What was going on when I was born?

For the first 33 years of his life, Willie Jones says, his name never got him into trouble. But last June, mainly because he had the same name as a man wanted on drug charges in Manhattan, Mr. Jones, after being arrested on a charge of evading a subway fare, was wrongly identified through a computer name check and imprisoned for three months on Rikers Island. Law enforcement officials acknowledged that no fingerprint comparisons were made to determine whether Mr. Jones was the Willie Jones who had been arrested on felony drug counts in March and, while free on parole, had failed to show up for a court hearing. Mr. Jones said Legal Aid Society lawyers who represented him refused to believe his protests that he was a victim of mistaken identity. Instead, he said, they offered him plea bargains from prosecutors for a reduced sentence if he pleaded guilty to the drug charges and avoided a trial.

Starting at 12:01 A.M. tomorrow it will be illegal for anyone under 21 years of age to be sold an alcoholic beverage in New York State. New York will join 31 other states that have set 21 as the minimum drinking age. Five more states will raise the drinking age to 21 next year. Along the New York border, only Vermont and the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario will allow people under 21 to purchase a bottle or a drink.

The United States today stepped up its public pressure on Israel to permit questioning of two Israeli diplomats, and possibly other officials, in connection with the case of a United States Navy employee, Jonathan Jay Pollard, charged with selling secret documents. A State Department spokesman, Charles Redman, expressed dismay that Israel had so far failed to abide by a pledge to allow the officials to be questioned. Mr. Redman said the two Israeli diplomats, identified in Jerusalem as Mr. Pollard's contacts, left the United States last Friday, a day after Mr. Pollard was arrested in Washington. Mr. Redman said the Israeli Government did not notify the State Department of their departure. 'We Were Not Informed' ''We have no explanation for that departure,'' Mr. Redman said at his regular news briefing. ''We were not informed. We are dismayed that the Government of Israel was not as forthcoming as we would have hoped and expected. But the important point now, and the crucial point, is that we have prompt access to those involved.''

Sometimes, says Imelda Romualdez Marcos, when the accusations of extravagance, corruption and misrule get her down she thinks of her favorite movie. ''O.K., they don't like my face,'' Mrs. Marcos, 52 years old, the wife of President Ferdinand E. Marcos, said of her American critics. ''But I can be a good friend. I feel like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Here was this man, but such a beautiful spirit, you know? It is my favorite movie.'' ''They call me corrupt, frivolous,'' Mrs. Marcos said in an interview in a dining room of Malacanang Palace. ''I am not at all privileged. Maybe the only privileged thing is my face. And corrupt? God! I would not look like this if I am corrupt. Some ugliness would settle down on my system.''

Saboteurs today knocked out key rail communications and signal systems, forcing the shutdown of 23 commuter lines during the morning rush hour and causing a nightmarish journey to work for millions of riders. The saboteurs, described by the authorities as left-wing extremists, caused the disruption by slashing vital cables and setting fires at key sections of the Japan National Railways in Tokyo and Osaka. The actions appeared to be well coordinated. The damage was repaired by midafternoon, and service was at least partially restored on all lines in time for the evening rush hour. #48 People Arrested The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department announced that it had arrested 48 people, including leaders of a radical group known as the Chukakuha, or Middle Core Faction. Some were seized after reportedly having stormed the Asakusabashi train station in eastern Tokyo, seriously damaging it in a fire-bomb attack.

The South over the last five years has continued to lead the nation in gaining population, jobs and migrants from other regions despite a decline in some of its industries and an economic resurgence in the Northeast, according to new census figures. Long the poorest region of the nation, the South in the 1960's and 1970's joined the West in attracting people and industries from Northern cities. Now, in the 1980's, the new figures show the South continuing to build on its new economic base even though Texas and Louisiana have experienced a slump in oil development and many of the Southern textile mills and other plants have been forced to close because of competition from foreign imports. The figures, compiled from an extensive Census Bureau survey of American households last spring, are considered important for the new information they provide about the urban and racial makeup of metropolitan areas and the continuing economic and political struggle between regions at a time of governmental decentralization. They showed that the Northeast, made up of the six New England states plus New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, experienced a strong recovery from its urban job and population losses of the 1970's.

American antiterrorism experts were on their way here to help Egypt try to free the hostages aboard a hijacked Egyptian airliner last weekend but did not arrive before Egyptian commandos stormed the plane, Maltese and other sources close to the investigation of the episode said today. The sources said Egypt had requested American technical assistance and advice at least 15 hours before the attempted rescue operation, during which 57 of the 59 deaths in the hijacking episode occurred, most of them apparently as a result of smoke inhalation from fire aboard the plane. The United States promptly agreed to provide help, the sources said. Landing Reportedly Barred But the sources said the help did not arrive because Malta was unwilling to permit American military aircraft to land here. Protracted negotiations with the Maltese Government over conditions of entry, combined with confusion on the ground and serious gaps in communications among the parties concerned, kept the American technical team from arriving, according to these accounts.

A former Central Intelligence Agency analyst is thought to have given China many of the C.I.A.'s top-secret reports on the Far East over the last 20 years, an Administration official said today. According to the official, the Government believes that the analyst, Larry Wu-Tai Chin, 63 years old, had access to nearly all these documents. The official, who is knowledgeable about the case, said Mr. Chin was one of the agency's most experienced Chinese-language translators and was involved in distributing C.I.A. reports to the White House and Federal agencies. Another Administration official said Mr. Chin might have provided China with detailed information about American policymaking in the Vietnam War. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Chin has confessed spying for the Chinese since at least 1952.

East Germany today announced a 7.7 percent increase in military spending for 1986. Western diplomats said the increase could signal East German readiness to shoulder a larger portion of the upkeep of Soviet forces and weaponry stationed in East Germany as the Soviet Union has committed itself to improving its own economy.

There was no roll of drums and no crowd to hold its breath, but 18-year-old Walter Ariel Zanotti tossed back his hair, tensed his muscles and then, gripping the trapeze, launched himself into the void. ''Reach higher,'' the instructor shouted from below. ''Use your body. Now turn.'' The youth completed the move and then swept twice more across the big top before dropping into the safety net and scrambling toward the rope ladder for another go.

The Polish authorities have begun a nationwide purge of political opponents in universities and colleges by removing more than 20 senior scholars from influential administrative posts, opposition sources said today. The sources said those removed by the Ministry of Higher Education included Karol Taylor, the rector of Gdansk University, and Wladyslaw Findeisen, the head of the Warsaw Polytechnic University.

President Reagan's recent pledge to share a space-based antimissile system with the Soviet Union has baffled many defense industry executives and even some Pentagon officials. They argue that the technology underlying the program involves the same advanced computers, software and lasers that the Defense Department is fighting to keep out of Soviet hands. Administration officials contend that sharing the fruits of the research into what is popularly known as ''Star Wars'' might be necessary to prevent the Russians from trying to overwhelm the missile-defense system with a huge buildup in nuclear arms. But even many of the program's staunchest supporters, including defense industry executives and engineers designing the system, said any plan to put the nation's most critical technology into Soviet hands was doomed to failure.