What was going on when I was born?

Argentina's civilian President, Raul Alfonsin, today imposed a 60-day state of siege on the country. The action was seen as a move to free the Government's hand to combat a sharp increase in violence widely attributed to right-wing terrorists. The decision to impose the state of siege came after a judge rejected as unconstitutional a presidential decree Tuesday ordering the arrest of 12 people suspected of being involved in a wave of bombings around the country. Human rights groups have linked the bombings to a rightist campaign to compel the Government to grant amnesty to former military leaders accused of murder and torture during military rule in the 1970's, when at least 9,000 people disappeared.

Fall is the season when new nightspots usually pop up like goldenrod. But this year is different. There is a blight on the Elysian fields of Lower Manhattan's clubland. Gone is 8 B.C. Gone too are the Peppermint Lounge and Darinka. The Limbo Lounge has stopped serving liquor and has metamorphosed into the Limbo Gallery and Theater. Danceteria, which prided itself on being open all week, has just announced it will be open only four days a week. The reasons for the nightclubs' problems vary. Darinka, 8 B.C. and the Limbo Lounge fell victim to the tangled web of city regulations governing the operation of nightclubs. The owners of King Tut's Wah-Wah Hut, another Lower East Side club (on Avenue A at Seventh Street) that featured performances one night a week, have given up their quest for a cabaret license. They say they have been defeated by the cost of conforming to building codes and obtaining a zoning variance.

John A. Walker Jr. will plead guilty to espionage charges in exchange for a shorter prison sentence for his son, a seaman who has also been charged in the Navy spy case, law-enforcement and military officials said today. Under the plea bargain, the officials said, Mr. Walker has agreed to testify against Jerry A. Whitworth, a retired Navy radioman who has been accused of joining a Soviet spy ring purportedly formed by Mr. Walker nearly 20 years ago. Mr. Walker is expected to be sentenced to life in prison, the officials said. The agreement with prosecutors calls for leniency for Mr. Walker's son, Michael, formerly a yeoman aboard the aircraft carrier Nimitz, who also will plead guilty to espionage charges, officials said. Shorter Sentence for Son One law-enforcement source said Michael Walker, who was accused of giving secret documents from the Nimitz to his father, would receive a prison term substantially shorter than a life sentence, which he might have faced if convicted.

President P. W. Botha declared a state of emergency today in and around this city, South Africa's second largest, and seven other areas. In the last two months, more than 65 people have died in the Western Cape area in violent protests against apartheid. In Cape Town and its environs, at least 30 people have been killed in the last 12 days. The declaration extends to this area an emergency rule imposed on July 21 in 36 of the nation's 265 magisterial districts. The extension was announced a day after Mr. Botha said that the emergency regulations would be lifted in 6 of the original 36 areas because they had effectively insured a ''return to stability.''

Secretary of State George P. Shultz announced today that he would confer with Soviet leaders in Moscow on Nov. 4 and 5. He said the sessions would be aimed at stepping up preparations for the meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, later in the month in Geneva. Mr. Shultz met today for two hours with the Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard A. Shevardnadze. Emerging from the meeting, Mr. Shultz said he would confer in Moscow not only with Mr. Shevardnadze but with Mr. Gorbachev as well.

In a major departure from its traditional goals, the Soviet Communist Party today published a new draft program that abandons predictions of quickly overtaking the West or of soon achieving a true communist society. The central pledge of the last program, adopted under Nikita S. Khrushchev in 1961, that ''the present generation of Soviet people shall live in communism'' has been dropped. Instead, the new draft asserts that attempts to move too fast in introducing communism, ''without due account taken of the level of material and spiritual maturity of society, are, as experience shows, doomed to failure.'' 'Maneuvering' of Capitalism And where Khrushchev's program exuded certainty about the imminent demise of capitalism, pledging to leave the United States ''far behind'' in industrial output and labor productivity by 1980, the new draft states that capitalism, although still doomed, ''is constantly maneuvering to adjust itself to the changing situation.''

New York State, seeking to slow the spread of AIDS, empowered local health officials yesterday to close homosexual bathhouses and other places where ''high-risk sexual activities'' take place. The decision gave health authorities the right to padlock such places as ''public nuisances'' for the next 60 days. The emergency regulations, which can be extended, went into effect immediately after the vote by the state's Public Health Council, a few minutes after 11 A.M. New York City's Health Commissioner, Dr. David J. Sencer, promptly criticized the approach as contributing ''little if anything to the control of AIDS.'' However, Mayor Koch, while calling enforcement difficult, promised that the city would try. ''We want to save lives,'' the Mayor said.

Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court, in a speech made public today, offered a point-by-point rebuttal of Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d's views on some major constitutional issues. Justice Stevens said Mr. Meese offered a ''somewhat incomplete'' account of history to support his suggestion that the Supreme Court has erred in applying provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states. He also criticized Mr. Meese's statements about the separation of church and state. Several legal experts said today that it was the first time they could recall that a member of the Court made a speech criticizing a sitting Attorney General by name.

Nearly 200 miles above the Arctic Circle, thousands of miles from the nearest citrus orchard, Murmansk is swamped with bright yellow lemons these days. Unlike Moscow, where shoppers have not seen lemons for weeks, there are bushels of them in the stores and open-air markets here. In restaurants, lemon slices are served with tea and lemon wedges with fish. The ubiquitous lemons are a small reflection of the tremendous effort the Kremlin makes to maintain Murmansk as the world's largest Artic metropolis. Situated on the 69th parallel, 2,000 miles above the latitude of New York, Murmansk is nevertheless the only ice-free port in northern European Russia, thanks to the temperate influence of the Gulf Stream, which expires at the tip of the Kola Peninsula. #4,500 Ships in One Year The waterfront is crowded with fish-processing plants and warehouses. Dozens of trawlers are tied up alongside each other at the dock, forming a thicket of derricks and masts. Freighters loaded with iron ore steam toward the open sea, headed for East Germany. Huge vessels, like beached whales, rest awkwardly in dry dock.

The top military officer in the Philippines said today that the Communist insurgency had grown to a fighting strength of as many as 12,500 men, considerably higher than a recent estimate by President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The officer, Lieut. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, Acting Chief of Staff, also said at a news conference that stepped-up military operations had caused a 50 percent rise this year in the rate of deaths in the fighting, to an average of 15 a day. He said it would be correct to extrapolate from this a figure that would total about 4,500 Filipinos killed so far this year. General Ramos said he foresaw stepped-up activity by the rebel New People's Army that would lead to increased casualties in the period leading up to local elections next spring and presidential elections in 1987.

President Reagan gave his personal pledge to the family of Leon Klinghoffer yesterday that the killers of the 69-year-old New Yorker would be brought to justice. In a solemn meeting with Mr. Klinghoffer's widow, Marilyn, and other family members, at his tower suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, Mr. Reagan expressed his condolences and sorrow over their loss. The President, who was joined by his wife, Nancy, delayed his return to Washington to hold the 20-minute session. The meeting came as Mr. Reagan completed three days of diplomatic activity in New York, including an address Thursday to the United Nations General Assembly.

Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel said today that France had offered to to help Jews emigrate from the Soviet Union by flying them directly to Israel if Moscow agreed to permit expanded emigration and such flights. Mr. Peres disclosed the French offer at a news conference after a luncheon meeting this afternoon with President Francois Mitterrand, under whose Government relations between Israel and France have significantly improved. Mr. Peres's decision to discuss the offer publicly at this time tended to support reports circulating in diplomatic circles that the Soviet Union had signaled that it might be prepared to countenance such flights - and increases in Jewish emigration - after the summit meeting in November between President Reagan and the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Diplomats here and in Washington said that Moscow might also be prepared to permit an exchange of interest sections between the Soviet Union and Israel.