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

roup Baikal Watch , said she found the World Bank contract particularly galling 

because it is far from the first such study in the region . The U.S. . Agency fo

r International Development has allocated $ 200,000 for an eco-tourism study , a

nd others already have been carried out . `` We know where we don't have toilets

 , '' Dyatlovskaya-Birnbaum said . `` We don't need Westerners to come and tell 

us that we need this , this and this before tourists will come . We know all thi

s , and we don't need more studies . We need money , and we need contacts in the

 West . '' Justin Mundy , who is helping oversee the World Bank 's environmental

 programs in Russia , said the criticism is `` understandable , but not necessar

ily fair . '' He noted that throughout Russia , in all fields , there is a `` de

ep level of frustration at the hard cash and hard finance not actually getting o

ut to people on the ground . `` And we 're trying to address that , '' Mundy sai

d . The World Bank is in the process of negotiating with the Russian government 

a grant of $ 25 million to $ 30 million to support biodiversity throughout the c

ountry and around Lake Baikal in particular , Mundy said . When that money begin

s flowing hopefully next year , he said concrete projects will benefit , he said

 . `` Ninety percent of the consultants are going to be Russian , '' he added . 

Dyatlovskaya-Birnbaum and even park director Abramenok , in a more reflective mo

od acknowledged they have benefited from some U.S. programs . Exchanges sponsore

d by the Sierra Club and by U.S. government agencies , including AID and the U.S

. . Fish and Wildlife Service , have proved especially useful , they said . AID 

also has allocated $ 3 million to promote sustainable development in the Baikal 

region . Budget documents show that at least half of the money will go to U.S. c

onsultants , airfare and U.S. administrative overhead , but the grant funds the 

kind of concrete projects that officials here said they need . In that sense , t

he Baikal region is luckier than most of Russia 's nature preserves . In fact , 

ecologists in Moscow say , a few high-profile areas Baikal , the Kamchatka Penin

sula with its spectacular geysers and the Khabarovsk homeland of the Siberian ti

ger have monopolized most Western attention and funding . With a grant from the 

MacArthur Foundation , the World Wildlife Fund in January crafted a three-year ,

 $ 17 million program to conserve Russia 's biological diversity during this per

iod of crisis . The report proposed specific investment projects in particularly

 well-managed and needy reserves ; training programs for rangers and other offic

ials ; environmental education to increase public support for conservation ; mea

sures to discourage international trafficking in endangered species ; and format

ion of new reserves where unchecked oil-drilling and speculation could destroy u

nique habitats . The response so far ? `` Zero. Not a single kopeck , '' said La

ura Williams , a World Wildlife Fund official here . Williams said journalists '

 focus on `` corruption , crime and inflation '' has convinced many Westerners t

hat any investment or donation here will `` go into a black hole . '' Vsevolod S

tepanitsky , an ecologist who until last year headed Russia 's nature reserves ,

 estimated that Western consultants for-profit and non-profit so far have receiv

ed more than 20 times as much money as the reserves themselves . `` This is karm

ushka ' ' a feeding-trough , said the Socio-Ecological Union 's Simyonov . `` Th

e consultants have to consult . And what are they going to live on if these orga

nizations start actually giving money ? ''

 USHKANYA PAD , Russia Rain dripped through a torn plastic sheet stretched acros

s the lean-to , soaking a few fish hanging with mouths agape and turning the gro

und to a muddy mess . Hank Birnbaum , 35 , Colorado-born and California-bred , t

urned up the collar of his soiled jacket and spread his arms wide . `` Welcome t

o Bermuda , '' he said with a rueful smile . If World Bank consultants at $ 300-

per-night hotels represent one end of the West 's aid spectrum , Birnbaum surely

 holds down the other extreme . After several years of coordinating Russian-Amer

ican exchange programs for a San Francisco non-profit organization , Birnbaum si

gned on for the ultimate in grass-roots humanitarian aid : He is a full-time , $

 13-a-month forest ranger in a roadless , isolated corner of the Pribaikalsky Na

tional Park in Siberia . `` I just have my own inner need to be here , '' Birnba

um said . Park officials said they were delighted to hire Birnbaum , hoping Amer

ican attitudes toward nature conservation would rub off on other rangers . The n

ational park on Baikal 's shore was formed only in 1986 , and many locals includ

ing quite a few rangers continue to regard the territory as a handy hunting rese

rve . `` When my colleague sees ducks flying past , he says , ` Look , meat ! ' 

' ' Birnbaum said . Birnbaum expected to spend the spring and summer living in a

 log cabin in this beautiful spot , greeting hikers and watching for forest fire

s . But during the winter , the cabin was set on fire and destroyed . Park offic

ials believe the culprit was a ranger who had been fired for hunting . Birnbaum 

acknowledges `` a lot that 's frustrating '' in Russia . `` People take a lot of

 holidays , they find a lot of reasons to work slowly and take days off , '' he 

said . Rather than clean the trash from a small area , they spend hours discussi

ng grand projects for a park-wide cleanup or propose leaving the trash for Sierr

a Club volunteers who come each summer , actually looking to work . `` But peopl

e here need each other , and the simple things are important , and you have to w

ork to get the simple things , '' Birnbaum said . `` In America , so much of lif

e is in the fast lane . '' In 1988 , Birnbaum met a Russian ecology activist who

 is now his wife . But she prefers life in San Francisco to the lakeside mud of 

Baikal . Birnbaum , too , said he appreciates America more now . But for the mom

ent , he is determined to stay at least one year . Among other things , he said 

, he is committed to some of his colleagues in the park who also are determined 

to save the beauty and cleanliness of Baikal . `` The economic situation is so d

esperate right now that to work with people here who don't have economic motives

 as primary that 's a step in the right direction , '' he said . `` And it 's su

rprising for them to meet an American who 's not here to make money . ''

 POKOINNY BAY , Russia Lake Baikal is a 426-mile-long crescent of astonishingly 

clear water , a geological rift between sharp ranges of snowcapped mountains , w

indswept valleys of cedar and larch , and bare tundra hills where falcons and ki

tes circle overhead . The lake itself is so deep that it holds one-fifth of the 

world 's fresh water .

 NEW YORK For Kenny Vixama 's first-grade teacher , an alarm went off when she n

oticed that the 6-year-old often invented his own text for the simple storybooks

 his class was reading . Though a bright child , as he read his eyes did not fol

low the left-to-right pattern of a successful reader . He had trouble identifyin

g specific words when asked to find them . And he showed confusion with certain 

patterns of letters-a basic stumbling block in learning to read . Kenny 's diffi

culties had landed him in the bottom 20 percent in reading achievement among the

 first-grade students at Public School 41 in Greenwich Village . If Kenny 's pro

blems went uncorrected , he seemed headed down a path of reading failure that ha

s become frustratingly hard to address for teachers across the country . That wa

s when reading specialist Barbara Mandel intervened . Mandel is a soldier in a q

uiet revolution that is transforming the way some elementary schools deal with s

low readers . The program she teaches is known as Reading Recovery , and since 1

983 , when it was introduced in this country at Ohio State University , it has s

pread to 48 states and brought thousands of first-graders up to average or above

 reading levels . Developed in the 1970s by New Zealand educator and psychologis

t Marie Clay and used extensively in that country , the program 's premise is th

at the best way to avoid reading failure is to prevent it in the first place . T

he simple theory has won a following among an army of U.S. teachers who have gon

e through yearlong training to more effectively tutor children in the most funda

mental skill . Ohio State professor Gay Su Pinnell , who helped establish the un

iversity 's pilot program and heads a de facto national organization of Reading 

Recovery teachers , estimates that by the end of the year , 9,000 teachers will 

have been trained and will have reached 50,000 to 60,000 students . Programs are

 booming in Ohio , California and Texas , and even in small states , legislature

s and local school districts are approving special funding for trial programs , 

she said . But Reading Recovery has not been universally endorsed , mainly becau

se of its high personnel costs and selectivity . Though implementation costs var

y from district to district , all have to foot the bill for teachers like Mandel

 to take a year off for rigorous training . Then , they must dramatically scale 

back the teacher 's regular duties to allow time to work with a small number of 

children . Some principals have complained that the program unfairly concentrate

s limited funds on first-graders , leaving little for programs geared toward vul

nerable children in later years . In the Disrict of Columbia , where about 23 te

achers have been trained , Deputy Superintendent Maurice Sykes said , `` We 've 

had to do a lot of convincing '' to win over principals despite Reading Recovery

 's early successes . Reading Recovery assumes that every child can learn to rea

d if confusion with the language is detected and corrected as soon as it becomes

 a problem . Many educators see the program as a first step in a long struggle t

o break the failure chain that has cluttered junior high and high schools across

 the country with nonreaders . By the time students reach upper grades , experts

 say , the inability to read has usually taken an enormous academic and social t

oll . Studies of Reading Recovery children show that 80 percent who go through t

he 12-to-20-week intervention never need further reading remediation or special 

education , according to specialist Angela Jaggar , a New York University profes

sor who is conducting follow-up studies of children who went through the program

 , which began in Manhattan 's District 2 in the mid-1980s . `` What the schools

 have traditionally done is wait until a long time has passed in a child 's life

 to decide they 're having difficulty in reading ... . The longer you wait the h

arder it is , '' explained Jaggar . `` This program helps us understand how kids

 learn naturally , to spot their confusions and respond immediately with a reper

toire of strategies . '' In Kenny Vixama 's case , Mandel several weeks ago bega

n one-on-one tutoring sessions . The first lessons allowed him to show off what 

he knew , a phase called `` Roaming Around the Room , '' designed to build the c

hild 's self-confidence . Then , in each structured 30-minute session , Kenny wo

rked first on familiar materials and built gradually to more challenging ones , 

with Mandel intervening when a difficult word or phrase stopped him . At one rec

ent session , with a timer clicking in the background , Kenny stumbled over the 

word `` how . '' Mandel quickly pulled out plastic letters to spell the word , l

et Kenny sound it out , write it on a slip of paper , rhyme it and find its prop

er place in a scrambled sentence . With each small victory , Kenny was able to m

ove on through the text , his finger following the words , a technique Mandel pu

rposely used to keep his attention properly focused . She watched intensely , ke

eping a written record of Kenny 's progress to help structure the next day 's se

ssion . With 12 of the maximum 60 lessons under his belt , Kenny seemed a candid

ate for success . But there were frustrations . Though Kenny 's problems were de

tected early in the year , it had taken until spring to work him into the progra

m . Because Reading Recovery is only offered in first grade , Kenny would have o

nly the few remaining weeks of school to work . Mandel , who helped eight childr

en move up to average reading ability this year , expressed a complaint common i

n the movement there 's never enough time or teachers to reach all the children 

in need of help . In Jackson , Miss . , Superintendent Ben O . Canada has decide

d to shoulder the costs that come with wide-scale implementation of Reading Reco

very . In 1991 , using federal Chapter 1 funds for needy students , Jackson bega

n implementing Reading Recovery in eight of its lowest performing schools . Seve

nteen teachers were trained in the technique . Now , Reading Recovery has expand

ed to 37 Jackson schools and 81 teachers , and the district is cited as a nation

al model of how the program can turn around reading progress in small school dis

tricts . `` Being in this for many years , I '' ve seen so many fly-by-night pro

grams , fancy packaging for things that didn't work . This has caused a revoluti

on here almost , '' said Ida J. McCants , Chapter 1 administrator for the Jackso

n schools . `` The teachers are revitalized . The strategies they 're learning a

re helping them get through to children . And the parents are delighted . They s

ee real growth in a short period of time . '' Yet even the program 's strongest 

advocates concede that Reading Recovery is only a beginning in the enormous figh

t against illiteracy . `` We 're optimistic , '' said Pinnell . `` But we know t

his problem is bigger than we are . ''

 Everyone knows by now that Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt didn't make it to t

he Supreme Court because of opposition from a few Western senators . But why the

 opposition ? It wasn't the usual reasons . His vote against Babbitt , explained

 Sen. Alan Simpson , R-Wyo. , without a blush , would be `` totally provincial .

 '' Babbitt 's unforgivable sin , in the eyes of some Rocky Mountain senators , 

was to be insensitive to Western values . This is a startling charge against a m

an whose family began a ranching business in that well-known Downeast state of A

rizona in the 1880s . Insensitivity would have to have been quickly acquired by 

a Democrat who was twice elected governor and once attorney general of the only 

state in the Union to have voted Republican in every presidential election since

 1952 . True , he went east for law school and to England for graduate work , bu

t that was for a degree in geology that enables him to read the history of the l

and Westerners revere from its rocks and canyons . It 's hard to imagine a more 

perfect resume for an Interior secretary in a centrist , environmentally oriente

d administration . In part , the flap is evidence of how hard it is to be head t

he Interior Department . The post combines the roles of chief conservationist an

d chief resource developer . He or she must care for the nation 's parks and wil

derness , preserve their biodiversity and provide for recreation , while at the 

same time developing fossil fuels , managing grazing , building water projects ,

 overseeing mining and ensuring land and resources for growth . When you 're doi

ng a good job at the Interior Department , you can expect to be trashed by both 

sides . But the senators weren't really protesting policies . They were protecti

ng a myth the myth of the `` Old West . '' The symbolic nature of the confrontat

ion explains its fervor and the obvious fact that if Babbitt 's opponents were s

erious about stopping what he was doing at Interior , nothing could have been be

tter than a lifetime appointment for him elsewhere . No successor was likely to 

be as successful in promoting the same policies as a man with national name reco

gnition , deep Western roots and skills in forging compromise . Had the confirma

tion hearing been held , the country would have watched the senators and Mr. Bab

bitt apparently arguing over reducing federal subsidies for ranching , mining an

d logging on public lands and for providing water at a fraction of its cost . ( 

The administration unwisely launched all four of these initiatives at once in it

s deficit-reduction plan and then dropped them at the first hint of opposition .

 ) What they really would have been doing is grappling with the ghosts of the 19

th century . Then , the government threw every incentive it could find into sett

ling the West . It gave away free land through the Homestead Act , gave a proper

ty right to mining claims and charged no royalties , provided cheap water , buil

t logging roads even if they cost more than the resulting timber and encouraged 

cattle grazing at public expense . Of all these policies , only the Homestead Ac

t has disappeared . The rest survive , increasingly anachronistic and environmen

tally more damaging with each passing decade . The 122-year-old mining law the f

ocus of reform efforts for more than 20 years recently forced Babbitt to sell to

 a private company 2,000 acres of public land containing an estimated $ 10 billi

on worth of gold for $ 9,765 . Cowboys and miners remain the cultural icons of t

he West , but everything else has changed . Astonishingly , the eight sprawling 

states of the Rocky Mountain region are today less rural ( 20 percent of the pop

ulation ) than is the country as a whole ( 24 percent ) . A higher fraction of p

eople use public transportation to get to work than in any region but the Northe

ast . Even in the most remote areas , mining , oil and gas drilling , logging , 

farming and ranching are a small and dwindling portion of the economy . A Wilder

ness Society study of the huge area surrounding Yellowstone Park found that in t

he past two decades 96 percent of job growth occurred outside these traditional 

sectors . Seventy-nine percent came from services alone . Income directly from a

griculture and the extractive industries fell by half , to just 12 percent of to

tal personal income . Western governors reflect this shift to balanced economies

 and urban demographics . They tend to be moderates men like Cecil Andrus , Idah

o , Roy Roemer , Colorado , or Mike Sullivan , Wyoming who concentrate on jobs ,

 crime , education , drugs and the like . They know voters want the region 's be

auties protected , for themselves and for the tourists they draw . Senators , ho

wever , whether Democratic or Republican , tend to be to the right of their part

y 's mainstream . Among today 's incumbents , seven of the 14 who were rated in 

1992 received environmental vote ratings of zero on a 0-100 scale . Far away in 

Washington , it seems , echoes of a free-wheeling , wide open Old West without f

ences or limits play better than in Denver , Las Vegas or Salt Lake , where the 

realities of air pollution , dwindling water supplies and competition among land

 uses are all too well understood . PAC money from the extractive industries mak

es a difference too . It 's too bad that a confirmation hearing didn't provide t

he opportunity to thrash all this out on television . Still , with perseverance 

on Babbitt 's part , and some support from the president , the high court 's los

s is likely to prove the new West 's gain .

 In RAY-COMMENT ( Milloy ) , bio line should read : Courtland Milloy is a local 

columnist for The Washington Post .

 `` D-DAY : The Climactic Battle of World War II , '' By Stephen E. Ambrose ( Si

mon & Schuster , $ 30 , 656 pp . ) `` MONTY : The Battles of Field Marshal Berna

rd Montgomery , '' By Nigel Hamilton ( Random House , $ 30 , 624 pp . ) `` JUNE 

6 , 1944 : The Voices of D-Day , '' By Gerald Astor ( St. Martin 's Press , $ 25

.95 , 432 pp . ) `` The Longest Day , '' By Cornelius Ryan ( Touchstone Books , 

$ 11 , 338 pp . ) `` Nothing Less Than Victory , '' By Russell Miller ( Morrow ,

 $ 25 , 512 pp . ) `` America at D-Day , '' By Richard Goldstein ( Delta Books ,

 $ 14.95 , 320 pp . ) `` Voices of D-Day , '' edited by Ronald J. Drez ( Louisia

na State University Press , $ 24.95 , 312 pp . ) Walker is the U.S. bureau chief

 of Britain 's The Guardian , and author of `` The Cold War ; A History . '' Rev

iewed by Martin Walker Special to the Los Angeles Times A magnificent and awesom

e military operation , and a moment of acute symbolism as the liberation of Euro

pe began , D-day itself was not a great battle by the bloody standards of modern

 war . At Omaha Beach , the scene of the worst confusion if not the hardest figh

ting of invasion day , the Americans had 2,220 casualties , mainly from the Rang

ers and the 1st Division . At Utah Beach , where the terrain was less hostile an

d the defenders more demoralized , the American 4th Division suffered 187 casual

ties . These amounted to about 5 percent of their losses in the training disaste

r earlier in the year at Slapton Sands . By contrast , the U.S. Marines had lost

 3,500 men in the amphibious assault on the single Japanese-held island of Taraw

a . These casualty figures are collated by Stephen Ambrose , best known as the b

iographer of Eisenhower and Nixon ; and for someone looking for just one among t

he flood of D-day books , his is the one to obtain . And yet Ambrose never reall

y proves the contention of his subtitle , that D-day was `` the climactic battle

 of World War II . '' This is partly because of a fundamental change in the way 

military history is now written . Historians used to rely on the maps and the pl

ans and the orders of generals , in which armies are portrayed by arrows sweepin

g around flanks . But the surging growth of oral history in the recollections of

 individual soldiers has changed our perspective . A style of modern history pio