What was going on when I was born?

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose price structure is under increasing pressure because of sluggish demand for oil, moved up its next full meeting by about three weeks, to June 30 from July 22. The decision follows recent reports that Britain, Norway and the Soviet Union - major oil producers that do not belong to OPEC - are preparing to cut their oil prices by as much as $1.40 a barrel. [In the United States, analysts were skeptical that OPEC would be able to keep prices from falling.

Short- and long-term interest rates declined sharply yesterday and are now approaching lows not seen since June 1980. As interest rates come down and inflation remains low, investor psychology and investment practices are shifting from the pattern of the last five years, when there was a widespread bias against long-term bonds in favor of short-term issues whose value would not fall the next time inflation turned up. ''I now see insurance companies that bought only intermediate-term issues now looking at 20-year bonds because they need the higher yield on the long-term issue,'' said Bruce J. Young, president of Rodman & Renshaw Inc., a Chicago securities firm. Other analysts said that the absence of a rally in the stock market had helped raise bond prices because it portended a weak economy through the balance of the year. As yields on Treasury bills have fallen to just above 7 percent, investors have moved out to longer-term maturities, thus causing higher prices and lower yields for those issues as well. Yesterday, for example, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell below 10 percent for the first time since 1980.

TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1985 Companies Jacob F. Butcher was sentenced to prison for concurrent 20-year terms for defrauding his banks of as much as $30 million. The sentence was the maximum the judge could impose and, according to the Justice Department, one of the stiffest ever for a white-collar crime. The Tennessee banker contributed to the collapse of the United American Bank of Knoxville, of which he was chairman, which was followed by the failure of other banks in Tennessee and Kentucky that he and his brother controlled. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said that United American's closing may involve losses of $450 million. [Page A1.] A Merrill Lynch executive was named president of E.F. Hutton. The appointment of Robert P. Rittereiser was part of a reshuffling of management at Hutton, which acted one month after pleading guilty to defrauding small banks through a check-writing system that gave it interest-free loans. Mr. Rittereiser, 46, was executive vice president at Merrill and becomes the third high-ranking executive to leave that company within the past 14 months. [D1.]

European and American negotiators reported progress today toward resolving a contentious steel dispute. Under a provisional agreement reached here this weekend, West German and French steelmakers would be permitted to ship 100,000 tons of steel pipe to the United States in addition to the import quota now in effect. The tentative accord was worked out by the Common Market's External Affairs Commissioner, Willy de Clercq, and Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige. Mr. de Clercq's visit was not announced. He left Saturday after six hours of negotiations Friday and Saturday with Mr. Baldrige. With their provisional agreement, European and American officials said, it is now necessary to get industry approval on both sides of the Atlantic. In the European Economic Community, member states' approval is also needed.

Reversing itself in a dispute with Federal judges and thousands of disabled people, the Reagan Administration announced today that it would generally follow court precedents requiring the payment of Social Security disability benefits. In the last few years, the Government has attempted to cut off the monthly disability payments to almost half a million people, generally on the ground that they were no longer too ill or injured to work. In thousands of cases, people have won court rulings that their benefits were improperly terminated. The Government has put these individuals back on the rolls but has refused to restore benefits to people in like situations; people with similar claims had to file suit themselves.

In a move to polish its image, the E.F. Hutton Group yesterday named Robert P. Rittereiser, a well-respected executive vice president at Merrill Lynch & Company, as the company's president. Mr. Rittereiser's appointment was hailed by analysts and is part of a broader reshuffling of management at Hutton, the nation's fifth-largest brokerage firm. Robert Fomon remains chairman and chief executive officer of the company, but an office of the chairman is also being formed, consisting of Mr. Fomon; Scott Pierce, president of E.F. Hutton & Company, the brokerage unit; Mr. Rittereiser, and Thomas Lynch. Mr. Lynch, president of the holding company since December 1983, is giving up that title to become vice chairman. Last month the Hutton brokerage unit pleaded guilty to Federal charges that it defrauded numerous small banks of millions of dollars through a check-writing system that gave it interest-free loans.

Jacob F. Butcher, a prominent banker and politician in Tennessee, was sentenced yesterday to two concurrent 20-year prison terms for defrauding his banks of as much as $30 million. The Justice Department called it one of the stiffest sentences ever imposed for a white-collar crime - a financial crime, such as fraud or market manipulation, committed by someone in government or business.fixes prices. The sentences for eight counts of fraud and conspiracy were the heaviest that Judge William K. Thomas of the Federal District Court in Knoxville could have imposed under a plea agreement worked out in April between the United States Attorney, John W. Gill Jr., and Mr. Butcher. The sentencing fit the pattern of increasingly stiff penalties being meted out to prominent white-collar criminals, who are often influential in their communities and who rarely went to jail for these crimes before 1970.

In the last two years, the United States Southern Command, from its tropical hilltop headquarters here, has presided over the establishment of a sophisticated military apparatus in Central America. While President Reagan and his top advisers say the use of American military force in the region is an unlikely and undesirable last resort, the military is prepared for contingencies, according to military officers and diplomats in Washington and Central America. Authorities say this has been accomplished with a vigorous tempo of war games, construction of staging areas and listening posts, the creation of an elaborate intelligence network and a major effort to fortify allied armies. . The United States military presence, once devoted almost exclusively to defending the Panama Canal, was expanded in the name of protecting stability throughout Latin America. More recently, the officials say, its focus has narrowed on Nicaragua, which the Reagan Administration believes is the main threat to peace in Central America. Buildup Is Largely Complete The military officers and diplomats said in interviews that the buildup of the Southern Command, one of six global subdivisions of the American military, is now largely complete and that it is adequate to carry out any likely emergency in the region.

The once-proud titan of American scientific forums - the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science - is in sharp, troubling decline. Over the past decade and a half, attendance at what was once routinely described as ''the world series of science'' has dropped 70 percent, and much of the passion and fervor has ebbed as well. The latest meeting, held in Los Angeles last week, attracted only about 2,300 registrants, far below the peak attendance of about 8,000 in 1969, ''The facts are, no matter how you want to twist them or turn them, that attendance has just gone down terribly,'' said Arthur Herschman, head of the A.A.A.S. meetings office. ''This year's meeting is as bad as we've had in 30 years.'' The action has shifted elsewhere, in the association and in all of American science, leaving the big general scientific convention, one of the most venerable forums of communication in the long history of science, in increasingly difficult straits.

The Government, saying the national social services system had ''lost its way,'' today proposed the most sweeping changes in the cradle-to-the-grave British welfare state since it was designed more than 40 years ago. Almost every household in Britain would be affected by the proposed changes in the welfare system, a system the Government said will cost more than $50 billion this year. Under the proposal maternity payments and state death benefits would change, and an earnings-related national pension plan would be phased out in favor of a contributory plan. Benefits would change for children, the poor, the unemployed, widows, mothers and pensioners. Only the disabled would be excluded, pending another study.

Nicaraguan forces appear to be striking more boldly against rebel bases in border areas than they have at any time since the conflict began three years ago. ''The Sandinistas are out to destroy the contras before the end of this year, regardless of the cost,'' a South American ambassador said today. ''If this policy produces a confrontation with their neighbors, or even if it provokes a military intervention by the United States, so be it.'' Soldiers Pursuing Rebels Both Honduras and Costa Rica have said in recent days that Nicaraguan soldiers have crossed into their territory, apparently in pursuit of rebels.The Nicaraguan Government has denied incursions into Costa Rica, though it conceded that some artillery shells might have landed in Honduras.

WHETHER it's ''Everything She Wants'' by Wham! or George Gershwin's ''Rhapsody in Blue'' or Elvis Presley crooning ''Love Me Tender,'' it's all music to Freddy Bienstock's ears. What accounts for Mr. Bienstock's catholic tastes is simple self-interest: Since early this year, he has been the chief executive officer and a sizable shareholder of Chappell & Company, the world's largest music publisher. Chappell has 31 companies in 23 countries and holds the copyright on 400,000 titles, including the works of Gershwin, Presley and the popular British group Wham! For years, Chappell had been owned by Polygram, a major recording company that is itself owned by Philips of the Netherlands and Siemens of West Germany. Last year Polygram put Chappell up for sale, and Mr. Bienstock, a veteran music publisher, and a group of other investors acquired it in a $100 million deal. ''I didn't think we had much of a chance when we started,'' he said of their bid for the company, ''but I can't resist a challenge.''