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

 WASHINGTON The No. 2 executive at the Social Security Administration has decide

d to return a $ 9,256 bonus he received after about three months on the job . So

cial Security principal deputy commissioner Lawrence H. Thompson `` voluntarily 

decided '' to return the money , the agency 's commissioner , Shirley Chater , t

old a Senate subcommittee earlier this month . Several House and Senate members 

had raised questions about Thompson 's award and Social Security 's decision to 

spend $ 32 million on employee bonuses last year . More than two-thirds of the a

gency 's 65,000 employees received the bonuses . Chater told the Senate Appropri

ations subcommittee on human services that Thompson 's award was based on his wo

rk at Social Security and his `` exemplary performance '' at the General Account

ing Office for the nine months he served there before transferring agencies . Th

ompson 's bonus , she said , `` seemed an appropriate action at the time . '' Bu

t Chater said she and Thompson `` both understand the sensitivity and concern th

at has been expressed regarding the fact the award was paid by ( Social Security

 ) . Consequently , based on this concern and the basic issues raised by many re

garding the fairness and consistency of the award with current regulations gover

ning their use not to mention how it might adversely affect the future payment o

f performance awards to federal employees Dr. Thompson has voluntarily decided t

o return the entire performance award . '' After members of Congress raised ques

tions about the government 's employee bonus program , the Clinton administratio

n issued a government-wide memorandum urging federal agencies to reexamine how t

hey award cash bonuses , stressing that bonuses should be linked to improved per

formance . Some agencies , such as the Agriculture Department and the U.S. . Inf

ormation Agency , revamped their bonus programs before the administration asked 

for its review . At USIA , for example , Director Joseph Duffey reduced fiscal 1

994 funding for bonuses by 85 percent and shifted the money into employee traini

ng programs . The programs include career counseling , training in new technolog

ies and outplacement assistance for employees whose jobs are being eliminated . 

Office of Personnel Management figures for fiscal 1992 show that the government 

spent more than $ 549 million on 759,660 bonuses . The average award was $ 724 ,

 and the fiscal 1992 bonus money represented less than 1 percent of the federal 

payroll . Sen. David Pryor , D-Ark. , has asked Vice President Gore to address t

he role of employee bonuses as part of the administration 's effort to overhaul 

civil service laws later this year .

 LONDON Prime Minister John Major 's public criticism of street beggars drew fir

e from political , religious and civic leaders Sunday in what is developing into

 another row for the British government . During an interview with a Bristol new

spaper , Major described panhandling as `` offensive and unjustified '' and call

ed beggars an `` eyesore '' who should be reported to police . The comments , pu

blished Friday , gained wide publicity over the weekend and provoked an outcry f

rom many quarters . Tony Blair , the Labor Party domestic affairs spokesman who 

is favored to be the party 's next leader , called Major 's statement bewilderin

gly petty . Blair said the prime minister was trying to deflect attention away f

rom bigger problems , such as `` education , a million people under 25 out of wo

rk , major problems of putting this country back on its feet . '' `` The real cr

iticism of what the prime minister has done is not only its vindictiveness again

st some who will be genuinely destitute it is the notion that this is what we sh

ould be concentrating on , '' he said . The Bishop of Liverpool , the Rt. Rev. D

avid Sheppard , said there is no justification for attacking society 's most `` 

vulnerable elements . '' `` I find it a very unlovely feature of public life whe

n people in power pick on the most despised groups in society rather than asking

 what the causes are . '' Social workers were equally forceful in their condemna

tion of Major , who took over power in 1990 and said he wanted to be the leader 

of a classless , caring society . `` He is passing the buck . He is having a go 

at homeless people because they would appear to be defenseless , '' said Stan Bu

rridge , one of the organizers of a Sunday rally by homeless protesters . The Lo

ndon rally , planned before Major made his comments , was intended to commemorat

e the 600 people estimated to die on Britain 's streets every year . Marchers wa

ved banners saying : `` Beggars cannot be choosers . '' Major was unrepentant du

ring a campaign stop Saturday , saying , `` I stand by what I said . There is no

 need for begging . '' ( Optional add end ) And his remarks seemed to strike a r

esponsive chord with many in the public . The Conservative Party headquarters re

ported that telephone calls were running 2-1 in favor of the prime minister . In

 recent weeks , newspapers have printed accounts of organized gangs of beggars w

ho aggressively accost passersby . One gang operating on the London subway was r

eported to be posing as refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and making up to $ 30,0

00 a week . In England , beggars have no official status . Police treat them as 

vagrants or confidence tricksters , and they are subject to ancient laws with pe

nalties of up to $ 1,500 . Each year about 1,000 panhandlers are held for questi

oning by police . Sheppard , in his comments to BBC Radio , said , `` If there a

re aggressive tramps frightening people , yes , they should be reported to the p

olice and there should be firm action . But that is a tiny handful of cases . ''

 JAPAN-DOG ( Reid , Post ) has been held by the Post . Do not publish the story 

. It will be released at a later date .

 BERLIN More than 100 times a minute , 50,000 times a day , a camera shutter cli

cks in a windowless basement in southwest Berlin , capturing on each frame a fra

gment of Germany 's grim past . Thirteen camera operators labor throughout the d

ay on what some here say may be the most ambitious microfilming project ever und

ertaken : the duplication of 75 million pages of Nazi personnel documents stored

 in a former Gestapo eavesdropping post now known as the Berlin Document Center 

. The microfilmers work swiftly because on July 1 the U.S. . State Department in

tends to relinquish custody of the original documents to the German government .

 The duplicates 8 million feet of film on 38,000 rolls will be flown to Washingt

on this summer and deposited in the National Archives . The Justice Department k

eeps the right to unrestricted access to the original files . The pages passing 

beneath the camera lens range from the prosaic to the sinister : Heinrich Himmle

r 's expense accounts ; Nazi Party membership card No. 899,895 , belonging to on

e Adolf Eichmann ; Josef Mengele 's dental records and membership sheet in the N

azi Physicians Professional Association ; Hermann Goering 's suicide notes , scr

ibbled before he swallowed cyanide in 1946 . Among the old files with contempora

ry relevance is that of Erich Priebke , a former SS captain now awaiting extradi

tion in Argentina on charges of helping to murder 335 Italians in Rome 's Adreat

ine Caves in 1944 . Returning the original documents to German custody is anothe

r milestone in the restoration of German sovereignty after a half-century of All

ied occupation . But the proposed transfer has met resistance . Historians , Jew

ish groups and Nazi hunters have bitterly objected to the State Department 's pl

an . They complain that restrictive German privacy laws will hamper access to th

e original documents , that the National Archives duplicates will not be availab

le for at least two years and that surrendering the files is morally wrong . `` 

We bought those documents with the most precious commodity we have : the blood o

f our young boys and the other Allied forces that had to fight the Nazi menace i

n order to liberate the world , '' Elan Steinberg , executive director of the Wo

rld Jewish Congress , said in a telephone interview from New York . `` I 'm remi

nded of the old saying that if it ISn't broke , don't fix it , '' he said . `` T

he Berlin Document Center ISn't broke right now , and I don't know why we 're tr

ying to fix it . '' Rep. Tom Lantos , D-Calif. , who led hearings on the documen

t center last month , has threatened a full debate in Congress `` on Germany 's 

Nazi past '' unless Bonn and the State Department resolve the controversy . Germ

an Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel recently promised Je

wish leaders that rules governing access to the original documents will remain i

n line with U.S. regulations until the National Archives duplicates are ready fo

r viewing . U.S. Embassy officials in Bonn are trying to hammer out the details 

. `` This is something that has been negotiated over quite a long period of time

 and has been reviewed from every angle that I can imagine . When concerns have 

been raised , they 've been reviewed again , '' said Dan Hamilton , policy advis

er to Richard Holbrooke , the U.S. ambassador to Germany . Donald Kobletz , the 

State Department 's lawyer in Berlin in the 1980s and now a private attorney her

e , said : `` Can you tell a sovereign government , one of your closest allies ,

 that 50 years after the war you don't really trust them to keep their own recor

ds ? After getting microfilm copies , paid for by the German government ? I woul

d consider it a gratuitous irritation to our relationship that really isn't warr

anted . '' Many of the files were seized by Allied troops driving across Germany

 such as some 10.7 million Nazi Party membership cards impounded by American sol

diers at a Bavarian paper mill as the SS prepared to reduce them to pulp . The c

ards provided useful evidence for prosecutors at the Nazi War Crimes tribunal in

 Nuremburg . Ever since , the archives have proved invaluable for historians scr

utinizing the Third Reich , for German officials sorting out immigration request

s and for Nazi-hunters looking for culprits . Last year the center processed 27,

000 requests for information from official agencies and 1,300 from private indiv

iduals such as scholars and journalists . Although few files in this collection 

contain direct documentation of mass murder , the information often helps corrob

orate other evidence . `` When a guy writes in his resume , ` I was assigned to 

KZ ( concentration camp ) Auschwitz , ' and he signs it , it 's difficult for hi

m to later claim that he wasn't there , '' said David Marwell , 42 , the center 

's director . As early as 1952 , U.S. officials began discussing the eventual re

turn of the archives to German control . Many other documents , such as papers f

rom the Third Reich foreign ministry , were given to the Germans decades ago aft

er being microfilmed for the National Archives ' Captured German Documents divis

ion . Negotiations over the Berlin Document Center were abandoned in the late 19

60s , however , because of U.S. government concerns that Germany 's proposed rul

es of access `` were unacceptably restrictive of private scholarly access , '' P

eters told Lantos ' hearing last month . Moreover , German officials for years p

rivately hinted that they were content to have such sensitive material remain in

 American hands . `` I don't think the Germans really wanted the documents , '' 

said Kobletz , the former State Department lawyer. `` .. . It 's a bit of a hot 

potato for everybody . '' The potato got hotter in the 1980s when it was discove

red that an estimated 10,000 pages had been stolen from the archives and sold to

 memorabilia collectors willing to pay up to $ 3,000 for each signature of a hig

h-ranking Nazi . Marwell was dispatched to Berlin to overhaul security procedure

s . In 1989 , the German parliament voted unanimously to ask that the center be 

remanded to German custody . The microfilming project , which had begun in 1968 

only to stop in 1972 , resumed . Last October , the State Department signed an a

greement to relinquish the archive on July 1 . In bulk alone the collection is s

taggering , covering roughly eight miles of stacked paper . Among the party memb

ership cards is that of Oskar Schindler party No. 6,421,477 and Amon Goeth , No.

 510,964 , the sadistic commandant of Plaszow concentration camp in Poland ; bot

h men were portrayed in the recent film `` Schindler 's List . '' Much of the cu

rrent controversy was stirred by a magazine article in the New Yorker by writer 

Gerald Posner , who questioned both the quality of the microfilming and the pote

ntial pitfalls in German privacy laws . The article contends , for example , tha

t microfilm fails to distinguish between different colored inks used on some doc

uments and renders some writing less legible . More significant perhaps are conc

erns about whether German archivists would hinder legitimate scholarship . Germa

n privacy law typically prohibits access to files on people until they have been

 dead for at least 30 years . However , as to the issue of accessing the origina

l documents , Marwell expressed confidence that the German government will prove

 to be a fair administrator . Since 1988 , Germany 's Federal Archives has had t

he authority to screen requests from German citizens for entry into the Berlin D

ocument Center ; German officials contend that only one request from a scholar a

nd less than 1 percent of requests from private citizens have been denied . More

over , under the agreement signed last October , the Justice Department keeps th

e right to unrestricted access to the files . `` For the kind of access that peo

ple are concerned about scholarship and Nazi war crime investigations people wil

ln't see a difference , '' Marwell said . `` Absent some dramatic change , I don

't think scholars have anything to worry about . ''

 JERUSALEM If Yasser Arafat wants to return to the city he says he was born in ,

 he may be greeted at the entrance to Jerusalem by angry mobs led by the city 's

 mayor . Right-wing Israelis , spurred on by Jerusalem 's new mayor , Ehud Olmer

t , have vowed to block any attempt by the chairman of the Palestine Liberation 

Organization to visit Jerusalem . There are no announced plans yet for Arafat to

 try to visit , but already they are laying out an unwelcome mat : A deputy mayo

r of the city last week offered the city 's top award to anyone who would `` liq

uidate '' Arafat . A Jewish settler 's group proposed offering a 100,000 shekel 

reward ( about $ 33,000 ) for the capture of Arafat `` dead or alive . '' Olmert

 has vowed to rally 500,000 demonstrators to block Arafat 's arrival , warning o

minously of a massacre with `` 10 times as many victims '' as the Hebron shootin

g spree Feb. 25 that killed 30 Muslims . `` This is something that would be pote

ntially explosive '' if Arafat arrives , said Aliza Kristt , a spokeswoman for O

lmert , who is traveling abroad . `` It would turn the city upside-down and insi

de-out . '' Arafat is expected to arrive in June in the West Bank town of Jerich

o and the Gaza Strip , the first areas of Palestinian autonomy under the Israel-

PLO agreement signed in September . It will be the first time the man who led a 

30-year struggle of violence and diplomacy for the Palestinian cause will be in 

the West Bank since shortly after Israel 's occupation in 1967 . He has made no 

request to visit Jerusalem , although he has often used the image of a return to

 the city as a rhetorical rallying cry . Arafat claims that he was born in Jerus

alem 's Old City in a poor neighborhood now demolished near the Western Wall , a

 site holy to Jews . Other evidence suggests that he was born in Cairo , Egypt ,

 and the issue never has been settled . ( Optional add end ) Israeli officials e

xpect eventually that they will face an attempt by Arafat to pray in Jerusalem '

s Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount , Islam 's third-holiest site and destinati

on for Muslim pilgrims . It will put them in an awkward spot . Israel has long b

oasted that it guarantees freedom of religion at all the holy shrines in Jerusal

em , including Christian and Muslim shrines . The government would be hard-press

ed to deny a prayer visit by a leader with whom they have signed a peace accord 

. But such a visit would be a large event for the Arabs here , and could turn in

to a triumphal entry of the Palestinian leader to a city he has vowed should be 

the Palestinian capital . Jerusalem was physically divided between Arabs and Jew

s until 1967 , when Israel evicted Jordanian troops from East Jerusalem during t

he Six Day War . Although about 160,000 Arabs remain there , Israel has official

ly annexed Jerusalem and has sworn that it will be the `` eternal , undivided ca

pital '' of the Jewish state . It 's a claim that most countries , including the

 United States , do not recognize . Palestinians have not relinquished their cla

im to Jerusalem , and a draft Palestinian constitution divulged last week refers

 to Jerusalem as the eventual capital . Israel and the PLO have agreed that it i

s an `` unresolved issue '' to be on table of final negotiations scheduled to st

art in two years .

 FORT MYERS , Fla. . Sometime next month , Walt and Sandy Lamkin will hit the ro

ad again , fleeing Florida 's summer with their trailer full of wares for the fa

irgrounds and festivals of New England and the hope of bigger crowds , more mone

y and a little middle-age security . They 'll head north in their live-in van , 

the dog , Brandy , stretched out by the stove and the Amazon parrot , Envy , per

ched on a bunk bed , offering an acceptable version of `` Zippidy do dah . '' Th

e trailer they tow will be so jammed with goods everything from contour pillows 

to jewelry to disposable rain jackets ( two for $ 1 ) that Lamkin will have to s

houlder the door to secure the lock . In another life , the Lamkins were worth s

everal million dollars . Then in the early '80s , the bottom fell out of the egg

-and-poultry business in Maine and they lost their 1,500-acre farm . They moved 

to Florida to start over after a couple of false starts as members of the growin

g class of entrepreneurs who peddle wares from town to town and consider storefr

onts , leases and 800-phone numbers an unseemly symbol of settlement . From Cali

fornia to Florida , thousands of Americans are on the road like the Lamkins thes

e days , moving with the seasons , plying their trade at flea markets and trade 

shows . They may sell fine silverware or antiques , T-shirts or gadgets that sli

ce , dice and cut in a single swipe . Bt each is united by his or her disdain of

 having to punch a time clock or answer to a boss . Like the drummers of the Old

 West the salesmen who traveled from town to town , hawking medicines and housew

ares from the backs of their wagons today 's itinerant vendors play to the most 

basic American instinct : Every home can afford a bargain . They are survivors ,

 possessed of modest dreams , content to pursue a decent living and the freedom 

to move on when business is lean . By 7:30 a.m. the other Friday , the Lamkins h

ad set up four tables in the space they rent for $ 60 a weekend at Fleamaster 's

 flea market in Fort Myers . The covered , open-air market one of more than 150 

that operate year-round in Florida attracts 800 vendors and 30,000 customers on 

a busy weekend . `` I don't care what I sell , '' said Walt Lamkin , 54 . `` All

 I want is a good product that no one else has . That 's the magic , finding the

 product. .. . `` Battery-operated talking parrots are big this year , and I nev

er would have guessed that . Take the nice cooler with a two-quart jug I found .

 I said everybody 's going to want that . I bought 72 of them for $ 8 each . I m

arked them up to $ 14.95 . They didn't sell and I kept dropping the price becaus

e you can't let your money sit around . I just sold the last one the other day ,

 for $ 5 . '' The early crowds were sparse on this morning . The sellers were mi

ddle-aged and many had come to this line of work because they had failed at some

 earlier business or had retired and didn't want to be idle . With Florida empty

ing as summer approached , most had plotted their escape to points north and wes

t . `` Eight years ago , I came down to Florida as a commercial fisherman , '' s

aid George Nichol , standing among tables stocked with jellies , greeting cards 

, cotton ear swabs , chamois clothes , men 's dress belts , billy clubs and roll

s of rope . `` It was a lot of work for no money . Pulling 70-pound traps of sto

ne crabs 300 times a day , out from dawn to dusk , getting eaten by a brutal sun

 that 's a job for young people , and I was lucky enough to realize it . You got

 to have a lot of luck to be old these days . '' Nearby , Norm and Cathy Bricker

 had parked the 40-foot motor home they live in next to their Rising Sun Traders

 jewelry counter . Their 11-year-old son , Aaron , whose schooling is done by co

rrespondence courses , was organizing the baseball cards that he will sell and s

wap when the family leaves for Arizona , California , Alaska and Montana . `` Wh

en Norm wanted to sell off the farm and go on the road .. . about 10 years ago ,

 I was dead set against it , '' Cathy Bricker said . `` But now I wouldn't be ca

ught dead living in the same place . I feel antsy just visiting my parents in Ma

ryland . '' ( Optional add end ) After the Lamkins lost their Maine farm in 1982

 and their Florida tire shop to fire in 1990 , their net worth was down to $ 500

 . They bought $ 300 worth of canned food , figuring that would sustain them for

 a couple of months , and spent the final $ 200 on cashews and pecans . They sol

d them at a flea market and have been among the modern-day drummers ever since .

 `` I tried to get a regular job , '' Walt said , `` but hell , I was 50 years o