What was going on when I was born?

After a day of complex and hectic legal maneuvering, several members of the Bevill, Bresler & Schulman group of securities companies were closed down today by a court order. The moves come as the second shock in the last month to the unregulated government securities market. The Securities and Exchange Commission's regional administrator, Ira Lee Sorkin, said in court late today that the closing of the Bevill, Bresler units could cost its customers more than $198 million in losses. The customers consist mostly of savings and loan associations and small banks across the country.

A review program established by Congress to cut Federal health costs is disallowing nearly 14 percent of Medicare payments to hospitals in New York City, primarily because care was unnecessarily prolonged. Officials of the federally financed organization that is reviewing Medicare payments in New York State - the Empire State Medical, Scientific and Educational Foundation - said the rate of disallowances was running at 13.9 percent for hospitals in New York City and 10.6 percent for the rest of the state. This compares with a 3 percent statewide disallowance rate before the new review process began Nov. 1. If the disallowances continue at those levels, the officials said, hospitals in the state could forfeit an estimated $80 million in Medicare payments this year, with the city's large teaching hospitals losing the most. No figures were available for individual hospitals.

The Reagan Administration said today it was pleased that Mikhail S. Gorbachev had agreed in principle to meet with President Reagan but that ''much serious work'' is needed before a meeting is arranged. Seeking to reduce expectations for an early Reagan-Gorbachev meeting, the State Department spokesman said that the United States believed that ''a carefully prepared'' summit meeting should be the goal of the two sides, but that much remained to be done in working out a worthwhile agenda. The stress on the need for the meeting to be well-prepared was in contrast with Mr. Reagan's seeming readiness, when he started talk of a summit meeting last month, to meet Mr. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, as soon as such a meeting was feasible. The call for a ''carefully prepared summit'' was said to reflect the view of Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who has been opposed to the idea of a get- acquainted session.

After Thyssen A.G., the big West German steelmaker, bought the Budd Company here in 1978, its new American possession was hit by an unexpected one-two punch. First, the side of Budd that makes automotive products faltered when Detroit's business fell off. And the manufacturing side of Budd that makes passenger rail cars was hurt when the company tried to expand the business rapidly to make up for the automotive slump. Budd was suddenly in trouble, leaving its new owner to wonder just what it had bought. Many European investments in the United States in the last decade have had similar struggles. They are as diverse as Schlumberger's problems with Fairchild Semiconductor, Tengelmann's with its A.&P. supermarket chain, Elf Aquitaine with Texasgulf, and the Imperial Group with Howard Johnson's.

DISORDERS of the prostate, which sooner or later afflict virtually every man who lives long enough, are yielding to improved treatments with far less risk, especially of impotence, a dreaded side effect that has long kept many victims from seeking the most effective remedies. As the new methods are learned by urologists throughout the country, deaths from cancer of the prostate, now the second leading cancer killer in adult men, should decline, and the suffering of men with benign prostate enlargement could be reduced without hospitalization and the hazards of conventional surgery. Despite continuing difficulties in developing methods for early detection of prostate cancer and in determining the causes of benign enlargement, urologists interviewed last week expressed excitement about recent progress in diagnosis and treatment. For example, newly refined surgical techniques are making it possible to perform curative surgery for prostatic cancer without causing impotence, which afflicts up to 90 percent of men treated with the standard operation. Faced with the prospect of impotence, many men and their urological surgeons (nearly all of whom are also men) now choose conservative treatments or no treatment at all, taking the chance that the cancer, which is often slow- growing, might never be fatal.

The nation's largest military contractors, whose high earnings are being questioned by the Pentagon and Congress, enjoyed a rate of profit last year that was much greater than the average for industrial corporations, according to corporate annual reports. The reports for 10 of the largest weapons makers showed that, on the average, they realized a 25 percent return on equity in 1984. By contrast, the average return for manufacturing corporations of all sorts was only 12.8 percent, according to figures the Census Bureau released last week. The measure of profitability - after-tax profits as a percentage of shareholder equity - is widely used on Wall Street and accepted as fair by the companies. Shareholder equity is the amount by which a company's assets exceed its liabilities.

Reagan Administration officials today approved a plan to cut 80,000 Federal jobs through attrition over the next three years. The action, taken as the Federal budget process moves forward, comes as major unions for Federal workers are increasing efforts to counter the damage they say the Administration has done to their public image and financial welfare. Donald Devine, head of the Office of Personnel Management, said that in a morning Cabinet meeting led by Vice President Bush, officials gave final approval to a plan reached with Senate Republicans as part of the effort to reduce the budget deficit. The plan would freeze Federal pay for a year, provide a 2 percent cost-of- living adjustment in benefits to Federal civilian retirees and reduce the work force by 80,000. This represents a 4 percent cut, he said.

Unions representing professional workers in the Sudan formally called off a five-day general strike tonight that helped touch off the overthrow of President Gaafar al-Nimeiry on Saturday. The strike's end was announced in separate statements broadcast on the official Sudan radio by a representative of the unions and Gen. Siwar el- Dahab, the new military leader. On Sunday, the labor unions were reported to have decided to continue the strike until the state security apparatus was dissolved and the Government was turned over to civilians. (In Washington, Administration officials said military leaders in the Sudan had decided to oust Mr. Nimeiry to forestall a move by younger military officers. Page A7.)

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1985 International No early Reagan-Gorbachev talks will be held, the State Department indicated. The Administration said that even though it was pleased that Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, had agreed in principle to meet with President Reagan, ''much serious work'' had to be done before a summit conference could be arranged. (Page A1, Column 6.) Sudanese professional unions ended a five-day general strike that helped precipitate the overthrow of President Gaafar al-Nimeiry. Egypt's official Middle East News Agency reported that the new Government of Gen. Siwar el-Dahab had freed 1,000 political prisoners and had arrested 350 of Mr. Nimeiry's senior officials, including his brother. The agency also said 45,000 members of the Sudan's unpopular and newly disbanded internal security force had surrendered their weapons. (A1:4.)

The Government of India filed suit against the Union Carbide Corporation yesterday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, seeking compensation for the victims of the Dec. 3 gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. The lawsuit also seeks punitive damages ''in an amount sufficient to deter Union Carbide and any other multinational corporation from the willful, malicious and wanton disregard of the rights and safety of the citizens of those countries in which they do business.'' In addition, the complaint says the Indian Government seeks to recover damages for the cost of its emergency aid and relief - including medical treatment, food and rehabilitation - to the victims of the Bhopal disaster. The Issue of Responsibility Union Carbide has contended that responsibility for the accident lies with its Indian subsidiary, but in the suit filed yesterday the Government of India is trying to hold Union Carbide itself liable. To that end, the suit sets forth a legal theory it calls ''multinational enterprise liability'' under which the parent company can be held responsible for actions of its subsidiary. The theory is based on expanding American concepts of product liability.

EVERY night at bedtime, Michael Espach's parents braced themselves for his tortured sleep. His thunderous snoring, interrupted by gasps for breath, frightened the Espaches more than his thrashing and crying. Michael's pediatrician hoped he would grow out of the condition, but by his second birthday, it only seemed to get worse. At times, Michael's mother, Claudette, remembers, his chest seemed to cave in for several seconds as he struggled for air. ''Some people think I'm crazy,'' she says, ''but I actually think my child stops breathing at night.'' As a last resort, the Espaches brought Michael to the Sleep-Wake Disorders Center at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. It is one of a growing number of clinics being set up to treat sleep disorders among children, just as such disorders have been studied and treated in recent years at sleep clinics for adults.

Citicorp today won a monthlong lobbying battle that pitted it and Gov. Harry Hughes against Maryland's bankers. In an overwhelming vote, the state's Legislature passed landmark legislation that will give the nation's largest banking concern full banking powers in Maryland and direct access to the lucrative Baltimore-Washington market. The Maryland House of Representatives voted, 108 to 16, to accept a Senate-amended bill that would allow Citicorp to establish 20 full-service branches within the next two years. In return, Citicorp has promised to invest $25 million in the state and create at least 1,000 new jobs, primarily in Hagerstown, an economically depressed area of Maryland.