What was going on when I was born?

The Turkish terrorist who shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II four years ago testified today that an order to assassinate the Pope had come from the Soviet Embassy in Bulgaria. The Turk, Mehmet Ali Agca, said he had been told that a first secretary of the embassy, who he said went by the false name of ''Milenkov, or Malenkov,'' passed 3 million West German marks (then about $1.2 million) to the Gray Wolves, a group of Turkish right-wing extremists, to assassinate the Polish-born Pope. It was the first time that Mr. Agca had attributed a purported plot to kill the Pope to the Soviet Union, Mr. Agca and four other Turks are accused of conspiring with three Bulgarians to kill the Pope. Both the Soviet Union and Bulgaria have denied any role in such a plot.

Karen Ann Quinlan, who slipped into a coma 10 years ago and became the center of a national debate on the definition of life and the right to die, died yesterday at a nursing home in Morris Plains, N.J. She was 31 years old. Miss Quinlan died at 7:01 P.M. in her room at the Morris View Nursing Home, with only her mother, Julia Quinlan, at her bedside. Her father, Joseph Quinlan, had been in the room most of yesterday. ''They lost a daughter and they reacted as any parents would,'' said Msgr. Thomas Trapasso, who had been close to the family through the many years of its ordeal and administered the last rites. ''They knew it would be forthcoming, but the moment of death was a moment of grief.'' Dr. James Wolf, the internist who had cared for the comatose Miss Quinlan for the last six years, said Miss Quinlan had died of respiratory failure brought on by acute pneumonia. The pneumonia, he said, was the result of the respiratory congestion that had been mounting for several months.

The United States today released four East Europeans imprisoned on espionage charges in exchange for 25 Western agents who had been held prisoner in East Germany and Poland, State Department officials announced. The exchange was described by one official as ''the biggest spy swap'' in memory. It was carried out at 1 P.M. Berlin time on the Glienicke Bridge, which crosses the Havel River and connects West Berlin and East Germany. The bridge has been the scene of famous East-West exchanges in the past. No Americans No Americans were involved in the exchange, but a Justice Department official said many of those freed by the Communists had been ''of interest'' to the United States, apparently suggesting that they had worked for American intelligence or for other Western intelligence agencies in collaboration with Washington.

The Supreme Court ruled today that investors did not lose the right to file suit for securities fraud simply because they themselves might also be guilty of violating Federal securities law. The Justices rejected the doctrine, accepted by a number of lower courts, that a plaintiff who came to court with ''unclean hands'' should automatically be barred from pursuing a case under the antifraud provisions of Federal securities law. The vote was 8 to 0. The decision endorsed the view expressed in a brief filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which argued that private lawsuits were an effective adjunct to Federal enforcement of the securities laws and should be encouraged.

''The order to kill the Pope began at the Soviet Embassy in Sofia.'' -Mehmet Ali Agca. [A15:1.]

Charles D. Strang's love affair with outboard motors began in the 1930's, when he was a boy growing up on the South Shore of Long Island, cheering on a local racer named Benny Levy and his mahogany boat, the Baby Sink. Mr. Strang, who raced powerboats in college, is engaged in a race of a different sort today. As chairman and chief executive officer of the Outboard Marine Corporation, the world's largest producer of outboard marine engines, Mr. Strang finds other companies - both in the United States and overseas - in close pursuit, introducing innovative engines and trying to undersell Outboard's Evinrude and Johnson. One strong source of competition has come from the Brunswick Corporation's Mercury Marine division, which pioneered a line of inboard/ outboard motors known as a stern drive that are sold to boat builders for direct installation in new craft. Although the domestic market for outboard motors is four times larger than that for stern drives today, the generally higher-priced stern drives are more profitable and their sales are expanding more rapidly.

NO, your eyes do not deceive you. You read the advertisement correctly: 1982 Petrus, $2,100 a case, $185 a bottle. That's the going price for this famous Bordeaux red wine. Does that mean Bordeaux prices are very high? Does it mean that this is not the time to buy Bordeaux? The answer to both these questions is an uneqivocal yes, and an unequivocal no. Yes, prices for the best 1982 Bordeaux are extremely high. Yes, they have pulled the prices of the best of several other vintages up with them. And yes, this may not be the best time to buy these famous wines. But, then, is it a good idea to avoid all Bordeaux? Absolutely not. There are literally hundreds of excellent Bordeaux available at reasonable prices. Now is the time to buy them, and to help in that enterprise here are a few thoughts on recent vintages and some suggestions on what to buy and how much to pay. The trick is to distinguish between the luxury wines that get all the press and the vast array of lesser-known wines that look good, smell good, taste good and are priced right. Not being able to afford an Aston-Martin doesn't mean you have to go without a car.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1985 International The I.M.F. said Argentina had agreed on an austerity program that opens the door to $1.2 billion of loans from the fund. The measures include cuts in money supply growth, higher interest rates and a limit on wage increases. The agreement calls for the inflation rate, which ran 1,010 percent in the last 12 months, to be cut to an annual rate of 150 percent by next April. Argentina is more than $1 billion in arrears on its $48 billion debt to foreign creditors. [Page A1.] Argentine officials, who had played down the hardships of previous austerity programs, announced an 18 percent devaluation of the peso and warned that sacrifices lie ahead. [D6.] The Economy The tax plan had a difficult day before a Senate committee as senators took issue with many of its central elements during testimony by Treasury Secretary Baker. The reception seemed to confirm Administration fears that its plan would face rougher going in the Republican-controlled Senate than in the House. [D1.] The House Ways and Means Committee heard criticism of the tax plan from economists who warned that it might slow the economy. [D5.]

An article in Metropolitan Report on Saturday about a protest outside the Soviet Mission to the United Nations erroneously listed three public officials among those arrested. Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell Jr. of Manhattan, and City Councilmen Archie Spigner of Queens and Noach Dear of Brooklyn participated in the protest but were not arrested.

AIRLINE meals. The food you love to hate. So frequently the subject of jokes that even airline personnel acknowledge its shortcomings. On a United Airlines flight in April from La Guardia Airport to Denver, a flight attendant announced that there were three entree choices and then added: ''Please don't be upset if your first choice is not available. They all taste the same anyway.'' If airline food has become synonymous with unimaginative, precooked, assembly-line fare, it is hardly surprising. Tucked away behind the glamorous terminals at major airports are the plain cinderblock structures common to light-industrial neighborhoods where a handful of large catering operations - Marriott, Sky Chefs, Dobbs Houses and Ogden among them - turn out meals served on most commercial airliners. These are enormous operations; for example, Marriott, the largest airline caterer, is responsible for approximately 90 million meals a year.

Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders are nearing agreement on a measure designed to curb rapidly rising premiums for medical malpractice insurance, key legislative and gubernatorial aides said today. The measure, closely modeled after a proposal submitted by Governor Cuomo in April, would restrict the fees lawyers could earn in malpractice cases and permit a judge to impose damages on plaintiffs who bring frivolous malpractice suits. But it also would increase oversight of doctors and tighten the way in which hospitals grant professional privileges to physicians. Aides to the Governor said that the 52 percent increase in malpractice premiums last year could be rolled back substantially and that a large projected increase in July could be minimized, if the measure is adopted.

The Senate began public scrutiny of President Reagan's tax revision proposals today, and the reception was much less enthusiastic than in the House of Representatives. One Senator after another, questioning Treasury Secretary James A. Baker 3d at the opening tax hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, took issue with central elements of the Administration's tax plan. Some expressed concern over such broad issues as the plan's effects on overall Government revenues and on the ability of American manufacturers to compete in international trade. Other Senators raised more narrow questions such as potential harm to the life insurance and timber industries and whether the proposed changes would lead to rent increases.