WISDOM OF AGES: Ventura County is going gray, fast. And in recognition of the fastest-growing segment of our population, county officials have declared May as Older Americans Month. . . . About one out of 10 county residents is 65 or older. These years of experience tend to pool in some communities. Ojai has a greater concentration of elderly than other cities, attributed to its history as a vacation spot, its public transit and array of senior services. "It's a great place to grow old," said Councilwoman Nina Shelley, a septuagenarian. "But don't tell anybody!"

ADDRESS UNKNOWN: The U. S. Postal Service got a lesson on social geography . . . from the residents of Thousand Oaks. The Postal Service recently notified residents with the 91320 ZIP code that they should use Newbury Park to correctly address letters. . . . Newbury Park doesn't have quite the upscale image of Thousand Oaks, and residents became unglued. Hundreds blistered postal workers with angry calls. "The last thing we want to do is upset our customers," Postmaster Douglas Leeds said. He assures that either city designation will do.

CLEAN SWEEP: What better place to locate a police cleanup patrol than a former laundry? County sheriff's deputies are converting an old laundry into a new storefront station in Fillmore to cleanse the tiny town of its growing gang problems (B1). . . . The storefront location, Fillmore Senior Deputy Jim Aguirre said, "seems quite appropriate, given our mission." The first order of business: scrubbing graffiti from the laundry's walls.

BATTER UP: Amy Chellevold, a former Thousand Oaks High athlete, is emerging as the best hitter in college softball (C14). . . . Chellevold has already shattered the record at Arizona for hits in a season, and she's within six hits of an NCAA record. She's batting .504, after stepping up to the plate 228 times for the defending national champion Wildcats. "It's truly amazing," Coach Mike Candrea said, "when someone gets a hit every two times at bat." Aging Population

Percentage of residents 65 years and older in Ventura County cities:

Ojai: 19.7

Camarillo: 16.7

Ventura: 12.5

Santa Paula: 12.3

Fillmore: 11.5

Port Hueneme: 9.9

Thousand Oaks: 9.0

Oxnard: 7.7

Simi Valley: 5.3

Moorpark: 3.8

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Black adults are overwhelmingly pessimistic about the prospects of black children, citing fears of violence, guns, drugs and gangs, according to a national poll released Thursday.

The poll, commissioned by the Children's Defense Fund and a new organization known as the Black Community Crusade for Children, found that more than three-fourths of black adults fear that their children or children they know will fall victim to violence. The poll did not include comparable figures for whites or others.

More than 80% of the black adults said these are "really bad times" or "tough times" for black children. More than 70% of the adults -- many of whom were raised during an era of segregation -- believe it is harder for children today than it was for them.

"This poll confirms what black leaders already know," said Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman. "We have a black child crisis worse than any since slavery."

The poll showed that, although 75% of black children said these are good times for them personally, they also see major obstacles ahead. More than three-fourths of these young people said school violence is a serious problem for them; 70% said the same of guns, and 64% said dangerous neighborhoods are a major problem.

"They do have dreams and hopes and ambitions, but they see the road from here to there is laden with obstacles," said Geoffrey Garin, president of Peter D. Hart Research Associates, which conducted the poll. The poll, taken in January, questioned 1,004 adults and 421 children ages 11 to 17.

Two-thirds of adults polled said black children face more problems than opportunities, and the vast majority believe that at least half of all black children will become teen-age parents, will be denied opportunities because of racial prejudice or will have their lives destroyed by drugs.

Several community efforts were cited as models of creative solutions, including "beacon schools" in New York City that stay open until 11 p.m. year-round and operate as community centers.

The Clinton Administration declared a federal fishing disaster in the Pacific Northwest and announced a $15.7-million economic assistance plan to help the region's coastal fishing communities.Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown said he declared the disaster because salmon stocks along the Pacific Coast have reached a record low. He estimated nearly 8,400 jobs have been affected by the recent crisis. Four Northwest salmon species are already protected under the Endangered Species Act and several others have been proposed for listing, largely because of a series of hydroelectric dams that impeded their migration up and down the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Stephen G. Breyer's nomination to become a Supreme Court justice will begin July 12, Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr.(D-Del.) announced Thursday.

That is the first Tuesday after Congress takes a weeklong recess for the July 4 holiday, and will be two months after Breyer was nominated.

Assuming his confirmation process goes as smoothly as anticipated, he would be confirmed before Congress leaves for its annual August recess. That would leave him time to prepare for the Supreme Court's traditional opening day, the first Monday in October.

Breyer was nominated to replace Justice Harry A. Blackmun, whose retirement becomes effective at the end of the current term.

The Energy Department has no permanent solution for disposing of 50 tons of radioactive plutonium waste from the Cold War weapons program, and it may have to continue using temporary storage facilities for as long as 20 years, department officials told Congress on Thursday.

As an interim solution, the department is considering the possibility of storing some of the waste in abandoned military bases around the country, officials said in a report released earlier this week.

The disposal issue is one of the thorniest facing the department. Plutonium poses "significant dangers to national and international security" because of the possibility that it could fall into the wrong hands and be fashioned into a nuclear bomb, Energy Undersecretary Charles Curtis said in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Only about 10 pounds of plutonium is needed to build a bomb.

Of the estimated 100 tons of weapons-grade plutonium in the United States, only half will be retained by the federal government for use in nuclear weapons. No plans have yet been devised for disposing of the remainder.

Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), committee chairman, said that, although the problem is a serious one for both the United States and Russia -- which possess the bulk of the world's plutonium -- the pace of the search for a solution has been "torpid at best."

In addition to solving the plutonium disposal problem, the Energy Department must decide what to do about the millions of pounds of radioactive waste from other sources that is being stored in 29 temporary sites around the nation. Many of the containers are rusting and threatening to release radioactivity. Inspection teams are attempting to assess the extent of the danger, a department spokesman said.

In contrast, most of the surplus plutonium is held at relatively few sites, the largest of which is the department's Pantex plant near Amarillo, Tex., which has the job of dismantling nuclear weapons. About 6,000 plutonium pits are contained in so-called igloos on Pantex land.

The proposal to store the waste at military installations appears to be the result of protests from Texas authorities over the storage at Pantex.

Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary has promised Texas officials to limit the storage there, raising the problem of where to put the material.

Efforts to find a permanent storage site have run into a number of technical and environmental roadblocks. A federally appointed panel led by Stanford University Prof. Wolfgang Panofsky suggested that the plutonium could be used in commercial reactors to make electricity or be converted into glass logs in a process called vitrification.

But Johnston raised concerns that the only U.S. reactors capable of using the plutonium are scheduled to be closed. It would take another decade to build a new reactor for the job, Panofsky said.

Thomas Cochran, a physicist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview that a single reactor can consume on average of one ton of plutonium. Using that calculation, it would take 50 years for a single reactor or 25 years for two reactors to use the entire surplus.

Ultimately, the plutonium, which remains radioactive for 20,000 years, must be buried. After exhaustive research, the federal government selected a site in Yucca Mountain, Nev., but years of additional study will be needed before any radioactive materials are entombed there.

"Many of the other proposals, like diluting the plutonium in ocean currents, launching it into outer space and detonating warheads, hardly seem to be serious alternatives," Johnston complained.

Scholars searching for ways to broaden the lessons of the Holocaust told an audience at Los Angeles' most prominent black church Thursday that Nazis murdered and mutilated African American prisoners of war because of their race, and sterilized young children of mixed German and African blood.

The presentation of previously unpublicized research was organized by the Martyrs Memorial and Museum of the Holocaust in Los Angeles, which is working with local teachers and researchers to develop curriculum supplements for secondary school students.

Researchers told listeners at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church that documents from Nazi war crimes trials show that blacks -- both Americans and soldiers from Africa serving in the armies of colonial powers -- were singled out for mistreatment once they were captured by the Nazis.

In one case, said Robert Kesting, an archivist at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, 11 captured African American soldiers were humiliated by SS officers and forced to carry them on their backs before they were tortured, executed and mutilated. Other black soldiers were forced to dig their own graves before they were executed.

Although white soldiers were also mistreated by Germans, Kesting said blacks tended to be treated worse because of their race: Nazis considered people of African descent, as well as Jews, Gypsies and handicapped people, to be "race polluters."

In a horrific example of Nazi eugenics -- the pseudo-science of genetically "improving" the human race -- hundreds of half-black, half-German children, ages 6 to 12, were sterilized under government dictates in the 1930s, Kesting said.

The children, labeled the "Rhineland bastards," were for the most part the offspring of German women who married African soldiers who were part of the French army occupying western Germany after World War I. Hundreds of the children later disappeared without a trace.

The 14-year-old Holocaust memorial organization, run by the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, sponsored Thursday's lecture in response to the controversy that erupted after some black high school students in Oakland were kicked out of a movie theater for laughing at scenes of the murder of Jews in "Schindler's List."

Educators, struggling to get students interested in history that seems long ago and far away, said they believe the greater scope of genocide will hit home to African American students if they are taught that people of African descent were also persecuted by the Nazis.

Students need to understand that "it could have been me," said Suzanne Riveles, a political scientist who teaches at Howard University and participated in Thursday's lecture.

The Rev. Leonard Jackson, associate minister of First AME, said interest in the Holocaust in the black community is "little or nothing."

"It is easy to look at a story such as 'Schindler's List' and say, 'So what?' But if you realize . . . it was not just Jewish individuals, it was African Americans, black Africans . . . that's what makes a difference."

Museum Director Alex Grobman said the students in Oakland were unfairly criticized. They were simply unfamiliar with the history, he said, and could not understand that the events on screen really happened. He said he later took several of the students on a tour of the museum and found them "very receptive."

In their search for ways to teach the Holocaust in a broader context, Grobman and Allan Scholl, the museum's education specialist, began looking for Holocaust stories that involved blacks. They found Kesting and Riveles.

Riveles said the racist attitudes of some Nazi officials were shaped by their experiences in German colonies in Africa, where they began to consider some races "subhuman." "Germans . . . carried racial attitudes toward Africans very far. . . . They later attributed similar negative features to the 'Negro of Europe' -- the European Jew," she said.

Riveles was born in Berlin, and although her family is not Jewish, she suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Her father was executed for his role in Resistance activities. She later earned her Ph.D. in African studies at Howard University, and she has worked with Amnesty International. Riveles said it is important to keep telling stories from the past because the racist attitudes they reflect live on today.

First AME's Jackson agreed: "You ask the Jewish population, 'Why do you continue to talk about the Holocaust?' People continue to ask black people, 'Why talk about history, it happened a long time ago.' (But) as long as we keep it on the front page we won't allow it to happen again."

A university run by a bunch of clowns: The student newspaper at Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach published a map that pinpointed the destinations of the 1994 grads, including UC Berkeley, Barnard, Middlebury (Vt.), and Yale -- not to mention a university in Florida whose halls are no doubt paved with banana peels.

Yes, grad Michelle Siddons plans to attend the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Clown College.

*

There's that city, again: We observed the other day that nearly every national news figure seems to have some link to Long Beach, the latest being new resident Paula Jones, who's suing President Clinton for sexual harassment.

It turns out we omitted two well-known physicians who once worked in the city. One was Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret convicted of murdering his wife and two children (profiled in Joe McGinnis' "Fatal Vision"). The other: Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who worked for two hospitals in Long Beach from 1979 to 1982.

*

Well, there goes another $2.20 that the Rodney King arrest has cost the city: Jurors deliberating in the seemingly-never-ending punitive damages phase of the King trial sent an urgent plea to the court Thursday. They needed new batteries for the remote control set for the video machine that plays the King beating back and forth.

*

As anyone who has seen a TV commercial in the last three months knows: In its "Corrections" box, Thursday's Daily Variety listed seven movies it had omitted "from the list of summer releases published Wednesday," including . . .

"The Flintstones."

*

Lowering expectations: Amid all the pitches for lavish apartments, Jack Brown of Long Beach found one that seems to take the opposite approach. Meanwhile, Alfred de Masi of Lawndale was surprised to find an ad for what appear to be some leftovers.

*

Press releases we never finish: "If you're not able to attend a (World Cup) match, you can still join in the festivities by throwing a World Cup party of your own. One suggestion is to include an international favorite -- beans."

*

Sure, Al Davis has been accused of a lot of things . . . But this -- well, we think the Sun newspaper went too far in its May 31 edition. The tabloid's list of 1994 "predictions that will rock America" includes a stunner for Southern California:

"Raiders attack California dam."

Anyway, aren't the Raiders more interested in the California gravel pits out Irwindale way? miscelLAny:

Congratulations to instructor Robert Van Den Brink of Wilson High in Hacienda Heights, whose auto shop classes have labored for 11 years to convert a 1969 Japanese import into a kind of Toyota Corona hot-rod lowrider. The cruiser recently was named "Coolest Car in L.A." by KTLA Channel 5 auto reporter Steve Parker. It defeated more than a 100 other entries, including a 1958 Cadillac camper and a three-wheeled drag-racer capable of hitting 400 m.p.h., though not during rush hours.

President Clinton acted appropriately Thursday in decoupling human rights from trade policy in renewing most-favored-nation trading status for China. "We have reached the end of the usefulness of that policy," he said, and we must sadly agree. It was a difficult political decision, but one thoughtfully made in recognition of the need to build a productive, long-term, strategic relationship with China. A China engaged and open is far more desirable than a communist giant in isolation.

That is not to suggest that China has made vast improvements in human rights. It has not. Nor should the United States abandon the issue. The President was unequivocally clear on two points: that the United States will continue to champion human rights and that abuses continue in China. But the attempt to leverage trade for improvements in human rights has fallen short. The question now is what is the best way to pursue human rights in China? The issue is real, but it should not be the defining element in political, economic and security discussions with Beijing.

Clinton now believes that advances in human rights are far more likely under improved relations and when they are not beneath the cloud of the annual MFN review. MFN is accorded the vast majority of U.S. trading partners without annual reviews. The status allows them to sell goods in the United States at the lowest possible tariffs.

China's MFN status was not subject to annual wrangling until after June, 1989, when Chinese tanks rolled into Tian An Men Square in a bloody confrontation with pro-democracy demonstrators. Congress wanted China's MFN renewal linked to human rights, but it was unable to prevail over President George Bush's preference for unfettered MFN. During the 1992 presidential campaign Bill Clinton accused Bush of "coddling dictators" in China.

Last year President Clinton renewed MFN for China with an executive order that required China to meet seven conditions, related to human rights, prison labor and emigration issues. Secretary of State Warren Christopher certified that China had made improvements in two, but not the other five. That is probably because changing dynamics within China over the last year have slowed improvements. Tensions between the central government and the provinces have widened with modernization; further stress is resulting because, in light of the ages of senior officials, changes in leadership are expected soon.

With China in flux, Congress should support President Clinton's balanced decision on MFN, thereby presenting a united U.S. front to Beijing.

There's no doubt about it: The Los Angeles Unified School District bungled the application for a prestigious $15-million National Science Foundation grant. Supt. Sid Thompson called the botched application "a major mistake." As the bad old joke goes, that's like saying Quasimodo was a little bit ugly.

But there's nothing at all amusing about the handling of the NSF grant request. All the school district had to do was present a coherent vision of what it would do to improve math and science classes for Los Angeles students. What was the plan and how would the district work with parents, education reformers, academic leaders, the civic and business communities to ensure success? Somehow, New York and Chicago managed to articulate their plans, and as a result they were awarded major grants.

The Los Angeles application, on the other hand, was "a shabbily presented document and it was very disorganized," said one expert who saw it. Another said that the Los Angeles application amounted to " 'Give us the money, we'll convene meetings and out of the meetings a plan will emerge. . . .' That is not good enough."

Indeed, it's hard to see any way that the LAUSD application process worked as it should have. Thompson assigned the grant writing to two math and science instructors -- who may be fine teachers, but the ability to secure a major grant is a different talent. The district didn't collaborate with the leading education reform organizations in the city, LEARN and the L.A. Educational Partnership. Apparently no one considered calling on the thinkers at UCLA and USC who certainly could have helped.

The district came up empty-handed even though it had been given a $100,000 stipend from the NSF to research and write the grant. Luckily for the public school children of Los Angeles, the NSF is giving the LAUSD a second chance to get it right by July 30.

A former President spoke of "the vision thing." Clearly, that's something the Los Angeles Unified School District didn't have in this case. It is just this sort of inexcusable embarrassment that causes weary LAUSD supporters to shake their heads and wonder.

Few among us haven't known an urgent need and cursed the lack of public toilets; imagine this on a grinding, humiliating daily basis.

Los Angeles homeless advocate Alice Callaghan has tried since 1987 to get public toilets on Skid Row.She had no luck with Mayor Tom Bradley, and when Mayor Richard Riordan seemed slow to respond, Callaghan and friends took the issue to City Hall, blockading a men's room to demand a hearing.

Riordan's office was already working to solve the issue, says Deputy Mayor Rae James. So with the help of City Council member Rita Walters, whose district includes Skid Row, an agreement in principle was reached to have the city provide a few dozen simple portable toilets, the kind you see at construction sites. The cost, including daily cleaning of each toilet, is comparatively small: $77,000 a year. The city wants eventually to follow San Diego's lead with permanent public toilets and full-time attendants, says James, but that will take time and money.

Courts continue to strike down ordinances like the one that Santa Ana passed to prohibit public camping, so other cities may increasingly be interested in portable toilets.

Opponents, including some Skid Row businesses, fear unattended toilets will conceal drug deals and prostitution. They have a reasonable point, and perhaps a watchful eye can be funded. But the streets will only improve if basic dignity is afforded the homeless and if others are spared the sensory assault of reeking human waste. The city and county should speedily issue the final permits.

In an unprecedented legal agreement, African American customers who were refused service, asked to pay in advance, seated in segregated areas or subjected to other hostile treatment because of their race will share in a $54-million settlement from Denny's, the restaurant chain. That is the largest nationwide settlement in any public accommodations case since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"These settlements . . . put corporate America on notice that discrimination in public places will be just as costly as discrimination in housing and discrimination in employment," Deval Patrick, the new head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said. He said the department is investigating 20 such cases.

Denny's admits no wrongdoing, but attorneys who initiated class-action lawsuits against Denny's, including some from the Public Interest Law Firm in San Jose, cited many examples. The most notorious incident involved six black Secret Service agents who were refused service for nearly an hour at a Denny's in Annapolis, Md. They were in that state to provide security during a visit by President Clinton. While they were forced to wait, 14 white agents and a black agent who sat with them were quickly served.

The Annapolis incident happened on the very day that a federal judge in California ordered Denny's to stop discriminating against black customers. That case started when 18 black high school and college students who had attended an NAACP college information program went to a Denny's restaurant in San Jose and were required to prepay for meals or pay a cover charge before they were seated. That incident led to a class-action suit alleging 3,000 racial incidents at Denny's restaurants in Los Angeles, Costa Mesa, San Diego, Sacramento and elsewhere in California.

Denny's has also agreed to hire a civil rights monitor, retrain all its employees, run racially diverse advertisements and conduct random tests for discrimination at its restaurants.

Racial discrimination in public places has long been against the law. But laws are meaningless without strong enforcement. The Denny's settlement is a welcome sign that Washington once again intends to vigorously enforce civil rights laws.

* Michael Uhlmann's May 24 Column Right inquires rhetorically whether "someone in the White House may have spoken to someone in the Justice Department" about the department's criminal investigation into (Rep. Dan) Rostenkowski's case.

No one in the White House has spoken or will speak to anyone in the Justice Department, or vice versa, about the disposition of this case. To do so would be contrary to this Administration's written procedures concerning relationships between the White House and the department. As the President's counsel, it is my responsibility to make sure that no such conversation occurs.

LLOYD N. CUTLER

Special Counsel to the President

Washington

* The Information Highway might turn out to be just another toll road to the ocean of words in which we are drowning already.

ALOIS GOTTFRIED

Los Angeles

The article on surveillance by Thomas B. Rosenstiel (May 18) raises many important points about a growing threat to our personal privacy. But it fails to report that there is an opportunity for Californians to learn about their privacy rights (as well as the shortage of such rights) and how to safeguard their personal information.

California is the only state in the nation with a consumer education program dedicated to informing consumers about privacy protection. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse is funded by the California Public Utilities Commission's Telecommunications Education Trust. It is located at the University of San Diego's Center for Public Interest Law and has been operating since October, 1992.

In the first 18 months of the PRC's operation, nearly 15,000 Californians have called its toll-free hot line, (800) 773-7748, to ask questions about privacy -- a clear indication of the high level of concern consumers have about their privacy.

The PRC has distributed hundreds of thousands of its free fact sheets, which offer practical tips on how to safeguard personal information in such areas as: junk mail, telemarketing, credit reports, workplace privacy, Social Security numbers, medical privacy, cellular phones, harassing phone calls, wiretapping and government records.

The PRC recognizes the serious problems that exist in this country regarding the lack of privacy protection in laws and regulations. By arming consumers with information on their privacy rights, it is raising consumers' awareness about an important social issue at the same time that it gives them some practical tips on how to limit the release of their personal information.

BETH GIVENS, Project Director

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

University of San Diego

* Regarding "Arafat Clarifies 'Jihad' Call; Peres Accepts Explanation," May 19: It is always interesting to see how PLO leader Yasser Arafat conveniently says different things, with the same words, to different people.

Arafat now claims that he meant the word jihad as a peaceful religious term, when he talks to the Israelis and the West.But, for the past 30 years of the intifada, it has always meant victory through violent warfare and terrorism.

Earlier, when his followers in a mosque heard him state; "Jihad will continue . . . our main battle is Jerusalem," they knew exactly what he meant -- it was not necessary for him to explain the meaning to them. It meant what it has always meant: an attack upon Jerusalem and the driving out of the Israelis from their holy city.

This is typical of the problems Israel has had to face most of the time in dealing with the Palestinian Arabs. I realize that Arafat is having problems with the more militant among those who hate the Jews, but his blatant attempt to cover up his appeal to these people must be exposed and dealt with if permanent peace is ever to be achieved in the Middle East.

IRVING E. FRIEDMAN

Laguna Niguel

* Your editorial "Arafat Says: Who Me?" (May 12) omitted to mention that Arafat is having difficulty recruiting even his old allies, because of the agreement he signed. An agreement that, for starters, leaves the settlers in 30% of Gaza; and the settlers' per capita allocation of 100 times the land and 16 times the water designated for the native Palestinians. Would it not be more informative to your readers to explain why the Palestinians are angry?

ISSAM NASHASHIBI

Newport Beach

* In response to "River Rescue" (April 20), and the letter (May 11) from Friends of the L.A. River (FoLAR) on May 11: I believe the 11 flood-impacted cities of Southeast Los Angeles County are being unfairly treated for supporting the proposed Los Angeles County Drainage Area (LACDA) project. The cities are certainly not opposed to enhancing water conservation or recreational opportunities for our 675,000 residents living in the 82-square-mile flood plain area, but we are opposed to risking residents' lives and the region's economic future on FoLAR's dream to "restore" the Los Angeles River.

What FoLAR refuses to recognize are the economic realities, which were demonstrated in a $50,000 USC study commissioned by the Southeast Los Angeles County cities. That study estimated our region will lose $32 billion in economic activity and 177,000 jobs over a 10-year period without the LACDA project relieving the national flood insurance program requirements.

Each year the project is delayed, it exposes our residents to loss of life and economic damages totaling $2.25 billion from the effects of a 100-year flood. Starting next year, residents will have to pay $131 million yearly for mandatory flood insurance premiums.

FoLAR's idea of restoring the L.A. River to its "natural" or "restored" state doesn't make sense. The L.A. River, after all, used to empty into Marina del Rey until it changed course in the mid-1800s. To take out the concrete retaining walls and widen the river to its "natural" state would mean removing 40,000-plus structures just for the distance from South Gate to Long Beach.

GERALD M. CATON

City Manager, Downey

* Richard Rodriguez is right to ridicule the demonization of cigarettes ("A Dance With Death," Opinion, May 22). Though not particularly pleasant, cigarette smoking is a minor hazard compared to the battery of present-day assaults on our collective health and safety.

If the anti-smoking campaigners could apply the same self-righteous zeal to controlling and ostracizing the chemical polluters, petroleum-driven automobiles, guns and their respective manufacturers, then the air truly would be cleaner and the environment a safer place for all.

Incidentally, my very healthy mother puffed her way through three healthy pregnancies. She would rather risk losing a few years of life than be deprived of her simple, and personal, smoking pleasure.

FRANCES ANDERTON

Santa Monica

* Your article regarding the payment of $950,000 by the tobacco industry to actors for placing their products in movies (May 19) once again highlights the hypocrisy of the entertainment industry regarding the ability of movies to influence social behavior.

The industry moguls stand up and loudly deny that the constant barrage of violence and antisocial behavior which they produce has any effect whatsoever on social attitudes, but the next day they accept money for placing products in the films, knowing full well that the money is meant to influence viewers' habits.

It must work -- why else would the money be offered? If showing people smoking in films (or showing Clark Gable without an undershirt) can cause a change in mores, does it not follow that continual showing of violence begets violence?

ROGER W. CLAPP

Rolling Hills Estates

* A former employee of Brown & Williamson Tobacco has leaked documents which indicate that 30 years ago one of their top executives stated that nicotine is addictive (May 17). Other memos show that the company vetoed marketing a safer cigarette, since it would reflect upon the safety of their other brands.

To counter this incriminating evidence, what do Brown & Williamson officials do? Of course, they sue the employee for theft of the documents. But since those very executives have denied knowledge of nicotine being addictive, they accuse him of stealing something which did not exist. Or are they worried that these "cigarette papers" may be the undoing of their elaborate cover-up? A smoking gun?

WILFRED COUZIN

Laguna Niguel

* The May 16 commentary by Loretta Scherz Keller, who identifies herself as a smoker-quitter-smoker-again, makes a number of good points regarding the difficulties of kicking the habit/addiction of cigarettes. In regard to her suggestion that the government fund clinics for smokers with a follow-up program for those smokers who revert to smoking, there is help currently available to smokers through a National Cancer Institute funded phone line -- the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER.

Trained information specialists will counsel callers in stop-smoking techniques, make referrals to programs run by community groups such as the American Cancer Society and the Lung Assn., and mail out packets of materials to assist in the process. The CIS is available 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., has bilingual staff, and welcomes repeat callers.

BRENDA LARSEN

CIS Telephone Service Manager, UCLA

Back home again in Indiana, beginning Saturday afternoon, maybe the Pacers will find some solutions.

What do they need in these Eastern Conference finals?

-- A victory, after the New York Knicks took one, 89-78, Thursday night at Madison Square Garden with 32 points and 13 rebounds from Patrick Ewing. New York leads the best-of-seven series, 2-0.

-- A starting small forward besides the Invisible Man. Derrick McKey, who has allegedly played 75 minutes the first two games, is in a disappearing act, having made two of 16 shots, scored seven points and grabbed nine rebounds.

-- Reggie Miller hitting something besides a courtside printer. After being limited to 11 shots in Game 1, about five fewer than in the first 10 postseason outings, he broke free for 21 in Game 2. But he made only eight, diluting much of the impact of his team-high 23 points.

By the fourth quarter, while making four of 12 in the second half, he was obviously frustrated. The Knicks harassed him with everyone from Derek Harper, Greg Anthony and John Starks in the backcourt to Charles Oakley denying penetration up front. So when Miller lost control of a ball near the sideline at midcourt, late in the fourth quarter when the game had all but been decided, he gave a computer printer a smash with his fist.

It cracked.

The Knick defense didn't.

"I don't think they took me out of everything," said Miller, who has increased his regular-season scoring average of 19.9 points by about 1 1/2 points in the playoffs. "I think they made us start our offense much farther out."

No, they haven't taken Miller out of everything. Only his role as the Pacers' biggest offensive threat. Center Rik Smits has outscored Miller, 49-37, in the first two games.

The Knicks have shut Miller down from behind the three-point line, where, after finishing the regular season No. 3 in the league, he is only two of seven.

"It was a team effort," said Harper, who had 18 points, eight assists and six rebounds along with his defensive work.

"Everyone is conscious where Reggie is going on the basketball floor. The thing with Reggie, you've got to make him earn his shots."

Said Pacer Coach Larry Brown: "I think they're contesting every one of Reggie's shots. He'll make his share, but they're not giving him good looks."

The defense that was nice Tuesday -- the Knicks allowed 89 points but scored 100 -- was downright necessary Thursday.

New York opened the second quarter with a four-point lead and then made only three of its first 20 shots. The Knicks finished the quarter seven of 26 (26.9%), scored only 15 points and still went into halftime with a 40-40 tie.

When Miller came out of the game late in the third quarter, the Knicks started to take control. A 14-0 run was good for a 71-62 lead with 9:34 to play.

Miller returned, and the Pacers got a quick basket from Haywoode Workman, but Ewing answered with two free throws and a jump shot to spark an 11-6 surge that put the game away. Indiana scored only 16 points in the fourth quarter.

"We felt an urgency," Harper said.

"We needed to do something to turn the game in our favor. More than anything, we had to step up defensively. We wanted to get up and in on guys."

On the same guys they want to send down and out. That chance comes at Market Square Arena with Game 3 on Saturday and Game 4 on Sunday. Indiana is 8-0 at home during the playoffs.

"We have to prove we can beat this team," Brown said. "We might as well try the next one."

After spending what seemed like a lifetime in and out of doctors' offices, Aaron Krickstein is among the living.

With five-inch screws holding together each foot and the aches of too many other injuries in the last decade to recall in detail, Krickstein returned to Center Court at the French Open on Thursday and routed second-seeded Michael Stich of Germany, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4, in a second-round match that was as nondescript as a signpost.

The victory was nice. It really was. But after years of pain on the professional tour, Krickstein, 26, is simply happy to be playing.

Relaxing after his victory, Krickstein patiently recited the litany of injuries that has kept a once-promising career off balance. He has had five stress fractures -- three in the left foot, one in the right foot and one in the right leg.

"And there was the taxi in 1987," he said, a smile coming over his face.

Shortly after recovering from one of his foot injuries in 1987, he suffered bruised ribs in New York when a taxi hit him as he stepped off a curb. Another car had run a stop sign and hit the taxi, knocking it into Krickstein.

None of that mattered Thursday when a physically sound Krickstein met an opponent who soon realized it would not be his day.

"It's just one of those days when you'd better stay in bed," Stich said.

Stich, ranked No. 2 in the world, had no explanation for his poor play, coming on the heels of last weekend's World Cup in Dusseldorf, Germany, where he defeated No. 1-ranked Pete Sampras and defending French champion Sergi Bruguera. Although ranked second, Stich has done little in Grand Slam events beyond winning Wimbledon in 1991 and reaching the semifinals here in '91 and in the Australian Open in '93.

This year, he is off to an abysmal start, losing in the first round in Australia to Mal Washington, and now in the second round at Roland Garros.

It was not so much that Stich lost, but the way he played. He had 57 unforced errors to Krickstein's 19. He swung at balls as if he were trying to catch butterflies. And he had 10 double faults.

"If his serving is off, he is not the second-best player in the world," Krickstein said.

Stich, 25, has not been on the scene as long as Krickstein but has gone farther in shorter time. And because of that, he summarily dismissed Krickstein as a viable opponent. "If he's playing normal and I'm playing normal, I'm going to win," Stich said.

Countered Krickstein: "When you beat someone in three straight in a Slam, that is pretty good, whether or not he is playing bad. If conditions aren't perfect for Michael, he has trouble."

With storm clouds blowing over Center Court, Stich was unable to utilize the express-train serve that makes him so dangerous.

But the German did not seem to get flustered. He simply played as if he would rather be somewhere else.

Krickstein knows the feeling. After gaining a No. 8 ranking in 1989, he has fluctuated between the top 10 and No. 50 when fit enough to play. He currently is No. 33 and trying to remain injury-free.

If it seems that the Michigan player has been around forever, well, maybe he has. He was the Assn. of Tennis Professional's youngest tour winner in 1983 at 16.

"I've outlived a few guys," Krickstein said. "I'm one of the few guys left who started out with a wood racket."

Krickstein was expected to be the next great American player. But he stalled when his body failed him. After his best season in 1989, he suffered an awful stretch of injuries the next year. He had a pulled groin, a recurring elbow problem and a hamstring strain. And then his father, a pathologist, accidentally closed a car door on his right hand late in the year.

He won one title last year and has won only nine in 11 years. Now he has a chance to reach the fourth round of the French Open for the second time.

And with Stich and No. 3 Stefan Edberg out of the lower half of the draw, Krickstein has as good a chance as anyone to reach the final.

Imagine a world without sportswriters, a world so computerized that its sports pages are entirely produced by someone stroking an "Enter" key.

Morning Briefing, for example, turned out by some software program. Frightening.

Get ready for SportsWriter, software that can turn facts, statistics and quotes about a high school sports event into your basic, bare-bones newspaper story.

Roger Helms, a Rochester, Minn., hacker who invented SportsWriter, said 82 newspapers, mainly small weeklies, have bought his product since 1991.

The system works like this: A fact-gathering form comes with the program. Newspapers give the form to high school coaches, who fill in the blanks with top performances, check a few boxes and provide a few quotes. A newspaper employee then types the information into the computer system.

In seconds, a story is created.

"One of the biggest problems is you're so dependent on the source," said Mike O'Malley, executive sports editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which doesn't use SportsWriter.

"You're kind of wondering how the coach will reflect what happens. The coach may not volunteer that, by the way, there was a free-for-all midway through the third quarter and that eight players were ejected.

"The whole thing makes you a little uncomfortable. I mean, if Nixon had called in the Watergate results, I'm not sure he would have provided all the details."

Trivia time: What is the name of the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes' baseball team's mascot? Going my way?In the spirit of what the United States is all about, Florida Citrus Bowl officials in Orlando are erecting 91 new "No Parking" signs around the stadium in anticipation of next month's World Cup.

People attending the game virtually will be forced to take a park-and-ride service from three locations several miles away from the event and be dropped off no closer than a quarter-mile away.

The shuttle is also in operation for the Jan. 1 Florida Citrus Bowl football game.

The Jan. 1 cost: $3.

The World Cup shuttle is a welcome-to-our-fair-city price of $10.

Cal count: When Cal Ripken Jr. hit his 300th home run for the Orioles Tuesday, it came in his 1,939th consecutive game.

If his playing streak remains intact, he'll tie Lou Gehrig's 55-year-old record of 2,130 in Baltimore's 71st game next season. The Orioles have asked the American League to give them home games for next season's 71st and 72nd games.

Ripken, batting .298 with 34 RBIs after Tuesday's game, joined two other Orioles in the 300-homer club: Eddie Murray (330) and Boog Powell (303).

Crowd counts: For decades, the California League was a collection of Class-A pro baseball teams primarily located in the San Joaquin Valley.

Now, however, there are five Southern California teams -- enough to play in their own division -- and two of them are setting attendance records.

The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, in their 6,100-seat, two-year-old Epicenter, are averaging 5,650 a game. The Lake Elsinore Storm, in its new 6,816-seat Diamond, is averaging 4,653. The remaining three Southern Division teams: Riverside Pilots, High Desert (Adelanto) Mavericks, San Bernardino Spirit.

Trivia answer: Tremor. Uniform number: 4.8.

Quotebook: Tom Keegan of the Baltimore Sun, after the Milwaukee Brewers lost their 14th game in a row Wednesday: "The Milwaukee Brewers are guaranteed of having their most productive day in more than two weeks Thursday. They are idle." EARL GUSTKEY

Spanish stars Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Conchita Martinez breezed into the third round of the French Open Thursday with straight-set victories at Roland Garros Stadium.

No. 2-ranked Sanchez Vicario routed Noelle Van Lottum of France, 6-1, 6-0, and No. 3 Martinez defeated Ginger Helgeson of Alpine, Calif., 6-2, 6-3.

On a slow day in the women's field, No. 9 Lindsay Davenport of Murrieta Valley High advanced past Katryna Nowak of Poland, 6-4, 6-2, and No. 11 Anke Huber of Germany defeated Meike Babel, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.

Davenport, the 6-foot-2, 160-pound teen-ager, said she is happy with her clay-court performance so far but added: "This isn't exactly my favorite surface. . . . I can't really slide that well."

She did not have to run around too much in overcoming Novak, building a 3-0 lead in the second set to take command of the match. ELLIOTT ALMOND

Sports are filled with eccentric and egocentric rich people who fire managers, coaches and other employees on whims, raise ticket prices indiscriminately, overcharge for concessions and parking, make fools of themselves, call people who wear earrings "fruits" and hoard every nickel.

Then there is Bill Daniels.

Ever wonder if there was a perfect boss? Talk to employees at Prime Ticket. They'll tell you it is Daniels.

He and Jerry Buss started Prime Ticket in 1985 as 50-50 partners. Daniels put up $5 million, Buss put up television rights to the Lakers, Kings and Forum boxing. Daniels also got 5% of the Lakers, which he still owns.

In 1988, Daniels bought out much of Buss' interest in Prime Ticket -- although Buss maintained 16 1/2% -- and began paying rights fees. To this day, Daniels calls Buss "the best business partner I've ever had."

Also in 1988, Daniels hired John Severino as president of Prime Ticket and gave him 5% of the company. And when Prime Ticket moved from Inglewood to Century City, Frank Price, the former president of Columbia Pictures who owned the Century City building that would house the company, got 1% as incentive to lower the monthly rent to $50,000 and to permit Daniels to erect a large Prime Ticket sign on the property.

Daniels also spruced up the new headquarters. Severino got an office at Prime Ticket that was twice as big and twice as nice as the one he had while president of ABC. Vice presidents were given offices that most company presidents could only dream about.

When Prime Ticket started "Press Box," its critically acclaimed nightly sports news show, the producers were given the best equipment and a new studio.

And no money was spared last year in starting up La Cadena Deportiva, the Spanish-language sports network that is expected to become a national service later this year.

Daniels bought out Severino's 5% when Severino resigned in August 1992, giving Daniels 82 1/2% of Prime Ticket.

The other day, Daniels sold Prime Ticket, pending routine regulatory approval, for more than $200 million. Daniels said the main part of the deal gives him a considerable amount of stock from the new owners, Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI).

Prime Ticket represents about 25% of Daniels' holdings, so he is a billionaire, or close to it. He is on the Forbes magazine list of the 400 richest people in the country.

And now he will be sharing some of his wealth.

Daniels said when he negotiated the sale, it was set up so that $10 million in cash would go to what he calls 15 "phantom stockholders" at Prime Ticket. They are vice presidents and department heads who will divvy up the pot.

But that's not all. Daniels said the remaining 105 or so employees will share a pot of between $1 million and $2 million, which will come out of his own pocket. He said they will receive their bonuses when the sale is approved, which should be in mid-July.

"I just want to reward the people there for a job well done," he said.

Is it any wonder that Alan Massengale, when he reported the sale at the end of last Friday's "Press Box" show, said: "There's no way you could work for a better boss."

Severino said: "He is one of the most -- if not the most -- honest, fair and decent human beings I've ever been associated with."

*

With the acquisition of Prime Ticket, TCI and its chief executive officer, John Malone, are on the verge of becoming a major player in the sports television business.

TCI plans to go after the Madison Square Garden network, the country's other major regional sports network. That acquisition, which would also include the New York Knicks, New York Rangers and the Garden, is expected to cost between $800 million and $1 billion.

If TCI can get the MSG network, it would then own or be affiliated with nearly all of the country's 30 regional sports networks, which reach 44 million cable households. That would put TCI in the same league with ESPN and Turner Broadcasting.

Daniels said he would like to see Roger Werner, Prime Ticket's current president who formerly was president of ESPN, head the new network. "He has all the qualifications," Daniels said.

Another top candidate for such a position would be Ed Frazier of Dallas, who is the CEO of Liberty Sports, the TCI subsidiary that oversees the company's sports holdings.

If events had followed a different course, Daniels instead of Malone, a close friend and associate, would be on the verge of controlling this envisioned major sports cable network. Malone and Daniels started Texas-based Prime Network in 1988, and four years later, TCI and Malone bought out Daniels.

At one point, it was close to being the other way around, but Malone topped Daniels' offer.

*

Daniels is generally regarded as the father of cable television.

This dates to 1952 when Daniels, after flying jet fighters in the Korean war, returned home to Casper, Wyo., and got together with a television engineer, Tom Morrisey, to start a cable service that brought television reception into Casper and surrounding areas from Denver.

They leased a microwave service from the telephone company for $8,500 a month, which, Daniels said, "seemed like all the money in the world."

They charged $150 for a cable hookup and $7.50 a month. Their customers, fascinated by this new thing called television, were willing to pay it.

Daniels and Associates, now based in Denver and Carlsbad, became one of the country's major cable operators.

Daniels, 73, is now trying to unload most of his holdings, but he's not considering retirement. It's just that as a cable television entrepreneur, this is what he does. He has gotten rich by acquiring companies, building up their value, then selling them.

Daniels has no immediate family besides his brother, Jack. Jack Daniels lives in Albuquerque and once ran for governor of New Mexico.

Bill Daniels, who has been married four times, is currently single.

So what's he going to do with all his money? He says he doesn't know. But someday, there could be more windfalls for loyal employees, of which there are many.

Some kind of boss.

Top-seeded Wayne Black of USC held off an aggressive second-set comeback by Tennessee's Chris Mahony to win, 6-1, 7-5, in Thursday's second round of the NCAA men's tennis championships.

But Black's teammate, Jon Leach, fell to Jan Hermansson of Southern Alabama, 4-6, 4-6.

Leach, the hero of USC team title-clinching match against Stanford on Tuesday, said he was outmatched by Hermansson.

"He was just too good today," Leach said. "If he plays like he did today, he will do well in the tournament."

Leach was joined on the sideline by third-seeded Rob Janecek of UCLA, who was upset by Vaughn Synman of Alabama Birmingham, 6-1, 2-6, 6-0.

Second-seeded Marcus Hilpert of Arkansas stayed on target for a match against Black by beating Tad Berkowitz of New Mexico, 5-7, 6-1, 6-4.

Two Pepperdine players lost.

Michael Flanagan of Stanford defeated the Waves' Ari Nathan, 6-4, 6-1, and Mike Sell of Georgia defeated Pepperdine's Charles Auffray, 6-1, 6-3.

For a kid from Tennessee, William VanLandingham does a pretty good California-cool impression.

Backed by Matt Williams' National League-leading 18th homer, VanLandingham won his first major league start by outpitching Andy Benes as the San Francisco Giants defeated the Padres, 5-3, Thursday at San Diego.

The 23-year-old right-hander was impressive, especially considering that he was called up from double-A Shreveport only eight days earlier.

"He doesn't act like a kid," catcher Jeff Reed said. "He acts poised out there. He doesn't get all excited easily. Most guys from triple-A, their first time they aren't that impressive. When you bring a guy all the way up from double-A, that's damn good."

Starting in place of injured Bill Swift, VanLandingham (1-0) gave up two runs and six hits in 5 1/3 innings, struck out five and walked three.

Pittsburgh 11, New York 10 -- The Pirates got eight gift runs as a result of three infield errors by the Mets, then rallied on Lance Parrish's game-winning single in the 13th inning at Pittsburgh.

Kevin Young hit a game-tying sacrifice fly in the ninth inning, then doubled and scored on Parrish's line-drive single.

Frank Seminara (0-1), the Mets' seventh pitcher, needed only three pitches to two batters to get the loss. Alejandro Pena (2-1) pitched four innings of hitless relief for the victory as the Pirates won for the third time in 13 games.

Cincinnati 14, Colorado 4 -- John Roper won his third consecutive start against the Rockies and triggered an eight-run second inning with a bases-loaded single at Denver as the Reds ended a five-game losing streak.

Roper, making his second start since being recalled from triple-A Indianapolis, limited the Rockies to four runs and five hits in seven innings as the Reds built a 14-2 lead.

Cincinnati scored twice in the first inning against Greg Harris (2-4) and sent 12 men to the plate in the second, with the first eight batters reaching base. The Reds scored five runs before making an out in the inning.

Houston 8, Atlanta 5 -- Ken Caminiti had three doubles and scored the go-ahead run in a four-run eighth inning as the Astros won at Atlanta.

Caminiti, who extended his hitting streak to 12 games, doubled off the center-field fence in the eighth, the first of four consecutive hits against Mike Stanton (1-1). Kevin Bass singled off Stanton's glove as Caminiti took third, and Tony Eusebio's single gave Houston a 5-4 lead.

Andujar Cedeno followed with an RBI single that chased Stanton. Steve Finley and Craig Biggio hit run-scoring singles with two out against Milt Hill.

Greg Swindell (5-1) gave up four runs and seven hits in seven innings, beating Atlanta for the first time after three losses. AMERICAN LEAGUE

Kansas City 3, Texas 1 -- Felix Jose broke a seventh-inning tie with a two-run double, and the Royals came from behind at Kansas City.

Roger Pavlik, who began the game with an 0-2 record and a 20.25 earned-run average, shut out the Royals on nine hits through six innings, but was replaced by Rick Honeycutt (0-2) after Brian McRae singled leading off the seventh. Wally Joyner singled and David Howard walked before Mike Macfarlane and Cris Carpenter drove in the final runs.

Boston 13, Cleveland 5 -- Damon Berryhill homered and doubled as the Red Sox scored eight runs in the second inning at Boston.

Boston, which had eight doubles, matched its biggest inning this season. The Red Sox, who have won 13 of 16 at home, had a season-high 17 hits and stopped Cleveland's five-game winning streak in Fenway Park.

Chuck Daly announced Thursday that he will resign as coach of the New York Nets with a year left on his three-year, $4-million contract and has signed a four-year contract with Turner Broadcasting System to become an NBA game-of-the-week analyst.

Daly said neither his health nor any conflicts with the Nets' front office or players led to his move.

Daly, who coached the Detroit Pistons to consecutive titles in 1989 and '90, also signed a two-year contract with the Nets to do TV commercials and possibly pregame shows.

Net General Manager Willis Reed said assistant coaches Brendan Suhr and Paul Silas will be considered as a possible replacement. Reed said he hoped to have a new coach by the end of June.

*

Lenny Wilkens, who accomplished more than he thought was possible in his first season with the Atlanta Hawks, was named NBA coach of the year.

In his 21st season as a head coach, Wilkens guided the Hawks to a 57-25 record, an improvement of 14 games. Hockey

The New Jersey Devils might be without scoring standout Stephane Richer when they face the New York Rangers in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference final tonight. Richer listed himself as "doubtful" because of a knee injury he sustained during Wednesday's 4-2 loss in Game 6. He would not say which knee was ailing. Pro Football

Owner Al Davis said at the final session of the NFL owners' meetings in Coral Gables, Fla., that the Raiders would continue playing in the earthquake-damaged Coliseum if repairs are made and a new lease can be worked out, but a return to Oakland isn't out of the question.

Although no timetable has been set for a decision regarding the Raiders, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said there was a "sense of urgency" because of season ticket-holders and scheduling concerns.

The only decision announced at the meetings was that the two expansion teams -- the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars -- will meet in the preseason Hall of Fame game at Canton, Ohio, in 1995. Jurisprudence

After being cited last month for nearly a dozen violations of Title IX, a law that bans gender discrimination in university sports programs, Fresno State was charged by a coalition led by former Fresno mayor Karen Humphrey with failing to improve women's sports facilities and to add more women to the Fresno State's corporate board.

The University of Pennsylvania discriminates against its female athletes by not giving them the same equipment and services it provides male athletes and is violating Title IX, according to a complaint filed by the Women's Law Project on behalf of a group of female athletes and their coaches.

Keith Henderson, a former running back for the Minnesota Vikings, was charged with rape, the third sexual assault complaint filed against him since February. Miscellany

Arizona State has sent the Pacific 10 Conference a written response to seven alleged rules violations in its football program. School officials said they expect the league to drop the allegation that coaches had excessive telephone contact with recruits. Arizona State will offer to penalize itself at a June 2 Pac-10 Enforcement and Compliance Committee hearing.

Wendy Ward of Arizona State took the individual lead with a five-under-par 68, and her team tied USC for first place at 592 after two rounds of the NCAA women's golf championship at Oregon Golf Club in West Linn. . . . District of Columbia officials said that U.S. World Cup officials had agreed to allow a fence to prevent fans from invading the field at RFK Stadium. . . . Brokers who don't deliver promised tickets for events like the Rose Bowl would have to pay customers their expenses plus two times the ticket price under a bill approved by the state Assembly.

Nancy Ramsbottom, who has not won on the LPGA tour in nearly a decade, eagled the eighth hole Thursday en route to an eight-under-par 64 and a one-stroke lead after the opening round of the Corning Classic at Corning, N.Y..

Pat Bradley and Amy Benz shared second at 65, and Beth Daniel was next at 67.

*

No one in the field of 110 players had finished a round when thunderstorms forced an overnight suspension of the first round of the Southwestern Bell Colonial at Ft. Worth.

J.P. Roberge is still in the midst of his USC baseball career, but his name is already etched in history at the baseball Hall of Fame.

Roberge, a junior first baseman from Arcadia, has his name inscribed on a plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y., for having won the most-valuable-player award at the 1991 Senior Babe Ruth World Series.

Roberge's goal this season is to help the Trojans make some history of their own by landing their first College World Series berth in 16 years. He made a major contribution toward that end Thursday with five hits, including two home runs, during a 19-3 victory over North Carolina Greensboro in the first round of the NCAA South Regional at Baton Rouge, La.

Second-seeded USC, which had a season-high 20 hits, plays tonight against third-seeded Tulane, a 7-5 winner Thursday over Fresno State.

Winners of the eight, six-team double-elimination regionals advance to Omaha for the College World Series June 3-11.

"It was just one of those days when you're in a zone," said Roberge, who drove in six runs and scored five times. "You're seeing the ball real well, it's right where you expect it to be and you can hit to all fields.

USC's offensive outburst was reminiscent of the Trojans' visit to Baton Rouge for a regional in 1990. USC defeated Southern Mississippi, 23-5, then beat Houston, 26-11, before being eliminated with consecutive losses to Louisiana State.

"Nothing matches those first two games in 1990 in terms of production," USC Coach Mike Gillespie said. "But this was a pretty good way to start off."

USC shortstop Gabe Alvarez had three hits and three runs batted in. Right fielder Jacque Jones also had three hits and drove in a run. Designated hitter Glen Carson had two RBIs.

Freshman right-hander Scott Henderson (4-1), who replaced starter Ben Tucker in the second inning, gave up one run, six hits and struck out six in 5 2/3 innings.

The Trojans scored in every inning, including six times in the eighth, and took advantage of four errors.

North Carolina Greensboro had a 2-1 lead after one inning, but saw that lead disappear when Roberge hit a two-run homer in the second. Roberge added a two-run shot during a four-run fifth inning. He also bunted for a hit and had two other singles.

Pitcher Jay Kuykendall's errant throw to second base on a double-play ball during USC's three-run fourth proved particularly costly to North Carolina Greensboro, which began its program in 1991 and is making its first playoff appearance.

"Our inability to execute a pretty fundamental play just opened the floodgates for them," Spartan Coach Mike Gaski said.

Every top-seeded team that opened play Thursday won. Defending national champion LSU defeated Southeastern Louisiana, 10-6, in the South Regional; Ohio State beat Brigham Young, 6-1, in the Atlantic II Regional at Tallahassee, Fla., and Clemson defeated The Citadel, 5-1, in the East Regional at Clemson, S.C. The start of the Mideast Regional at Knoxville, Tenn., was postponed until today because of rain.

Long Beach State (39-17) opens play in the Midwest II Regional at Wichita, Kan. today against Washington (42-16). Cal State Fullerton (41-13) plays Northwestern State (44-13) in the Midwest I Regional at Stillwater, Okla.

Chatsworth High, a 7-6 loser to Woodland Hills El Camino Real in the City Division 4-A baseball championship game last year, is favored by coaches to win the tournament this season.

The Chancellors (24-4), ranked No. 5 in the Southland by The Times, will open the playoffs today as the top-seeded team in 4-A when they play host to Van Nuys Grant in a first-round game at 3 p.m.

The pairings, set by a coaches' committee, were announced Thursday.

El Camino Real, which finished second to Chatsworth in the West Valley League, is seeded sixth and will play host to Sepulveda Monroe in its playoff opener.

East Valley League rivals Sylmar and Polytechnic are seeded second and fourth, respectively. Pacific League champion Carson is seeded third.

In 3-A, Northwestern League champion Lincoln is seeded No. 1, and South Gate of the Southeastern League is No. 2. South Gate is the defending divisional champion.

Bell, league runner-up to South Gate, was seeded 11th after having to forfeit four games for using an ineligible player.

The quarterfinals will be Wednesday and the semifinals June 3. The championship game will be June 6 at Dodger Stadium.

After securing a football scholarship to UCLA last February, Jim McElroy wasn't thinking about attempting to become the City Section's top sprinter.

On the advice of some friends, however, the Washington High senior changed his mind at the last minute and went out for the track team.

McElroy was rewarded for his decision with victories in the 100 and 200 meters at the City finals Thursday at Van Nuys Birmingham High.

"I've been running track since I was in the sixth grade," said McElroy, who is expected to play wide receiver for the Bruins. "But with my scholarship in hand, I thought I would just concentrate on getting ready for college. I decided to help out the team, though, and I'm glad I did."

Although Dorsey easily retained its team title with 75 points, the spotlight was on McElroy. His times of 10.81 seconds in the 100 meters and 21.47 in the 200 were good enough to edge league rival Leo Settle of Dorsey in both races.

"I've been battling Leo all season, and I knew his team was the heavy favorite today," said McElroy, who is 5 feet 11 and 155 pounds. "But I didn't want them to run away without a fight, and that's what I tried to do."

McElroy also anchored the Generals' 400 and 1,600 relays, which each placed third.

The top three finishers in each event qualified for the State meet, June 3-4 at Cerritos College.

Despite McElroy's success, the meet belonged to Dorsey, which scored in 11 of 15 events.

"I figured before the meet that we'd score 55 points, so we went beyond my expectations," said Ralph Tilley, Dorsey's coach. "We had no disappointments."

Dorsey's second boys' title in a row was aided by several second-place finishes: Anthony Mabry in the 110 high hurdles, Gene Shepard in the 400 and Anthony Wheeler in the 800. The Dons' only victories were in the 400 and 1,600 relays.

Washington finished second with 42 points and Woodland Hills El Camino Real was third with 40.

Gardena easily won the girls' team title with 75 points. Dorsey and Westchester tied for second with 47. University, last year's team champion, finished in a tie for last place with one point.

The girls' competition was also marked by a strong individual performance in the sprints. Senior Lataya McCarthy of Gardena won the 100 (12.3) and 200 (25.59) and anchored the team's victorious 400 and 1,600 relays.

Despite a 14-strikeout performance from UCLA's DeeDee Weiman, Fresno State's softball team scored the game's only run in the seventh inning to beat the Bruins, 1-0, Thursday in the first-round of the Women's College World Series in front of 1,596 at Hall of Fame Stadium.

It is the first opening-round loss in 12 tournament appearances for UCLA, winner of seven NCAA championships.

Fresno State (49-14) scored on Robyn Yorke's two-out single in the seventh. She drove in Jo Pini, who was hit by a pitch and moved to second on a single by Laura Berg.

The Bruins answered by loading the bases in the bottom of the inning on two singles and a walk. But with two out, Jenny Brewster was caught looking on a full-count curveball.

"I had a feeling she was going to come inside," Brewster said. "You've got to swing and hit the ball in order to score, and I didn't do that. It was too close to take."

The Bruins (41-13) stranded 12 runners and left the bases loaded in the fourth, fifth and seventh.

Cal State Northridge (50-8) defeated Missouri, 5-3, in another first-round game. Amy Windmiller (25-2) pitched a four-hitter and struck out 11 for the third-ranked Matadors. Missouri is 40-22.

Arizona defeated Illinois Chicago, 8-0, and Utah defeated Oklahoma State, 2-0, in the other games.

Jay Leno, on Gennifer Flowers hawking taped phone conversations she had with the President:

"$19.95 -- that's a lot of money. Especially when you consider that for another two bucks you probably could have had the whole weekend with her. . . . Did you see her press conference? She had her glasses on, dressed like a schoolteacher. Very prim and proper. I think it was $50 extra for that. If you wanted her dressed as a nun, that's $200. . . "

Leno, on the beef industry's request that the USDA relax restrictions on fecal matter in beef:

"Fecal matter and beef. All of a sudden a little cholesterol doesn't seem so bad. . . . Well, you know what they say: Beef happens."

*

Organized crime is flourishing in Russia and some fear that mobsters may soon obtain nuclear weapons. Comedy writer Tony Peyser reports that one CIA source says that it would have dire consequences. And could result in at least three Tom Clancy novels.

Comic Argus Hamilton, on the genetically engineered tomatoes that ripen without getting soft: "President Clinton is thrilled. All of his old tomatoes seem to get hard and bitter."

Comedy writer Bob Mills, on the Portsmouth, England, celebration to honor the 50th anniversary of D-day: "In keeping with the World War II theme, admission is a chocolate bar or two pairs of nylons."

*

Can't understand the fuss about Sony Pictures charging $15.25 for a hamburger at its new in-house commissary. For years, they've been charging the public $7.50 just to see one of their turkeys.

-- Paul Feldman

Hear about the couple dining at a frou-frou place over on Melrose?

The wife asked, "How'd you find the veal tonight, honey?"

He replied, "I was shuffling through the peas and there it was."

-- Josh Friedman

*

Reader Charles Smiley Jr. of Glendale tells of the young lady who attended a Washington banquet and decided to stuff two tissues in the bodice of her dress because she felt sniffles coming on.

She used one tissue, and feeling the need to use the other later at the banquet table, she began hunting for it. Suddenly, she was aware that everyone had stopped eating and was looking at her.

It didn't help matters much when she said: "I know that I had two of them when I came in."

*

Reader Marjorie S. Sinram of Chula Vista recalls when she was headed for a Halloween party in full, Spartanette regalia -- tall, peaked headdress and all.

I stopped at a service station to ask for directions, and explained I was lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood. "Lady," replied the young attendant, "you look like you are lost in time."

Charles Manning, posted to the Ministry of Munitions in London during World War I in the wake of a front-line injury, is talking to his Army psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers.

Manning begins by describing how he had to shoot one of his men, Scudder, after Scudder had become trapped in a mud-filled shell hole, sinking slowly and vocally to his death. Reporting to battalion headquarters with another serviceman, Hines, the following night, Manning found his superiors extremely unhappy; dining on veal and ham and wine, the officers informed Manning that he had positioned his company too far forward, creating a bulge in the line.

Manning suddenly realized that he and Hines wouldn't be offered even a drink. "So I leant across the table," Manning says, "took two glasses, gave one to Hines and said, 'Gentlemen, the King.' And of course they all had to struggle to their feet." Manning and Hines made a quick retreat, "giggling like a pair of schoolboys," before the startled brass "could work out how to put an officer on a charge for proposing the loyal toast."

That's when the shell hit, Manning says, pointing to his mangled leg. "Poor old Hines. . . . I crawled across to him. And he looked straight at me and said, 'I'm all right, Mum.' And died.' "

In "The Eye in the Door," Pat Barker continues the story started in her highly acclaimed novel "Regeneration," which centered on the conflict encountered by Rivers in his treatment of wounded, often shellshocked infantrymen, notably the soldier-poet Siegfried Sassoon.

As a doctor and a human being, Rivers wanted to make his patients better, whole; but as a British citizen and Army employee, he knew that every medical success meant sending one more soldier back to the battlefield.

Rivers' internal conflict does play a role in "The Eye in the Door," but in this novel Barker focuses less on Rivers than on Billy Prior, an angry, shellshocked patient from "Regeneration." It's through Prior that we meet Manning, whom Prior picks up for a sexual encounter, and begin to see that the new novel is not only about inwardly divided minds but about the stress triggered by war in society at large.

Prior, like Manning, works for the Ministry of Munitions, but he has a much bigger chip on his shoulder about the war effort. Manning seems to have made his peace with the irrationality of war, perhaps because he still believes in what River calls, in another context, a "terminal stiff upper lip."

Prior, by contrast, seethes with a barely suppressed rage, caused not by shellshock but the inequitable divisions in British society. And as it happens, at the ministry he can do something about it: A childhood friend, a shopkeeper named Beattie Roper, has been sent to prison for threatening to kill Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

Prior visits her in prison and is quickly convinced that she has been railroaded; a pacifist from the lower classes who freely admits to hiding conscientious objectors, she was an easy mark.

That's one major thread in "The Eye in the Door." Another is the real-life libel trial brought against a London newspaper for publishing articles alleging the existence of a German Black Book purportedly giving the names of 47,000 English sexual deviants, many of them in high places.

No matter that the Black Book's promoter, Harold Spencer, was later judged insane; a similar view is expressed by Prior's boss, Major Lode, when he says Britain was being "brought to its knees . . . not by Germany, but by an unholy alliance of socialists, sodomites and shop stewards." Prior can't tell Lode, of course, that both he and Manning are bisexual, nor that Lode's obsession with sexual and social distinctions is part of Britain's problem.

The third major strand in "The Eye in the Door" is Prior's fugue states in which he commits out-of-character and sometimes violent acts that his conscious mind cannot remember. This Jekyll-and-Hyde theme carries the novel's weight, because one of Barker's themes is that authentic feeling, socially acceptable or not, will inevitably work its way to the surface and may well become dangerous if repressed.

Rivers frequently expresses that same concern: It's better to hate war even as you do the soldier's job, he tells his patients, than to bury one's disgust at needless bloodshed and wade through the killing fields like an automaton.

As Rivers muses, after seeing Sassoon again upon the writer's return to England with a minor head wound:

"Perhaps, contrary to what was usually supposed, duality was the stable state; the attempt at integration, dangerous."

Passages like that make "The Eye in the Door" an exceptional novel, bringing substantial and relevant ideas to life through singular, arresting characters.

Rivers is the psychiatrist of one's dreams, willing to change places with a patient if he believes it will do the patient good; Prior is the friend you couldn't keep, unpredictable and angry enough to keep most acquaintances at a distance.

The novel has its flaws -- Beattie's story simply peters out, for example, and Sassoon's reappearance seems unnecessary -- but it is a worthy sequel nonetheless and a fine achievement in its own right.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis worked as a New York book editor for 19 years but apparently made no effort to produce one of the most sought-after books in publishing -- her autobiography.

Industry colleagues say they knew of no attempt on her part to write either a personal memoir or even a more selective account -- for example, of the world figures she had known. Indeed, her unyielding efforts to guard her privacy prompted one high-level editor to speculate that it was "wildly improbable" that she had written a manuscript.

"There was never any awareness on the part of her Doubleday colleagues that she had any inclination or expectation to write her story," an associate said.

Onassis chose to shine her celebrity on the books of others.

After joining Viking Press in 1975 -- she moved to Doubleday three years later -- Onassis spoke with reporters at parties launching her books. At one such gathering last fall, held at the Consulate General of India in Manhattan to mark the publication of "The Garden of Life," an artistic book about the plants of India, she mingled with guests and introduced them to her author, Naveen Patnaik. When approached by this reporter, a notebook in his hand, Onassis spoke about how the book had come together.

Onassis edited titles that reflected her interest in history and the arts, as well as her keen eye for commercial hits.

At a Doubleday editorial meeting years ago, she laid out her plans for a book by a pop singer few in the room had heard of. The author was Michael Jackson, the book became "Moonwalk" (1988) and the editor's hunch paid off in handsome sales.

Her other books included Bill Moyers' "Healing and the Mind," a leading seller of recent years; Edvard Radzinsky's "The Last Tsar"; Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's "Poet and Dancer"; "The Best of Rolling Stone: 25 Years of Journalism on the Edge," edited by Robert Love, and four children's books by singer Carly Simon.

Onassis also acquired Vasily Peskov's "Lost in the Taiga," an account of Russian Orthodox peasants discovered living in remote Siberia, which Doubleday will publish in July. Her other project scheduled for release this year is "Toni Frissell: Photographs 1933-1967," a collection of striking pictures taken by the veteran photographer, who died in 1981.

The books will speak for her. That is, except for interviews about her publishing career that she gave Ms. magazine in 1979 and Publishers Weekly in 1993, her own documented recollections since her husband's assassination consisted mainly of a few minutes of testimony before the Warren Commission and interviews with historians Theodore White and William Manchester.

Manchester recorded 10 hours of interviews with Onassis as he researched "The Death of a President." He gave many of these tapes to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Cambridge, Mass., where they are under seal until 2067. The library also has tapes of the White interviews, which are off-limits until next year.

Postscript: One of the more surprising details in this week's ocean of ink about Onassis comes in the New Yorker (May 30), which devotes all of its "Talk of the Town" to memories of her and reveals that she too once wrote an unbylined piece for the section. Her article about New York's International Center of Photography appeared Jan. 13, 1975.

Who knew?

A Few Minutes With Judy Krantz: Judith Krantz's success with commercial novels rich in steamy sex and glamorous excess began in 1978 with her effort, "Scruples," the story of a swank boutique. "Scruples Two" came six books later, followed by the new "Lovers" (Crown), the conclusion to her trilogy that has more than 400,000 copies in print and will spawn an ABC miniseries.

For all of Krantz's knowledge of conspicuous consumption -- "my beat is not the lady next door" -- the resident of pricey Bel-Air confesses that she no longer has time to go out and shop on Rodeo Drive or anywhere else.

"I have managed to acquire clothes, but in lightning forays," said Krantz, 67, a diminutive gabber who was clad in a muted green Chanel suit during a recent New York visit.

"J. Crew and J. Peterman are my favorite catalogues. And then I go to Chanel. They have a book of the spring and fall collections with swatches of fabric and designs, and drawings or photographs. I order from that.

"When I couldn't afford it, I was shopping anyway. . . . Now that I can more than afford it, I don't have the time. It's not a really tragic story, but I don't have the time."

Top Editor Joins Murdoch: Judith Regan has earned more newspaper and magazine coverage than any book editor in history, or so it seems, mainly because she helped turn manuscripts by Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern and Kathie Lee Gifford into best-selling riches. Now, after much speculation about Regan's plans, an announcement this week revealed that Simon & Schuster has lost the hard-charging editor to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and its subsidiary companies.

The 40-year-old Regan will become a reporter for a Fox TV newsmagazine in development. She will start up Regan Books within HarperCollins Publishers and she will develop films for 20th Century-Fox.

* Paul D. Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His column is published Fridays.

Italo Ghelfi, 76, a Nevada gaming pioneer who opened the Golden Gate Hotel in downtown Las Vegas in 1955.Ghelfi, the son of an Italian immigrant, owned taverns in Oakland in the early 1950s when he visited Las Vegas and became attracted to the gambling business and the small-town atmosphere. He bought a hotel and added a casino, renaming the property the Golden Gate. It became a popular meeting place for the city's political and business elite. Ghelfi remained active in running the hotel until about two years ago when lung cancer began to drain his energy. In Las Vegas on Tuesday.

Leo Kuper, an internationally recognized sociologist and scholar whose research on genocide set benchmark guidelines in that field, has died.

Representatives for his family and the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, based in Jerusalem, said he died in Los Angeles on Monday. He was 85.

A native of South Africa, Kuper taught at universities throughout the world, including a 15-year tenure at UCLA, where he was a professor of sociology and director of the African Studies Center.

In 1981, Kuper wrote what is considered his landmark work: "Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century." In it he created a theme of "the odious scourge" that has carried over into other works on the subject.

The Times Literary Supplement of London said that "if there were a peace prize for sociologists, it should be awarded to (Kuper)."

In 1985, Kuper was part of a select group of British and American officials who formed International Alert. Based in Los Angeles and London, it worked closely with human rights groups (particularly Amnesty International) to keep ethnic developments firmly in the glare of international publicity, unlike the secrecy of the Holocaust, which resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews.

Kuper said at that time that he estimated that genocide had claimed more lives since World War II than had the Nazi death camps.

That same year, Kuper wrote "The Prevention of Genocide," in which he analyzed the major obstacles to United Nations action in Cambodia, Bangladesh, Timor, Indonesia and other African and Asian nations where human rights abuses occur.

Born in Johannesburg, Kuper practiced law in South Africa until World War II. After military service he taught at the University of Natal, South Africa, and the University of Birmingham in England, where he also did neighborhood planning for the city of Coventry.

His main books on South Africa, "Passive Resistance in South Africa" and "An African Bourgeoisie," were banned in that country.

Kuper also was a founding member of the International Council of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide and a contributing editor to its publications.

He is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.

John Wain, 69, novelist, poet and the author of an award-winning biography of Samuel Johnson. Wain's first novel, "Hurry on Down," published in 1953, made his reputation.His widely acclaimed 1974 biography, "Samuel Johnson," brought him the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Heinemann Award. Wain was made professor of poetry at Oxford University in 1973, a post he held for five years. His fiction includes "Strike the Father Dead," "Young Shoulders" in 1982, which won the Whitbread prize, and "Where the Rivers Meet." Volumes of poetry include "A Word Carved on a Sill" and "Open Country." He also worked as a critic, editor and anthologist and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1984. In Oxford, England, on Tuesday of the complications of a stroke.

Two weeks ago, I left college behind to traverse Los Angeles in an exhausting search for a place to live. For the better part of daylight, I ricocheted throughout Santa Monica, bouncing from address to address, hoping to find the ideal apartment. Eventually I hoped to find any apartment, as building after building was eliminated: earthquake damage, too small, too dingy, olive-green shag carpeting. Building eliminations soon led to neighborhood and then regional exclu