What was going on when I was born?

R. Foster Winans, a former WallStreet Journal reporter, was found guilty yesterday of using advance knowledge of Journal articles to make illicit profits in the stock market. Federal District Judge Charles E. Stewart, who heard the case without a jury, also convicted Mr. Winans's two associates: Kenneth P. Felis, a former stockbroker at Kidder, Peabody & Company, and David J. Carpenter, Mr. Winans's longtime roommate and a former news clerk for The Journal. Mr. Winans was found guilty of 59 criminal counts, Mr. Carpenter of 12 counts and Mr. Felis of 41 counts. Mr. Winans and Mr. Felis were convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, among other charges, but Mr. Carpenter was acquitted of that charge. The convictions carry sentences of up to five years in prison for each count as well as fines. Mr. Winans theoretically could be sentenced to as many as 295 years in prison and $266,000 in fines. Mr. Carpenter could receive 60 years in prison and $71,000 in fines, while Mr. Felis could get 205 years and fines of $194,000.

The Shiite Amal militia leader, Nabih Berri, added a new condition for releasing the 40 American hostages today, saying the United States must pull back warships cruising off Lebanon. Mr. Berri, speaking as the hostage crisis entered its 11th day, said that ''the advance of the Sixth Fleet towards our shores forces us to add one more condition - this time for the Amal movement - and that is the withdrawal of the Sixth Fleet from our coast.'' A United States naval flotilla, which includes the aircraft carrier Nimitz, has been sent to the eastern Mediterranean, although the ships are not visible from the coast. Ships About 40 Miles Offshore The fleet normally carries a combat-ready landing force known as a marine amphibious unit. American network television crews who have been flying over the area in chartered planes estimate that the ships are 40 miles offshore.

A list of history's worst airliner disasters yesterday incorrectly described the crash of an Air- India jet on Jan. 1, 1978. There was no explosion before the Boeing 747 went out of control and crashed into the sea off Bombay.

The United States called today for worldwide action against ''the despicable acts of terrorists'' in recent days. ''All nations must unite in decisive action to curb this threat,'' Secretary of State George P. Shultz said in a statement that linked recent actions against air travelers for the first time. The Shultz statement, read by Bernard Kalb, the department spokesman, offered no specific course of action. The statement cited the hijacking of the Trans World Airlines plane to Beirut, Lebanon; a bombing last Wednesday at the airport in Frankfurt; the bomb that exploded Sunday in luggage taken off a Canadian flight to Tokyo, and ''the ghoulish claims'' for the destruction of the Air-India jumbo jet Sunday.

A veteran police officer has been indicted as the hit-and-run driver of an unmarked patrol car that struck an 11-year-old girl as she rode her bicycle on a Queens street in April. A second officer was also indicted in the case. The officer charged with driving the car, John J. Saporita, faces eight counts. The most serious charge is that of tampering with public records to cover up the accident. He was also charged with leaving the scene of an accident.

Because of an editing error, a dispatch from London yesterday on the crash of an Air-India jet referred incorrectly to a bombing last Wednesday at the airport in Frankfurt, West Germany. Authorities have not determined who was responsible for the attack.

TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 1985 International American warships must withdraw from the Lebanese coast, the Shiite Moslem militia leader, Nabih Berri, demanded as a new condition for release of 40 American hostages. A United States naval flotilla, which includes the aircraft carrier Nimitz, has been sent to the eastern Mediterranian, but the ships are not visible from the coast. [Page A1, Column 6.] Israel freed 31 Lebanese prisoners from a military prison and turned them loose in southern Lebanon. The release of the prisoners left 735 Lebanese and Palestinian detainees still in Israeli hands. [A10:1-2.]

In the face of a relatively sound economy, a record number of American families have been falling behind in their monthly mortgage payments, a banking group here reported today. Far fewer, but still a near-record number, are losing their homes to foreclosure. The Mortgage Bankers Association said that payments on 6.19 percent of all home mortgages had fallen 30 days or more into arrears during the first three months of this year. It was the highest figure in the 22 years that the association has been monitoring mortgage payments.

Helicopters and ships searching the Atlantic waters into which an Indian jetliner plunged Sunday morning recovered one more body today, along with debris that officials hope will explain the plane's sudden destruction. But they have not found the two flight recorders that monitored the plane's navigation and operating systems and the radio commentary of the crew. The recorders could provide vital evidence regarding the Indian Government's belief that the Boeing 747 was blown up by a bomb. The plane, Air-India Flight 182, was on a flight from Toronto and Montreal to Bombay with 329 people on board when it crashed off the Irish coast about 150 miles southwest of Cork.

TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 1985 The Economy The tax plan's provisions for middle-income families are under review and the proposed changes in the treatment of child-care expenses will probably be rewritten, a top tax official said. Changing the status of that item from a tax credit to a deduction would be more unfavorable to families of modest means than the Administration first realized, said Richard A. Pearlman of the Treasury Department. Changes are also possible in the proposed tax treatment of families in which both spouses earn wages, he said. [Page A1.] Several leading governors expressed support for eliminating the Federal tax deduction for state and local taxes. [D8.]

The closing Friday night of a small New York bank important to the city's Chinese community touched off a demonstration yesterday amid charges that an officer of the bank had taken money from people but never established accounts for them. Waving signs that charged the Federal Government with bias against Chinese-Americans, more than 100 occasionally unruly demonstrators marched outside the Canal Street office of the Golden Pacific National Bank demanding their money. Mayor Koch arrived to calm the crowd, but he was unable to assure them that they would be reimbursed. The demonstrators demanded to speak with an official of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has taken over the bank, but when Alan Whitney, an F.D.I.C. spokesman, appeared before them, he was shouted down.

THE discovery that an enzyme secreted by a common fungus can rip apart even the sturdiest of organic molecules has launched a score of laboratories in Europe and America on a race for potential payoffs. Prizes awaiting the winners may include a cheap method of decontaminating soil and water, a biological process for converting coal into liquid fuel and a key to harvesting valuable chemicals from agricultural waste. The remarkable fungus on which attention is focused, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, is a distant relative of edible mushrooms. But unlike the mushrooms, this type of plant is so small that it can be seen by the naked eye only when cultured in huge numbers and coalesced into white, paperlike mats. The organism, a voracious devourer of dead wood, is known as white rot fungus. Last week John A. Bumpus, a biochemist at Michigan State University, and his colleagues reported in the journal Science that dead wood is not the only course on which the fungus dines; P. chrysosporium also attacks DDT, dioxins and many other organic pollutants. The fungus does so by secreting a unique enzyme that breaks down large molecules of pollutants into simpler molecules; these, in turn, are ultimately degraded by other natural processes to harmless carbon dioxide.