What was going on when I was born?

Federal prosecutors today accused a messenger employed by a court reporting company here of giving Soviet operatives portions of a transcript of a top secret Congressional hearing on military communications. Congressional sources said today that the hearing included a progress report on a wide array of sensitive military communications systems, including an airplane designed to relay orders to nuclear missile submarines. On the basis of new testimony by Michael Giglia, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a Federal magistrate today ruled that the prosecutors had ''just barely'' succeeded in overcoming a motion by defense lawyers to dismiss the charges against Randy Miles Jeffries. Doubts by Magistrate The magistrate, Jean F. Dwyer, had criticized the strength of the case at a court hearing on Monday. She said today: ''Frankly, I don't think the case has gained much weight overnight.''

Throughout Silicon Valley, the homeland of the nation's electronics industry, thoughts are turning to toys - and not only because it's Christmas. By day, for example, LuAnn Piccard helps design supersecret computers for Hewlett-Packard. By night, she designs toys. So does Jef Raskin, who started the Macintosh project at Apple Computer and now heads his own computer company. They are among the growing number of flashy entrepreneurs and technical whiz kids who are designing toys - with and without electronics - for others or who are starting their own companies in hopes of creating new Apples in the toy industry.

College students in the New York metropolitan area are returning to churches and synagogues, enrolling in religion courses and volunteering for charity work in numbers that many chaplains believe suggest a spiritual renaissance on campus. Catholic, Protestant and Jewish chaplains said they had observed a deeper commitment to faith along with a keener appreciation of tradition among students. ''People are coming back to religion in a way that some of us once went to the counterculture,'' said Rabbi Ruth Sohn, the assistant Jewish chaplain at Columbia University. ''Religion is being seen as an alternative to the values - or lack of values - in the mainstream.''

A longtime member of the ruling Politburo was ousted today from his job as head of the Communist Party in the city of Moscow, the Tass press agency announced. Western diplomats said that the removal of the Moscow city leader, Viktor V. Grishin, likely to be followed by his retirement from the Politburo, was an important step in Mikhail S. Gorbachev's campaign to retire senior officials and consolidate his power. Mr. Grishin has served on the Politburo for nearly a quarter century, longer than any other current member. He was made a candidate, or nonvoting, member in 1961, under Nikita S. Khrushchev, rising to full member in 1971, under Leonid I. Brezhnev.

From a balcony of the Government Palace, President Alan Garcia Perez first reprimanded the 20,000 slum-dwellers gathered in Lima's main plaza for being noisy and disorderly. ''If you've come to hear me, then you're going to listen in silence,'' he ordered impatiently. Then, in a 45-minute message that combined the inspirational tone of a preacher and the assertiveness of a caudillo, he reviewed his achievements to date, won applause for freezing gasoline prices for a further six months and demanded to know whether his audience would also stand by him in the difficult times ahead. But by then the crowd seemed thoroughly convinced, shouting an enthusiastic ''Si'' to a list of closing questions designed to test its loyalty.

President Reagan has written to Mikhail S. Gorbachev proposing that experts meet to discuss improving the verification of agreements on underground nuclear tests, a senior Administration official said today. Officials said Mr. Reagan's letter reiterated the longstanding position that improved verification would allow the United States to ratify two treaties signed in the 1970's that would limit the size of underground tests. Mr. Reagan also affirmed the United States' refusal to join the Soviet Union in its current halt on underground testing, officials said. Moscow has said that its moratorium will lapse at the end of the year unless the United States joins in.

The Reagan Administration will seek funds next month to provide full-time bodyguards for certain foreign ambassadors stationed in Washington, a senior State Department official said today. The official said the move grew out of the Administration's concern over what it regards as threats to the safety of some foreign ambassadors here. Robert E. Lamb, the director of the department's newly formed Bureau of Diplomatic Security, said in an interview that he expected about 10 envoys to be eligible for bodyguards at any one time, but that the number would fluctuate depending on the actual threats. Some Envoys Threatened Mr. Lamb said threats had been made against certain ambassadors, but he declined to be specific.

Twenty Poles who were on a vacation trip defected here today and asked for asylum, a police spokesman said.

For Westerners living in Moscow, and Russians permitted to travel abroad, this intimate city on the Gulf of Finland is no ordinary European capital. It is the great escape. As the closest outpost of Western culture and consumer goods, Helsinki serves as a giant playground, shopping mall, medical center and psychological safety valve for Western diplomats, business folk and journalists based in Moscow and for Russians seeking a taste of the West. Recognizing the potential profit inherent in this geographically inspired match, Helsinki has developed and refined numerous ways to serve the visitors.

Fifty Vietnamese refugees were slain and 10 women were raped last week when their boat was intercepted by pirates in the South China Sea, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said today. The victims were among a group of 80 refugees who fled Vietnam for Malaysia on Dec. 12, the spokesman, Leon Davico, said. Twenty-nine survivors, mostly women and children, sailed into Malaysia and requested asylum there Thursday, he said, two days after the pirates attacked the refugees and left their boat adrift. Another survivor was rescued by Malaysian fishermen.

Nicaraguan Government leaders have been meeting privately with prominent opposition figures as part of a new peace initiative sponsored by Spain's Socialist Government, participants in the talks said this week. The talks are aimed ultimately at ending the armed conflict that has taken the lives of more than 15,000 Nicaraguans over the last four years. Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez of Spain was said to be backing the initiative out of concern that the four-nation peace effort known as Contadora was faltering, and that no other mechanism existed to promote dialogue among political factions within Nicaragua. Seeking to Fill the Vacuum ''There was a feeling that Contadora was reaching a dead end, and Spain decided to step into the vacuum,'' said a European diplomat close to the current talks.

The Salvadoran Government agreed today to a holiday cease-fire through Jan. 2. The cease-fire was previously approved by the leftist rebels.