What was going on when I was born?

A senior State Department official said today that the United States told the Soviet Union before the Geneva summit meeting that it would indefinitely continue its policy of not undermining the 1979 arms treaty, but only under certain conditions. Because of this advance discussion, there was no need to discuss the 1979 stategic arms limitation treaty at the summit meeting this week, the official said. ''They understood our policy,'' he said. Most of the arms-control discussions at the summit meeting, he said, revolved around Mikhail S. Gorbachev's sharp criticism of President Reagan's missile defense proposal and Mr. Reagan's support of research to see if such a defense is feasible.

President Reagan said today that his Administration favored covert aid to insurgents seeking the overthrow of the leftist Government of Angola. He said the Administration felt covert aid ''would have much more chance of success right now'' than the open economic and military aid proposed by some members of Congress. Mr. Reagan made the remarks in an interview with editors and columnists on the Geneva summit meeting. Recent Policy Decision A State Department official said Mr. Reagan was referring to a recent secret policy decision to oppose public financing for the insurgents and to examine instead the provision of covert aid through the Central Intelligence Agency. Such aid would not have to be approved by Congress.

In the business world's latest craze, Wall Street financiers and small groups of executives are borrowing billions of dollars to put some of America's best-known corporations into private hands. The phenomenon, known as leveraged buyouts, is reshaping the face of corporate America and raises broad concerns that these risky ventures may one day collapse, hurting both business and the economy. This year has set records for leveraged buyouts: From the jeans maker Levi Strauss & Company to the tire maker Uniroyal Inc., from the department store chain R. H. Macy & Company to the drugstore chain Jack Eckerd Corporation, LBO's, as these deals are known, are taking place in all industries and in all corners of the land. $18.6 Billion, in 247 Deals Last year, a record $18.6 billion was spent on 247 leveraged buyouts, and 1985's frenetic pace is expected to top that - including the biggest such deal ever, the $6.2 billion buyout of the Beatrice Companies, the Chicago-based consumer goods concern. In the view of some, leveraged buyouts are creating new and innovative forms of big business - huge privately owned companies that are heavily laden in debt, yet liberated from the insecurity, supposed short-sightedness and maze of security regulations said to afflict companies whose shares are traded in the public market.

When he was 19, Richard Wright, the impoverished son of Mississippi sharecroppers, left his native soil forever, fleeing what he would later describe as ''that most racist of all the American states.'' Now, 58 years later, Gov. Bill Allain has proclaimed Richard Wright Week from Nov. 21 to Nov. 28 in Mississippi. And the University of Mississippi here is sponsoring a three-day international symposium on him through Saturday. Mr. Wright. long considered the literary godfather of other black writers in America, died in self-imposed exile in Paris in 1960, at the age of 52. The symposium, which has attracted 57 scholars from the United States, China, France, West Germany, Japan and the Ivory Coast to this lovely 1,800-acre, leaf-strewn campus, is titled ''Mississippi's Native Son.'' Even though ''Native Son'' is the title of one of the best-known of Mr. Wright's 15 books - the harrowing novel of black suffering and white racism in Chicago in the 1930's that became a best-seller soon after its publication in 1940 - the irony of the symposium's title is not lost on the sponsors.

The authorities said today that 13 people were killed Thursday in clashes with the police in the black township of Mamelodi. Until today, only two deaths had been confirmed by the police, although witnesses had reported at least six dead. It was one of the highest death tolls in a single day since the Government decreed a state of emergency on July 21 in several magisterial districts. The newly confirmed deaths in Mamelodi, near Pretoria, brought to at least 36 the number of people killed in townships around the country since last Sunday. It was one of the worst five-day periods of killings since widespread violence broke out in black townships in September 1984.

The House Ways and Means Committee early today voted to continue to allow taxpayers to deduct from their Federal tax returns all state and local income, property and sales tax payments. The vote came as the panel moved toward a final draft of legislation that would make sweeping changes in the Federal income tax system. The bill would lower the top tax rate to 38 percent for individuals and 36 percent for corporations. The top rates now are 50 percent for individuals and 46 percent for corporations.

The wife of a Navy counterintelligence analyst was arrested tonight and charged with unauthorized possession of classified documents, the day after her husband was arrested and accused of spying for Israel. The woman, Anne L. Henderson-Pollard, 25 years old, was arrested at her home in Washington. Her arrest came as a law-enforcement official knowledgeable about the case reported that her husband, Jonathan Jay Pollard, sought help from an Israeli intelligence agent in escaping arrest within the last several days and was told the agent ''might help'' if they could evade American surveillance. Before the Israeli agent could act, the official said, Mr. and Mrs. Pollard drove to the Israeli Embassy on Thursday in an apparent attempt to to seek asylum. Mr. Pollard, 31, was arrested outside the embassy gates by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation but his wife was permitted to go free.

The arrest of an American Navy analyst suspected of spying for Israel highlights a longstanding practice among allied intelligence services of spying on each other. Former intelligence officers say, however, that the case of the Navy analyst, Jonathan Jay Pollard, is unusual because the charges involve the use of a clandestine agent rather than other methods of gathering information. Mr. Pollard was arrested Thursday. His wife, Anne L. Henderson-Pollard, was arrested tonight and charged with unauthorized possession of classified documents.

Iran said today that its warplanes hit an industrial plant and a troop concentration in northern Iraq, causing ''high casualties and losses,'' and Iraq reported that it had repelled an Iranian ground attack and raided the Kharg Island oil terminal again.

Joseph Pairin Kitingan is a man under siege. For seven months, he has been trying to do his job of governing one of Malaysia's wildest and remotest states -Sabah, on the northern tip of Borneo. That would be challenge enough, but that is not exactly his problem. His real problem is this: Mr. Pairin, a Christian and an ethnic Borneo Kadazan - the Kadazans are one of 16 indigenous ethnic groups in this ethnically diverse parliamentary democracy -was elected Chief Minister of Sabah last April in an upset victory over the candidates of two Moslem-led parties.

At least eight people in Kenya have died of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and 13 people suspected of having the disease are being treated, Health Minister Peter Nyakiamo was quoted as saying today.

A truck carrying workers from a construction site in eastern Java went off a bridge and into a river Thursday, killing 45 people and injuring 13 others, the police said today. Witnesses were quoted as saying the driver of the truck swerved to avoid a motorcyclist. The police said the incident occurred in Kepanjeng district, 419 miles southeast of Jakarta.