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

it has been in the modern world , according to a new study of ethnographic recor

ds and human remains found in ancient burials . Still older prehistoric societie

s had violent death rates thousands of times higher . Recurrent warfare appears 

to have been the chief reason . `` The price we pay in our modern civilization f

or being divided into nation-states is far lower than what we would be paying if

 the world were still tribalized , '' said Lawrence Keeley , an anthropologist a

t the University of Illinois at Chicago , whose findings are being published nex

t year as a book by Oxford University Press . Keeley calculated that if the worl

d 's current population were undergoing warfare at the rate attributed to prehis

toric peoples , 22 million people would die violently every year . In fact , the

 highest estimate of violent deaths of all kinds during the entire 20th century 

is around 100 million . Keeley 's study focuses on societies that lived between 

12,000 years ago and the present . Among the more recent tribal societies , the 

annual death rate from violence averaged from estimates by various anthropologis

ts who studied them is close to 0.5 percent . In other words , this is the perce

ntage of people who die by violent means each year . In the United States today 

, the comparable figure is around 0.01 percent 50 times less . ( This is usually

 expressed as 10 violent deaths per 100,000 population . ) In still older prehis

toric societies , Keeley said , the violent death rates , probably largely from 

warfare , appear to range between 1 percent and 40 percent . He cited one villag

e site dated at A.D. 1325 in what is now South Dakota . `` There were 50 houses 

in this town , which meant that around 800 people lived there . Every house in t

he town had been burned to the ground . '' Archaeologists found a mass grave con

taining skeletons of more than 500 people . Of the skulls that could be found , 

94 percent bore scalping marks . Most of the bodies had been badly mutilated and

 left to rot . Keeley said it is a myth that `` pre-civilized '' life was peacef

ul and happy , and that Western civilization is the root of all evil . `` As soc

ieties evolve and become larger and more complex , less violent ways of resolvin

g disputes are institutionalized , '' Keeley said . `` What prevents war is poli

tics . ''

 The planet Earth is a flasher . In recent years , several different scientific 

teams have detected mysterious bursts of light in the upper atmosphere , apparen

tly linked somehow to thunderstorms . Scientists and others have seen them from 

the ground , from airplanes , from the space shuttle and through robot observato

ries in orbit . They have seen them in optical wavelengths and in intense micros

econd sizzles of radio waves and now in the form of high-energy gamma rays . A t

eam using NASA 's orbiting Gamma Ray Observatory , designed to scan the cosmos f

or powerful celestial sources of the rays , reports in the May 27 Science that i

t has seen at least a dozen Earth-flashes in two years . `` The last thing we ev

er expected to see was gamma rays coming up from Earth , '' said Gerald Fishman 

of Marshall Space Flight Center , who led the team . `` But about a week after w

e reached orbit , we started seeing flashes coming from below the spacecraft . '

' Collaborating with weather and lightning experts at Marshall , the team used o

ld weather satellite photos to determine that there were always storms nearby wh

en the flashes occurred . The bursts could originate in a rare type of high-alti

tude electrical discharge above storms , possibly the result of lightning bolts 

that punch through the top of a thunderhead . Estimated to begin at altitudes no

 lower than about 19 miles well above the storm cloud tops and to rise as high a

s 63 miles , the flashes lasted from 1 to 8 milliseconds too short to pose any d

anger . They carried the signature of emissions from million-volt electrons dece

lerating rapidly ( known as bremsstrahlung radiation ) . About half had a double

 pulse , and one had five . However , according to a companion commentary by Ric

hard Kerr , to create these effects would require superbolts 30 times more power

ful than normal .

 She is hardly a household name , but New York Republicans hope Elizabeth McCaug

hey will make life as miserable for Democratic Gov. Mario M. Cuomo as she did ea

rlier this year for President Clinton . McCaughey tore apart Clinton 's health-c

are plan in a long and devastating Feb. 7 New Republic article that forced the W

hite House to issue a point-by-point rebuttal and drew a rebuke from the preside

nt himself . Now she has been transformed from think-tank scholar to political c

andidate as the New York Republican Party 's endorsed candidate for lieutenant g

overnor , and one of her principal roles , says the man who put her on the ticke

t , is to distinguish the difference between Cuomo 's rhetoric and his record . 

`` Betsy has done such a spectacular job on the health-care plan .. . I have no 

doubt she will do a tremendous job '' on Cuomo 's record , said state Sen. Georg

e E. Pataki , the Republicans ' endorsed candidate for governor and the man who 

put McCaughey ( pronounced McCoy ) on his ticket . Pataki , who was the handpick

ed candidate of Sen. Alfonse M. D' Amato , R-N.Y. , said that , despite strains 

and schisms evident all year , Republicans emerged from their state convention l

ast week `` with an overwhelming sense of optimism '' about the fall campaigns .

 McCaughey , after a day crisscrossing the state , said she is eager to serve . 

`` I 've spent 25 years studying American government , '' she said . `` I adore 

our system of government . It 's the freest and most enduring democracy every cr

eated , so the idea of participating as an elected leader is very exciting to me

 . '' Most Republicans who endorsed her nomination had barely heard of McCaughey

 , but her clash with Clinton has given her unique celebrity status . After all 

, how many other candidates for lieutenant governor have posed for Vanity Fair i

n a loaned designer gown ? `` I was quite shocked by it myself , '' McCaughey sa

id after seeing the photo . A specialist in 18th-century history , she had hoped

 the magazine would use a close up picture of her and an image of George Washing

ton .

 SAN ANTONIO If it had not been for the Daughters of the Republic of Texas , the

re would not even be an Alamo today . Instead of this familiar limestone shrine 

, this monument to liberty or death , there would be just another downtown hotel

 . For nearly 90 years , the Daughters have protected the Alamo , restored it , 

tended it and treated it like the most precious real estate in Texas . And now ,

 as the Daughters see it , this is the thanks they get : Ethnic minorities have 

accused them of ignoring other claims to the site . An adjoining park has been p

roposed that could , they fear , turn the Alamo into Disney World . A new histor

ical perspective has reduced their heroes to lily-livered scoundrels . And at ev

ery turn , the Daughters have been assailed as hidebound , amateurish and stubbo

rn dowagers with nothing better to do than drink tea and plot more ways to justi

fy their blindered version of the past . It has been most unpleasant . `` The Da

ughters are willing to look , listen and talk , '' said Gail Loving Barnes of Od

essa , who wears the ceremonial ribbon sash of the group 's president-general an

d speaks softly , but crisply , about the controversies . `` We have been conten

t all these years to work to preserve the Alamo , the shrine to Texas liberty . 

We did not seek publicity . We did not pat ourselves on the back . I realize now

 our foremothers should have arranged for some positive publicity years ago , so

 people would know what we were doing all along . '' Some critics have gone so f

ar as to suggest the time has come for the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to

 relinquish control of the site , which draws 3 million visitors a year and rank

s as one of the country 's more compelling attractions . That is a possibility t

he Daughters can describe only as unthinkable . `` We will never give up , just 

to put it bluntly , '' Barnes said , as other members shook their heads in empha

sis . They refer to themselves as The Daughters . There are about 6,600 members 

of this unique and exclusive group ; to qualify , an applicant must provide irre

futable evidence her ancestors were early colonizers of what became Texas in the

 years before 1845 . History is greatly revered in the Texas scheme of things . 

Every little Texan is taught that he or she lives in the most fascinating state 

in the Union what other state was ever a country all its own ? Six of the top 10

 tourist attractions here are historic sites , and students begin learning Texas

 history in the first grade , largely due to the Daughters ' heavy campaigning .

 The names Jim Bowie , William Travis and Davy Crockett , the shining heroes of 

the Alamo , are as familiar to youngsters as Batman . No battle is more sacred h

ere than the siege of the Alamo , the fight for Texas independence from Mexico .

 It has all the essential stirring elements : an outnumbered band of patriots ho

led up for days inside a former mission , a rousing agreement to fight to the de

ath , a brutal annihilation that paved the way to a greater triumph . For 13 day

s in 1836 , Col. Travis and 188 men managed to stave off the ferocious Mexican G

en. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and his 4,000 well-armed troops . Finally , in t

he pre-dawn hours of March 6 , the Mexican forces stormed the fortress , slaying

 all but a few women and children and burning the bodies of the resisters . Alth

ough Santa Anna dismissed the conflict as a minor affair , he had lost 600 men .

 Forty-six days later , the stage was set for the Battle of San Jacinto , when G

en. Houston led his 800 volunteers to defeat the Mexican army , and the Republic

 of Texas was born . Incensed by the Alamo 's fall and inspired by reports of th

e heroics there , Houston 's men coined a rallying cry that has since become a s

tandard expression in American language : `` Remember the Alamo ! '' Texas switc

hed from sovereign country to on of the United States in 1845 . The Daughters , 

founded in the 1890s as a historic-preservation society , entered the picture in

 1905 , when the Texas legislature granted them custodianship of the crumbling a

nd neglected Alamo . Clara Driscoll and Adina de Zavala , two founders of the gr

oup , had saved the site from destruction ; it was coveted for a new hotel . Sin

ce then , there have been regular tempests at the Alamo , but the Daughters agre

e the latest series of assaults depicting them as blue-haired control freaks or 

worse , white supremacists has gone beyond normal bounds . One after another , c

ritics have emerged to attack the fortress . Gary Gabehart of the Inter-Tribal C

ouncil of American Indians says the Daughters are wrong to concentrate solely on

 the siege , that the Alamo should also honor the 921 mission Indians previously

 buried at the site . Gilberto Hinojosa , a dean at Incarnate Word College , wan

ts more emphasis on the Alamo 's role as a mission . Historians have raised doub

ts about the very worthiness of the heroes Houston may have been an opium addict

 , Davy Crockett a sniveler . David Anthony Richelieu 's serious plan to expand 

the Alamo site to its former football-field-sized proportions has filled the Dau

ghters with dismay . `` The DRT has had this little domain , and people are jeal

ous , '' said Richelieu , a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News who has c

losely followed the disputes and belongs to a special , city-appointed committee

 to study the questions about the Alamo . Visitors to the shrine on a recent aft

ernoon hardly seem repelled by the disputes . Dozens of people prowled the lush 

green grounds , marveling at the smallness of the Alamo ( the mission itself is 

tiny , and the compound covers only 4 acres ) and its surprising location . Many

 first-time visitors expect the Alamo to be situated , alone , on a windswept hi

ll , but downtown San Antonio sprang up around the site , and a Wendy 's and a W

oolworth 's loom across the street . The Daughters do not like it that lost in t

he controversy is the fact the group has never charged for admission to the Alam

o , meeting a budget that now reaches $ 2 million a year with donations and the 

sale of Alamo-shaped ashtrays and coonskin caps . Not a penny of tax money has e

ver gone to the Alamo .

 WASHINGTON Among the double agents that former CIA officer Aldrich H. Ames has 

admitted exposing to Moscow was Oleg Gordievsky , the KGB 's onetime top officer

 in London and the most important Soviet spy ever recruited by MI5 , Britain 's 

security service . Problem is , Ames can't say exactly when he told Moscow about

 Gordievsky . The FBI had concluded it was on June 13 , 1985 , when Ames turned 

over to a Soviet Embassy employee in Washington an envelope containing a list of

 code-names or other identifying clues for all the Soviet citizens he knew were 

in the pay of the CIA or allied governments . The FBI fixed on that date using p

hotographic , electronic and other surveillance records that are supposed to hav

e recorded all those who visited the Soviet Embassy , sources said . But the FBI

 did not consult with Gordievsky or read the book that he wrote in 1990 , the so

urces said . In the book , Gordievsky said he was mysteriously ordered back to M

oscow from London on May 17 , 1985 , four weeks before the FBI has Ames turning 

over his list . Gordievsky also wrote that on May 27 , 1985 , he was drugged , i

nterrogated by KGB officials in the Soviet Union and `` directly accused of work

ing for the British . '' Ames has said he cannot remember the date he passed the

 envelope , but during an interview last month placed it `` some months '' after

 March 1985 . Neither MI5 nor the CIA wants it proven that Ames was not the one 

who informed on Gordievsky because that would suggest another , still undiscover

ed double agent inside either U.S. or British intelligence . The FBI , sources s

aid , has been asked to review its finding . Gordievsky himself announced after 

Ames 's arrest that he believed it was Ames who turned him in . `` He has the bl

ood of a dozen officers on his hands , '' Gordievsky wrote in an article in Marc

h . `` He would have had my blood , too , had I not managed to escape before the

 KGB had any evidence , other than Ames 's tip-off , against me . '' Some Britis

h intelligence officials , although accepting the CIA 's apology , have come to 

believe that Gordievsky was uncovered by the KGB 's own counterintelligence work

 and that Ames 's information only confirmed an existing suspicion . Motivated b

y his realization that the Soviet Union was a stagnant , corrupt society , Gordi

evsky agreed to spy for British intelligence in 1974 while working as a KGB poli

tical intelligence officer in Copenhagen . He rose steadily in the KGB in Moscow

 and arrived in London in 1982 . Three years later he was named chief of the KGB

 's station in the British capital . So impressive was Gordievsky 's information

 that some of his reports were hand-carried to then-President Ronald Reagan . Th

ey gave top leaders in London and Washington what one former high-ranking CIA of

ficial called `` an amazing look inside the Kremlin . '' From London Gordievsky 

would report on gossip he gathered and conversations he had with visiting Soviet

 officials and KGB officers . His reports covered China , Nicaragua , even the U

nited States . The information he conveyed about the internal workings of the Kr

emlin `` went way beyond any reporting we were getting , '' the former CIA offic

ial said . Only a handful of top CIA officials knew the material was coming from

 a KGB source in London and from an individual senior enough to assume charge on

 occasion of the Soviet Embassy there . Ames , along with a handful of other off

icers in the CIA operations directorate , was able to determine that MI5 's sour

ce came from the KGB station in London . According to Gordievsky , he was unexpe

ctedly recalled to Moscow in a cable he received May 17 , 1985 , saying he would

 be formally appointed head of the KGB 's London operation and two Politburo mem

bers wanted to talk to him . When he arrived in Moscow on May 19 , he found his 

apartment had been searched . For a week nothing happened . Then he was taken to

 a KGB dacha outside Moscow for a lavish lunch that included large amounts of li

quor . After the meal he felt drugged . He was then subjected to sharp questioni

ng for the rest of the day , including accusations he had become a British agent

 . He denied the charges and maintained his innocence . Gordievsky was released 

, but his wife and children were ordered back from London and he was told he wou

ld not be allowed to serve outside the Soviet Union again . He was relieved of d

uties and told he had to report to KGB headquarters for a new assignment on Aug.

 3 , 1985 . Gordievsky wrote in his book that he believed the Soviets were waiti

ng to see if they could catch him secretly meeting with MI5 agents . On July 19 

, without giving notice to his family , Gordievsky and MI5 agents carried out a 

bold escape plan . He was picked up by MI5 agents on a street outside Moscow whi

le jogging with a KGB guard just yards away . He was smuggled out of Russia thro

ugh a route that remains secret .

 The issue of Israeli settlers and settlements in the West Bank and Gaza cannot 

go long ignored . If mishandled , the fate of the settlers will undermine the pr

ospects for later stages of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations . Ironically , the 

$ 10 billion U.S. loan-guarantee program just two years ago the single most cont

entious issue in U.S.-Israeli relations could serve as a vehicle of conciliation

 and peacemaking . Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has courageously said th

at peace is more important than settlements . So far he has given no indication 

of how , or under what conditions , settlements might be removed . But Israel ha

s the capacity on its own to adopt non-coercive policies that could at least red

uce the magnitude of the settler population , leaving until later negotiations t

he precise details of how settlements will be dealt with in a final peace agreem

ent . When the Camp David accords were signed in 1978 , some 10,000 Israelis liv

ed in the West Bank and Gaza ( beyond the expanded municipal boundaries of Jerus

alem ) . Then , during the 1980s , the Israeli government intensified substantia

lly its financial incentives to lure more Israelis to settle in the West Bank . 

The goal was to make it impossible for any future Israeli government to relinqui

sh the area . As a result , more than 130,000 Israelis now live in the territori

es , excluding those in expanded Jerusalem . American aid , up until 1991 , cont

ributed to the settling of the West Bank by cushioning what would otherwise have

 been a substantial drain on the Israeli budget in the form of subsidies to sett

lers . Now , when peace is a real prospect , the time has come for the United St

ates and the Israeli government to reverse the financial incentives . An appropr

iate instrument for this is the $ 10 billion loan-guarantee program authorized b

y Congress in 1992 to provide housing for hundreds of thousands of Jews expected

 to emigrate from the former Soviet Union . Since actual immigration has turned 

out to be less than anticipated , the loan guarantees now largely unused could f

acilitate emigration from the territories by financing housing within pre-1967 I

srael for tens of thousands of returning Israeli settlers . Here 's how such a p

rogram might work : Relocation assistance would be made available to families th

at agree to leave apartments and homes in the territories . These properties wou

ld become the property of the Israeli government and might at some later date be

 transferred to Palestinians , within the context of final status negotiations .

 The amount of assistance provided would decline over time . In the first year ,

 $ 100,000 per family might be made available . This could be reduced in $ 20,00

0 increments each year , so that settlers waiting until the fifth year would rec

eive only limited compensation . In short , those who leave early will be reward

ed . At present , there are approximately 25,000 Israeli families living in the 

territories . If , in each of the next five years , 4,000 families took advantag

e of the program , the cost to the Israeli government would be just over $ 1 bil

lion dollars , a limited part of the total $ 10 billion in U.S.-guaranteed loans

 . A program of this sort will not draw the most ideological of the settlers fro

m the territories , and it can also be expected that smaller groups of extremist

s committed to violence will not leave in response to financial incentives . But

 polls show that even now more than 30 percent of the settlers are ready to leav

e if compensation is provided . And this number will grow once the process is st

arted . The program could be implemented unilaterally by the Israeli government 

; no negotiations with the Palestinians are required ; and no coercion would be 

involved . Moreover , it would still leave open the future of the settlements th

emselves and of those settlers who remain . By agreement , those issues are to b

e dealt with in the final-status negotiations , which according to the Declarati

on of Principles are to `` commence as soon as possible but not later than the b

eginning of the third year of the interim period . '' The advantages of assistin

g the settlers to leave now are compelling . By reducing the size of the settler

 population , the problem of dealing with settlements in the final status negoti

ations will be significantly easier , both to negotiate and to implement . Indee

d , if this is not done , the settlement question may prove `` a deal breaker ''