What was going on when I was born?

''History tells me,'' said the Afghan rebel commander, surveying the ruins of a string of villages from his command post here, ''that when the Russians come to a country they don't go back.'' ''Only if we fight them will they leave,'' he said, adding, ''Our sons will fight them until Afghanistan is free.'' The rebel commander, who identified himself as Mohammed Daoud, is a 21-year-old with long black hair who has been fighting the Soviet-backed Afghan Army for five years. He is leader to a band of about 50 men who are entrenched in the caves and ravines overlooking the area, once home to about 5,000 people. His group is one of 10 in the area that call themselves Mujahedeen, or ''holy warriors''; almost all of the men in the bands were born in this desert-like valley.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a surprise move, voted 9 to 8 today to prohibit the use of any foreign aid money for the rebels fighting the Nicaraguan Government. The vote came on an amendment to a $12.8 billion foreign aid bill that the committee approved late this evening. The amendment was proposed by Senator Claiborne Pell, Democrat of Rhode Island, who said it would not prevent the Administration from asking Congress for $14 million in covert aid to the rebels. That money, if approved, would be channeled through the Central Intelligence Agency and not through the State Department's foreign aid office.

THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1985 International Proposals for freer trade that the Reagan Administration sees as a cornerstone of the annual economic summit meeting of the leading industrialized democracies are being blocked by France, according to officials involved in preparing for the meeting. Paris reportedly will not set a firm date for trade talks unless the economic conferees call an international monetary conference to discuss ways to curb the volatility of the dollar. (Page A1, Column 3.) A huge explosion rocked Baghdad soon after Iran announced that its forces had launched a surface-to-surface missile in an attack against the Iraqi capital. The blast occurred in a heavily populated downtown area, and Western residents and Arab officials said that hundreds of civilians were injured. (A1:2.)

An investment group led by T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oilman, confirmed late yesterday that it had purchased 6.7 million shares of the Unocal Corporation at $48 a share, or $321.6 million. ''We made the purchase early in the day through Jefferies & Company,'' said David Batchelder, vice president of the Pickens-led Mesa Petroleum Company, which owns 90 percent of Mesa Partners II, the investment group. He was referring to the Los Angeles brokerage house that often handles trades for Mr. Pickens. With yesterday's purchase, Mesa Partners increased its stake in Unocal to 23.7 million shares, or about 13.5 percent of the oil company's total shares outstanding, from 16.8 million shares, or 9.7 percent of the stock outstanding. The purchase revived speculation that Unocal might be next in a long line of takeover targets for Mr. Pickens and Mesa.

The leader of the city's subway and bus workers raised the possibility yesterday of a transit strike at midnight Sunday, issuing the warning after he failed to get a commitment from state officials that his union's contract would be worked out through binding abitration. The labor leader, John E. Lawe, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, acknowledged in a telephone interview from Albany that he was backing down on a pledge made 10 days ago that the union would not strike when its contract expired Sunday night. ''I'm at a point that I'm not sure I can control the situation,'' he said. ''I regret that I can no longer live up to my commitment that there will not be a strike.''

A picture caption yesterday with a dispatch about the House vote on financing for MX missiles misidentified Paul Simon. He is a Senator from Illinois.

The most breathtaking feature of many new Manhattan residences is the price. Condominiums and cooperative apartments, some no larger than a single room, are selling for sums that would buy sprawling houses elsewhere in the country. Nonetheless luxury buildings are sprouting all over Manhattan, particularly on the East Side, and developers occasionally raise prices when they find sales proceeding too briskly. ''People have money, without a doubt,'' said Barbara Corcoran, president of the Corcoran Group Inc., a brokerage concern specializing in high-price apartments. Some of those people will live in Sterling Plaza, an elegant tower at 255 East 49th Street, which rises 31 stories above Second Avenue. Buyers there run the gamut.

A huge explosion occurred in downtown Baghdad today soon after Iran announced that it had launched a surface- to-surface missile in an attack against the Iraqi capital. Officials declined to discuss the blast, which occurred in a heavily populated sector of the city. But Western residents and Arab officials who declined to be quoted by name said ''hundreds'' of civilians had been wounded. The explosion was heard and its white smoke could readily be seen throughout this sprawling capital, which has a population of four million, but no independent confirmation of casualty estimates was possible. The police quickly cordoned off the area of the blast, diverted all traffic and barred reporters who tried to enter. Ambulances were seen transporting the wounded to hospitals more than an hour after the explosion.

APARTMENTS in New York skyscrapers may be famous for spectacular views, but justifiably unsung and generally unmentioned are the bleak views into lightwells at the rear of many buildings. Even older buildings with gracious fronts often have mean prospects out the back. The problem of how to treat a window to cut out the bad view - but not the light, air and sense of outdoor space - is common in the city. There are, of course, the classic solutions, such as louvers, Venetian blinds and semitransparent glass curtains, but newer or more unusual approaches range from simply spraying a ''frost'' onto window panes from a commercially available aerosol to replacing the windows with glass blocks or sandblasted glass.

Because of a mechanical error, a section of the Charlotte Curtis column on Tuesday was misplaced, and attribution was unclear for some statements. The 18 lines that followed the subheading in column 2 should have appeared at the top of that column.

Bernhard H. Goetz was indicted yesterday for attempted murder in the shooting of four young men on a Manhattan subway train last December. The indictment, which was handed up by the second grand jury to hear the case, was announced by District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, who said the panel had heard evidence not available to the first one. The first grand jury returned an indictment only on charges of illegal possession of guns. Mr. Morgenthau said he believed the ''new evidence had a substantial impact'' on the grand jury, but he refused to say what the new evidence was, citing the secrecy of grand jury proceedings. Goetz Declines to Testify The indictment came a day after Mr. Goetz refused to testify before the panel. Mr. Goetz's lawyers had sought to have him testify, but to limit the scope of his testimony. The District Attorney rejected their proposal. Mr. Goetz did not testify before the original panel, either.

An important agreement between Ottawa and Canada's oil producing provinces has given new impetus to an emerging revival in oil exploration and production. The accord, reached on Tuesday, comes at a time when the country's oil executives are spending again after several slow years, and indeed may well have been anticipated by these executives, who felt that the new Government would lessen the industry's financial burdens. The reasons for the rebound, experts say, are better domestic and foreign markets for Canadian oil and gas, and more attractive drilling prospects than those available in the United States. The evidence of recovery includes record drilling operations; speculators lining up to buy land for exploration, and extensive capital spending plans.