A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

cials involved in the Air Force contract . Seized were 85 boxes containing 180,0

00 documents , including records relating to the board of directors . The docume

nts seized from SAIC are still being computerized to facilitate a detailed exami

nation . One federal investigator who spoke on condition he not be identified sa

id , however , that Perry , Deutch , Jones `` and the rest of the board are resp

onsible for SAIC 's activities , and this was a very important new technology . 

'' In 1990 , while Perry , Deutch and Jones were still on the board , the U.S. .

 Attorney 's office won a conviction of the corporation on charges of fraud in c

onnection with altered lab tests by SAIC on hazardous-waste sites . The company 

was fined $ 1.3 million . According to an investigator , Air Force dismay over t

he cockpit displays first surfaced in 1991 , while all three current Pentagon of

ficials were on the board . `` There were plenty of red flags for top management

 and board members , '' the investigator said . ( Begin optional trim ) In April

 , the Pentagon announced a $ 580 million subsidy program for U.S. companies wil

ling to enter the flat-panel LCD production industry . `` These screens are beco

ming increasingly critical to the military to display information which we need 

to give us an advantage in combat , '' Perry said in a May 5 speech . But even b

efore the new administration came to office , the Air Force had planned to use f

our-by-four-inch LCD panels primarily on F-15 Eagle fighters to replace horizont

al indicators , a vital cockpit display that shows whether the plane is going up

 or down . After years of promises and demands for more money by SAIC 's technol

ogy division , however , the Air Force ended the project with an angry letter to

 the company . `` None of the displays worked , '' said an Air Force official wh

o spoke on condition he not be identified . He worked on the program at the Air 

Logistics Center at Robins Air Force Base , Ga. . Although the $ 9.2 million con

tract was small in Pentagon terms , investigators said it involved development o

f one of the first military flat-panel LCDs . But SAIC had to scramble when pote

ntial U.S. suppliers failed to supply their engineers with LCD screens for the A

ir Force cockpit displays . According to federal investigators , the company pur

chased Sharp , Hitachi and other Japanese-made LCD television monitors at Target

 Stores in the San Diego area . According to one Sharp official , the screens re

tail for $ 650 . At SAIC , Kull said the controversy involved a legitimate dispu

te with the Air Force over a difficult development project that ran out of feder

al support before the cockpit displays were workable . ( End optional trim ) In 

an interview , Kull told Newsday that SAIC informed the Air Force in writing tha

t the preliminary cockpit displays were made with LCDs from Sharp and other comm

ercial products . `` They ( the Air Force ) knew what it was and they wanted to 

see what it would look like , to get a feel , '' Kull said . He also said the LC

Ds in question were purchased directly from the producers , not dismantled from 

discount store television sets . Perry served in a top Pentagon post during the 

Carter administration . He joined the Clinton administration as deputy secretary

 until he was elevated earlier this year with the departure of Les Aspin as the 

defense chief . Along with Deutch and Jones , Perry has been an adviser to the d

efense community for years . All three are tenured science professors at major u

niversities . Their technical insights and Pentagon connections enabled companie

s such as SAIC to be years ahead of competitors for the $ 38 billion the Pentago

n is spending under the direction of Jones on research and development . In addi

tion to preparing for war , a major duty for all three is leading an endless bat

tle against waste , fraud and abuse by defense contractors that have cost taxpay

ers billions of dollars .

 WASHINGTON When Science Applications International Corp. runs afoul of federal 

laws , it is quick to insist that its influential board of directors and top exe

cutives are not involved in the wrongdoing . But once U.S. law enforcement agent

s move against the government contractor , based in San Diego , the company 's b

oard members are rolled into position in Washington like heavy artillery . Take 

the 1988 federal indictment of six employees on charges they improperly reported

 lab tests on hazardous-waste site samples for the Enviromental Protection Agenc

y . The six employees pleaded guilty and the San Diego U.S. attorney 's office m

oved to indict the corporation because of the severity of the fraud . According 

to the government , the employees were victims of corporate greed , `` lambs thr

own to the wolves and then the corporation walks out of here , '' the government

 said in a federal court statement . In 1990 , former Defense Secretary Melvin L

aird , a member of the company 's board , wrote then-Attorney General Dick Thorn

burgh , asking him to halt prosecution of the company . `` I can assure you ther

e was no wrongdoing on the part of the corporation , '' said Laird , defense chi

ef under President Nixon . The letter was made public by the Project on Governme

nt Oversight , a private watchdog group , which passed the documents on to congr

essional investigators . In the face of the disclosures , Thornburgh went ahead 

with the indictment and the company pleaded guilty to 10 felony counts of fraud 

. The company was fined $ 1.3 million in 1991 , the largest fine connected with 

the hazardous-waste program .

 WASHINGTON U.S. and Japanese officials offered starkly different interpretation

s Tuesday of their agreement ending a three-month stalemate in trade negotiation

s , even as both sides hailed it as a major breakthrough . While U.S. officials 

said they had won Japan 's commitment to use `` objective criteria '' to measure

 progressin opening specific sectors of the Japanese market , including automobi

les , auto parts , communications and medical equipment , Japanese officials str

essed that progress in those areas was not a primary goal . Similarly , Japanese

 officials challenged the U.S. assertion that the two sides had agreed to a `` r

esults-oriented '' approach one that stresses sales of foreign products in Japan

 to resolving their trade differences . The Japanese officials said the most sig

nificant part of the accord was an explicit assurance that the United States wou

ld not rely solely on numerical targets to measure Japanese progress . U.S. nego

tiators minimized that provision , saying it was something they had never sought

 . Japanese have a favorite word to describe such vague agreements tama-mushi ir

o , or having the color of the tama mushi , a common Japanese beetle . The trans

lucent wings of the tama mushi can seem green or blue-or some other color entire

ly-depending on the light and the viewer 's perspective . Japanese often use suc

h ambiguity to paper over frictions and maintain harmony in important relationsh

ips . But in the case of Washington and Tokyo , such fuzziness seems to be breed

ing only greater enmity . Once again , it would seem , officials from two countr

ies are looking at the same beetle , but each seems to believe it has a complete

ly different hue . The divergent visions of the accord , hammered out after five

 days of feverish negotiations and numerous phone calls between top level of off

icials in Washington and Tokyo , typified the sort of ambiguity and confusion th

at has clouded relations between world 's two largest economies for much of the 

past decade . Further , it casts doubt on President Clinton 's pledge to transfo

rm the nature of the U.S. effort to open the Japanese market . Indeed , the agre

ement announced Tuesday seems to do little more than return the United States an

d Japan to the point at which their trade negotiations started in Tokyo in July 

, when Clinton pressed Japan 's then-prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa into signing

 a `` framework agreement '' to begin a much-ballyhooed market opening effort th

at Clinton administration officials said would mark the beginning of a new era i

n Japanese relations . But those talks bogged down almost as soon as they were l

aunched as it became clear that both sides had come away from the Tokyo meeting 

with starkly divergent visions of just what had been agreed to . Tuesday 's agre

ement clears the way for those talks to resume soon , although the time and plac

e of the next session has yet to be determined . In addition , there is no deadl

ine for concluding the talks and no sanction for failing to do so , although bot

h sides will have to make a public account of their progress when Clinton meets 

the Japanese prime minister at the Group of Seven summit in Naples in July . U.S

. officials said Tuesday that negotiators now had clarified several of the key f

laws of the language of last July 's agreement . But the statements of officials

 on both sides left considerable room for skepticism about that claim . Neverthe

less , a Japanese foreign ministry spokesman in Washington seemed to suggest tha

t the greatest achievement of the accord was less a clarification of these point

s than an agreement to get the two countries back to the bargaining table . `` T

he important thing is to get past this metaphysical debate-what is what and what

 is not what-and get the working groups back together , '' he said . `` As a pra

ctical matter , '' one senior administration official said , `` the metaphysical

 debate is finished . '' Many analysts agreed that that was the real significanc

e of the agreement . The negotiators `` simply wanted to start up the framework 

talks again and they needed some rationale .. . . '' said Alan Tonelson , resear

ch director at the Economic Strategy Institute , a Washington think tank that ha

s advocated taking a firm stand with Japan on trade issues . `` They are not agr

eeing to the kind of provisions that would give this agreement meaning , '' he s

aid . Tuesday , U.S. trade negotiators sought to portray the agreement as an imp

ortant victory , saying the Japanese had agreed to a solution that followed almo

st precisely a U.S. proposal U.S. . Trade Representative Mickey Kantor made last

 month to then-foreign minister Tsutomu Hata , who is now prime minister , at a 

meeting in Morocco . One negotiator boasted that the United States had broken th

e deadlock without giving in on `` any U.S. negotiating position . '' But that c

laim underscores the point that the United States has spent almost an entire yea

r wrangling with Japan over the wording of its bargaining arrangements even as J

apan 's trade surplus with the United States remains enormous . The real issue a

ppears to be one of trust . As Hata told Kantor in a late-night meeting in Washi

ngton in February , just between talks between Clinton and Hosokawa broke down :

 `` The trouble is we can't trust you with numbers and you can't trust us withou

t them . ''

 NEW YORK Calculating a year in prison for each year of life lost in the World T

rade Center bombing , a judge Tuesday sentenced the four convicted conspirators 

to die behind bars . U.S. . District Court Judge Kevin Duffy called the bombers 

`` sneakin ' cowards '' and said they planned to bring down both towers `` like 

dominoes '' and kill everyone inside the buildings with cyanide gas . `` My inte

ntion is you stay there for the rest of your life , '' said a stern , disgusted 

Duffy . `` What you sought to do in the name of Islam is what the Koran forbids 

. '' He quoted a section of the Muslim holy book : `` These righteous people sha

ll not be denied their reward . Allah knows the righteous . '' The lengthy , day

long sentencing began with Edward Smith , husband of blast victim Monica Smith ,

 exhorting the judge to hand down the harshest sentences possible . Then , one b

y one , the four Muslim men convicted March 4 of the bombing defiantly declared 

their innocence and were handed the same sentence . Mohammad Salameh , Nidal Ayy

ad , Mahmud Abouhalima and Ahmad Ajaj each was sentenced to serve 240 years , a 

sum Duffy calculated by combining the average life expectancy of each of the six

 people killed in the blast 180 years plus 30 years on each additional count . T

uesday 's sentencing brought to a close the first chapter in the tale of terrori

sm that culminated Feb. 26 , 1993 , when a bomb rocked the Trade Center , killin

g six , injuring 1,000 and causing more than $ 500 million in damage . Marshals 

lined the back of the standing-room-only courtroom throughout the day . The only

 supporters present Ayyad 's father and Abouhalima 's wife and sister-in-law lis

tened silently to the statements and sentences . The four men , shackled and dre

ssed in brown prison jumpsuits , were taken from the courtroom . They were expec

ted to be returned to the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg , Pa. , Tuesday nigh

t . Tuesday morning , when Smith read his statement , none of the four raised th

eir eyes to look at him . Smith described how he and his wife , who was six mont

hs ' pregnant when she was killed , happily anticipated the birth of their son a

nd how he learned of her death . `` Remember that these crimes are not , in the 

end , about a VIN ( vehicle identification ) number found in rubble or chemical 

swabs taken from a storage locker , '' said Smith . `` Remember that this bombin

g was an act of multiple murder . '' Then Salameh , 26 , who drove the bomb-lade

n Ryder van into the Trade Center garage , stood and spoke in Arabic , which was

 translated for the judge . The mostly unemployed undocumented alien from Jordan

 called the trial `` unjust '' and hailed terrorist organizations around the wor

ld , praising Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas in Egypt , Algeria and `` occupi

ed Palestine . '' `` I am not going to plead for mercy . ( If ) I had been judge

d truthfully , I would accept the truth . I will rise above pleading for mercy o

n falsehood , '' he said . Duffy , who maintained a casual if caustic demeanor d

uring the six-month trial , was visibly angry , glaring down from the bench . ``

 Allah knows the righteous , '' he said to Salameh . `` Not you . '' ( Begin opt

ional trim ) Duffy was equally stern with Ayyad , 26 , a Rutgers graduate , chem

ical engineer and naturalized U.S citizen from Kuwait . `` You are the biggest h

ypocrit in this room , '' Duffy said . `` You are clearly the most culpable . Yo

u had the most breaks . You came to this country . You had a chance to do someth

ing with your life . What right do you have to talk about God ? You talk about I

slam . You have shamed it . '' Abouhalima , 34 , the cab driver from Egypt , spe

nt most of his lengthy address describing his arrest and torture in Egypt and wh

at he considered Duffy 's failure to provide a fair trial . He criticized the ju

ry , the values of American men `` who worship money '' and `` only see women by

 their thighs . '' Abouhalima fled the United States four days after the bombing

 and was arrested a week later at his father 's home near Cairo , Egypt . At the

 end of his statement , Abouhalima suggested the assembled spectators pray toget

her . `` There is one god , Allah . Mohammed is the prophet of us all , '' he sa

id . `` You are a convicted felon , '' Duffy said to Abouhalima . `` This is not

 some guy on a vacation . You were convicted and justly convicted . '' ( End opt

ional trim ) Ajaj , 27 , the final defendant , was in federal prison the day of 

the bombing . A Palestinian , he had been caught at Kennedy Airport Sept. 1 , 19

92 , trying to slip into the country with a phony passport . Ajaj was trying to 

bring bomb manuals into the country for the other conspirators . His traveling c

ompanion was Ramzi Yousef , an alleged bomber who remains a fugitive . Ajaj carr

ied on a filibuster for nearly three hours , detailing the history of Palestine 

from 1917 through President Clinton 's foreign policy . He said he had been unju

stly convicted . `` Up to this very moment , I do not know where the World Trade

 Center is . I did not know where the World Trade Center is located . It did not

 concern me . '' Duffy finally cut him off and handed him his 240 years . All fo

ur are expected to file an appeal of their convictions .

 JACMEL , Haiti Despite a reinforced U.N. embargo that went into effect Sunday ,

 a flotilla of ships carrying contraband has sailed into this port city , carryi

ng merchandise including gasoline , cars and color television sets . Local resid

ents said at least nine ships have docked since the strengthened embargo started

 , in theory barring everything except pre-approved shipments of food , medicine

 and propane gas . Five remained Monday , and army officers directed trucks onto

 the docks to unload the merchandise . The embargo was imposed in October and re

inforced by the U.N. . Security Council on Sunday in an effort to force the mili

tary to allow the return of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide . He was ove

rthrown in a military coup in September 1991 , six months after becoming Haiti '

s first democratically elected leader . The ships , which flew British , Jamaica

n , Colombian , Dominican , Bahamian and Haitian flags , demonstrated how diffic

ult it could be to enforce the measure , especially since the ships largely ply 

the waters between Haiti and the Dominican Republic . `` So far , the ships have

 been triple-parked out there , '' said one longtime resident , watching as ship

s bobbed , waiting to be unloaded . `` It has been years since the port was that

 busy . '' Diplomats involved in monitoring the embargo said it could take weeks

 to figure out how to plug its leaks , and admitted that the officers who contro

l the contraband could build up substantial stockpiles in the meantime . This me

ans the measure would not really begin to have an impact on the rich and on the 

officer corps for several weeks , they said . But it is a question whether the w

ealthy or the officer corps will suffer . While reporters watched , uniformed ar

my officers supervised the unloading of a truckload of color televisions and oth

er electronic goods . At the port entrance , a small market has sprung up , and 

residents said there had been an influx of prostitutes to keep pace with the gro

wing number of ships . Residents said that at times over the weekend there were 

nine tanker trucks on the dock getting fuel from tanks on visiting ships . Other

 ships unloaded vehicles and luxury goods . The Bahamian-flagged Sea Search , a 

seagoing tug that on Saturday was engaged by a U.S. picket ship enforcing the em

bargo , was in port here Monday , its barrels of fuel being unloaded under the s

upervision of military officers . Eyewitnesses said an armed fight nearly broke 

out in the stately La Jacmelienne Hotel here Saturday night when a subordinate o

f powerful police commander Lt. Col. Michel Francois , identified as Maj. Oiseau

 , arrived with several other officers to supervise the unloading of fuel . Acco

rding to several accounts , the owner of the hotel refused Oiseau a room for the

 night because he and the other officers were not paying for food or drinks . Oi

seau reportedly began waving a gun around and threatening to kill hotel employee

s , while the hotel owner also brought out a gun . Only the intervention of Col.

 Lyonel Sylvain , the regional commander , avoided a major shootout , the source

s said . The witnesses , who asked not to be identified for their personal safet

y , said another ship , the Oakleigh , flying the Union Jack and registered in A

berdeen , Scotland , made several trips a week over the last several months to t

he Dominican Republic , bringing back about 15,000 gallons of fuel at a time . R

esidents here and knowledgeable sources in Port-au-Prince , the capital , said m

uch of the Jacmel fuel flow is controlled by an important fuel wholesaler named 

Gerald Caroli . Knowledgeable sources said Caroli is a major fuel supplier of th

e U.S. . Embassy and other diplomatic missions . While ships were unloaded , a D

ominican vessel sat about a mile from the dock , abandoned because its captain ,

 known only as `` Dirty Harry , '' fled for his life when the buyers of his fuel

 found some of the diesel was full of sludge and unusable .

 NEW YORK A top cancer expert said Tuesday health officials facing increasing an

tibiotic resistance among disease microbes should consider returning to techniqu

es that were abandoned when antibiotics first came of age in the 1940s . Dr. Mat

thew Scharff , director of the Albert Einstein Medical School 's Cancer Center i

n New York City , urged the medical establishment to shift some of the emphasis 

from developing antibiotic drugs to producing antisera made of human antibodies 

. This , he said , could address two overlapping concerns : the rising number of

 severely immune-deficient patients , and the rapid growth of so-called superbug

s that are resistant to many , or in some cases all , types of antibiotics . Whe

n antisera was used extensively against meningococcal meningitis in the 1920s , 

Scharff said , it had a 30 percent success rate . `` It was highly statistically

 significant , '' he said . `` It was a successful treatment . '' Today , though

 , new technology exists that might make such antisera a more successful option 

where antibiotics fail , Scharff said . Speaking before a New York City gatherin

g of the Irvington Trust , an investment banking group that funds medical resear

ch , Scharff said patients who undergo cancer chemotherapy , transplant surgery 

, radiation or who have AIDS commonly die of what , for other people , are fairl

y benign fungal and bacterial infections including staphylococcus , meningococcu

s , pneumococcus and cryptococcus . `` In the absence of our own immunity , even

 antibiotics cannot kill these agents , '' Scharff said . About 10 percent of al