What was going on when I was born?

THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 1985 International Arms aid for Jordan is being weighed by the Reagan Administration, according to State and Defense Department officials. They said the Administration was nearing a decision to ask Congress to provide Amman with $300 million in additional military credits that would allow it to order F-20 fighter planes and two advanced antiaircraft defense systems. [Page A1, Column 6.] The Senate compromised on arms by adopting, 90 to 5, a resolution calling on President Reagan to continue to adhere to the 1979 strategic arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union. But the resolution also seemed to support a measured effort by the Administration to respond to any Soviet violations of the pact. [A1:3.]

When Peter Shapiro graduated from Harvard, with honors, in 1974, he shunned the career paths pursued by many of his friends and headed home to New Jersey. His aim, his friends said, was to pursue a driving political ambition he did little to hide, to someday become a national political leader. And so, at the age of 23, he successfully ran for the State Assembly from a working-class district. On Tuesday, the 33-year-old Mr. Shapiro, who has held a political office ever since, went some distance in achieving his long-term goal when he defeated more seasoned politicians to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and the right to challenge Governor Kean in November.

Submarine experts said today that as a result of the Walker family spy case, the Navy might have to rebuild portions of the undersea network of sound detectors that are a crucial early warning system against a Soviet nuclear attack. Some experts, including former Navy officers, said replacing the Sound Surveillance System, called Sosus, was potentially one of the most difficult and costly measures needed to restore confidence in the American submarine fleet's command of the seas, if the allegations of a 20-year spy network prove true. The Navy has not completed its appraisal of what steps might be needed to compensate for security breaches that may have resulted. Experts interviewed today stressed that it was too early to be sure what countermeasures would be required.

Wang Laboratories, the computer company, said yesterday that it would dismiss 1,600 employees because of weak sales and would report a loss for the current quarter. The loss would be the first in the company's 34-year history. The 5 percent work force reduction, from 32,000 people, is only the second instance of layoffs at Wang. In the 1974-75 recession, about 200 people were dismissed.

Scientists said today that they had discovered how some tampons caused the rare but sometimes fatal toxic shock syndrome in menstruating women. The researchers expressed hope that the discovery would lead to the production of generally safer tampons. The scientists, led by Dr. Edward H. Kass at the Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, found that two fibers contained in some tampons - polyester foam and polyacrylate rayon - have a powerful ability to absorb magnesium. Such a concentration of magnesium can enhance production of a bacterial toxin, TSST-1, for toxic shock syndrome toxin 1, that causes toxic shock syndrome.

The brokers and dealers who own Britain's Stock Exchange voted today to allow outsiders, including American companies, to own member firms. The change will provide a substantial boost to the capital resources of the larger firms and to their ability to compete for international business. But in a setback to the exchange's stated goal of revolutionizing its trading, the almost 4,500 brokers and dealers narrowly defeated a proposal that would have allowed firms, and not just individuals, to own the exchange itself. The firms, which provide most of the exchange's financial support, would have had greater control over policy and individuals would have had a chance to gain financially from the change.

The Senate overwhelmingly adopted tonight a compromise resolution urging President Reagan to continue to adhere to the second strategic arms treaty with the Soviet Union. But the statement also seems to give approval to a measured move by the Administration to respond to any Soviet violations of the treaty. By a vote of 90 to 5, the resolution was attached to legislation covering programs for the Pentagon costing up to $232 billion in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The entire bill, which would limit the increase in military spending to the inflation rate, was then approved, 92 to 3.

The Administration is nearing a decision to ask Congress to provide Jordan with $300 million in additional military credits that will allow it to order F-20 fighter planes and two advanced antiaircraft defense systems, officials of the State and Defense Departments said today. A senior State Department official cautioned, however, that the projected package had not been ''signed off'' by President Reagan and that the components could be changed. Nevertheless, officials said they expected to begin briefing key members of Congress next week on the results of a three-month study of Middle East arms transfers. The study noted that Soviet-backed Syria presents a threat to Jordan, and offered this as a rationale for the sale.

FIVE years ago, Miriam Lieberman lost a daughter in her seventh month of pregnancy. One day the child simply stopped kicking. At the hospital, she said, the staff ''wouldn't look me in the eye, they acted as if it was just another medical procedure.'' After labor was induced and the baby was stillborn, Mrs. Lieberman went home and cried for weeks, thinking she must be crazy because she so deeply missed a child she had never known. Last spring, Mrs. Lieberman had a miscarriage, this time in her third month. By then she and her husband, Thomas, had two healthy children, but they were not the only reason, she said, that her second loss was less devastating than her first.

''The President has no plans to use U.S. military forces in Central America, period.''

FIFTEEN years ago, buying parts from old buildings about to be demolished - mantels, light fixtures, stained-glass windows and columns - for use in the home was something of a novelty. But today, with some 20 architectural salvage stores in major cities across the United States, and six in the New York area, the practice amounts to a small industry and a popular design approach for both professionals and amateurs. Old building parts can be used decoratively - as in the case of a fretwork Victorian porch front transplanted to the wall of an upper East Side co-op - or they can be worked into the structure of a building, as with several columns recently adapted to a new greenhouse in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. Using architectural artifacts has not only created a demand and rising prices, but has also raised ethical questions about which buildings should and should not be used for their parts. For example, the removal of several dozen light fixtures from an intact 1907 Arts and Crafts bungalow in Pasadena, Calif., designed by Greene & Greene, has brought vocal protests from preservationists who say the architectural integrity of a historically important building is being compromised.

The General Motors Corporation, in an ambitious diversification into aerospace and high technology, said yesterday that it had agreed to buy the Hughes Aircraft Company for more than $5 billion in cash and stock. If approved by the stockholders of both companies, the acquisition would be the biggest in history outside the oil industry. Hughes Aircraft, the nation's seventh-largest military supplier last year and the biggest maker of communications satellites, has had a reputation as a leader in advanced electronics since its origins nearly 40 years ago within the industrial empire of the late Howard R. Hughes. Diversification Effort The move is viewed as the latest in a long-term effort by Roger B. Smith, G.M.'s chairman, to diversify into non-automotive fields and to improve G.M.'s competitive position by embracing new technology. [Page D19.] It also follows the company's $2.5 billion purchase last year of Electronic Data Systems Inc., one of the nation's leading data-processing companies and a major supplier to the military.