touch -t 198612310000 oldfile

no parameter for recursive touching.

ddate=200104150000
find -print0 | xargs -0 touch -c -t $ddate

touch [OPTION] FILE...

-t STAMP               use [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] instead of current time
-r, --reference=FILE   use this file's times instead of current time
-c, --no-create        do not create any files