What was going on when I was born?

Israel released a tape recording tonight of what it said was a conversation between a senior Palestinian guerrilla leader and the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. Israeli officials asserted that the tone and language of a man on the tape they identified as the guerrilla leader, Mohammed Abbas, indicated that he helped plan and direct the operation. Mr. Abbas and Yasir Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman, have maintained that Mr. Abbas's role in the episode was solely that of a mediator in arranging the hijackers' surrender. [In Washington, Administration officials said they were prepared to prove in court that Mr. Abbas planned the operation that led to the hijacking, and that the evidence included the conversation cited in the Israeli tape recording. But the officials said they could not prove that Mr. Abbas directly controlled the actions of the four gunmen.] 'Our' Operation Mentioned A voice on the tape, played tonight on Israeli television, at one point refers to ''our operation.'' Officials here said Mr. Abbas used the term and they called the reference evidence that he aided in planning the terrorist action, that the hijackers were following his orders and that they had probably arranged a code for emergency communications.

The five-party coalition of Prime Minister Bettino Craxi collapsed Wednesday night, and Mr. Craxi was expected to resign today. The small Republican Party led by Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini withdrew from the coalition to protest the Government's handling of the hijacking of the cruise liner Achille Lauro and the release of a Palestinian leader sought by the United States. Mr. Spadolini announced Wednesday afternoon that he and the two other Republicans in the Cabinet had submitted their resignations to Mr. Craxi, a Socialist. Move Touches Off Meetings Mr. Spadolini's announcement set off a storm of reaction and late-night meetings among the coalition partners. Besides the Republicans and the Socialists, the Cabinet consists of the Christian Democrats, Italy's largest party, and the small Liberal and Social Democratic Parties. In theory, the Government would command a small majority in Parliament without the Republicans, but it seemed unlikely that the coalition could carry on.

''This action is the result of the growing disillusionment with the Sandinista regime by large sectors of the population and reflects the Sandinistas' fear of their own people.

International Israel released a tape recording of what it said was a conversation between a senior Palestinian official and the hijackers of the cruise liner Achille Lauro. Israeli officials affirmed that the tape indicated the official, Mohammed Abbas, was not just a mediator in the hijacking, but helped plan and direct the operation. [Page A1, Column 6.] A body washed up on Syria's coast has been ''positively identified'' as that of Leon Klinghoffer of New York, a passenger on the hijacked Italian cruise ship. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said the body showed ''indications of two gunshot wounds, one in the head and the other in the back.'' [A1:4-5.]

Forging an alliance with one of New York's most powerful businessmen, CBS Inc. yesterday offered Laurence A. Tisch, chairman of the Loews Corporation, a seat on its board of directors. At the same time Loews, which recently amassed 11.3 percent of the giant media company's stock, said it would increase its stock holdings in CBS to as much as 25 percent. Several analysts said that for CBS, which has been entangled in a takeover fight and plagued by rumors for much of this year, the move was a stabilizing one, at least in the near term. They suggested that by bringing Mr. Tisch to the board the company had neutralized any takeover threat that he may have posed. In addition, they said, an unfriendly bidder might have a harder time trying to take over CBS if Mr. Tisch's company buys the full 25 percent.

The Reagan Administration condemned Nicaragua today for its suspension of civil liberties, saying the Government was tightening its control over the Roman Catholic Church, newspapers and labor unions. Officials said Nicaraguan decrees in recent days went beyond previous edicts that limited personal rights. ''These individuals have trampled on civil liberties as very few countries have done in the past,'' Larry Speakes, the White House spokeman, said of the Nicaraguan leaders. He said a decree issued Tuesday by the Government in Managua not only blunted political dissent, but also affected ''the area of personal freedoms, personal privacy.''

Two Americans, one from a small research center in Buffalo and the other from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry yesterday for developing revolutionary techniques used to determine the structures of molecules vital to life. The prize in physics went to a West German computer expert, Dr. Klaus von Klitzing, 42 years old, for developing an exact way of measuring electrical conductivity, which has become important to the computer and electronics industry. [Page B12.] The chemistry prize was awarded to Dr. Herbert A. Hauptman, 68, director of the Medical Foundation of Buffalo, and Dr. Jerome Karle of the Naval Research Laboratory. Together, they developed mathematical techniques through which X-ray crystallography can be used directly to deduce the three-dimensional structure of natural substances vital to the chemistry of the human body and of drugs that can be used to treat various ailments.

More than 80,000 Chrysler workers in the United States and Canada went on strike today, seeking wages and benefits parallel to those at General Motors and Ford. Union talks with the Chrysler Corporation, the nation's third-largest automaker failed to produce agreement before the contract expired at midnight. Negotiations continued today despite the strike and leaders on both sides of the bargaining table expressed hope for an early settlement. But when negotiations broke off for the night about 8:30, union officials said there was no agreement in sight. The dispute idled more than 70,000 workers in this country and 10,000 in Canada. The union leaders said that committees dealing with some issues would continue discussions tonight and that talks by the entire union and management bargaining teams would resume in the morning.

Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d has a vivid vision of the Constitution, one that his critics call a nightmare that would question rights and principles established long ago.

The city's former Managing Director today contradicted several key details of Mayor W. Wilson Goode's testimony about the May 13 confrontation with the radical group Move. Appearing before a panel that the Mayor appointed to investigate the confrontation, the former Managing Director, Leo A. Brooks, said the Mayor was mistaken when he said he did not know the details of the police plan to assault the Move house. Eleven people were killed and 61 houses destroyed. Mr. Brooks, who resigned shortly after the confrontation, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family, said he had told the Mayor that the police planned to use explosives and that they would drop a bomb from a helicopter. Mayor Said He Was Misled On both these points, Mr. Brooks contradicted Mr. Goode.

The United States said today that a body found on the Syrian coast had been ''positively identified'' as that of Leon Klinghoffer of New York, a passenger on a hijacked Italian cruise ship. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said Mr. Klinghoffer's body showed ''indications of two gunshot wounds, one in the head and the other in the back.'' This seemed to confirm earlier reports by passengers and crew of the ship, the Achille Lauro, that Mr. Klinghoffer, who had been in a wheelchair, had been shot twice by one of the gunmen and was then thrown overboard when the ship was off the Syrian port of Tartus on Oct. 8. Details on Slaying Provided In Jerusalem, Israeli military sources said that Mr. Klinghoffer had been shot by the youngest of the four gunmen, and that the hijackers then ordered a Portuguese waiter and the ship's barber to lift the body over the side along with the wheelchair.

A report on Oct. 8 in the Briefing column of the Washington Talk page, about a pay adjustment for Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow, Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, omitted some related facts. The adjustment was part of a general restructuring of pay for directors general of all United Nations agencies. Also, while his base pay was raised 26.8 percent his cost-of-living allowances were decreased, leaving total compensation unchanged.