a clearing bank that specialized in sending and receiving money and securities for smaller government securities dealers, Bradford Trust was a small part of the giant Treasury market. Over all, the clearing of Treasury securities and tax-exempt bonds was only about a fifth of Bradford revenues and had not been profitable recently.

HIDDEN behind the marble, glass and glitter of Trump Tower stand two homely wooden tanks, hand fashioned from redwood staves and girdled with galvanized iron hoops. The water tanks are the work of David and Scott Hochhauser, two New York tankmen who maintain a craft that has resisted architectural whims and fancies since the last century, when their great-grandfather opened a workshop on the Lower East Side. In odd moments and from odd angles, millions of New Yorkers have pondered the tanks and towers that are landmarks on the city's skyline. Millions more depend on the wooden tanks for their drinking water. But few know the story behind what may be the city's least understood and most overlooked structures.