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

ing about economically insignificant numbers , '' said David Poltrack , CBS ' to

p research executive . This glass-is-half-full analysis masks deeper strains at 

Black Rock , however . Having to search for ( or buy ) new affiliates in eight m

arkets represents another distraction for CBS 's top management , which hardly s

eems to need another one . At a time when Stringer and CBS Chairman Laurence Tis

ch should be taking bows , they are instead stamping out small brushfires . Said

 one CBS executive last week , `` It hasn't seemed like much of a celebration ar

ound here . '' -O- Network ratings leadership tends to be cyclical . Popular pro

grams on one network lose viewers over time , as people gradually drift away to 

sample new offerings on competing networks . And after three years at the top , 

CBS may be at the end of this cycle , TV analysts say . For one thing , CBS has 

failed to develop a new hit series during the recently completed TV season . `` 

Dr. Quinn , Medicine Woman '' has been its most successful new program , and it 

debuted in January 1993 . ABC , meanwhile , has scored with `` Home Improvement 

, '' `` NYPD Blue , '' and `` Grace Under Fire , '' while NBC has a new ratings 

winner in `` Frasier . '' Helped by the addition of the Super Bowl and World Ser

ies next season , `` I think there 's a strong chance ABC will replace CBS as nu

mber one , '' said Jack Shubert , corporate media director at Earle Palmer Brown

 , a regional ad agency based in Bethesda , Md. `` ABC has a lot of strong comed

ies ( `` Roseanne , '' `` Home Improvement , '' `` Coach , '' etc. ) anchoring i

ts schedule during the week . They are in a good position . '' Despite the signs

 of decline , CBS Inc. , the network 's parent company , could be headed for its

 best financial performance in several years . One senior official points out th

at the company is no longer burdened with the costly baseball and football contr

acts , and is being helped by a general recovery in the advertising business ( C

BS ' earnings rose 28 percent in the first quarter , thanks in part to its Winte

r Olympics ' telecasts ) . Indeed , advertising buyers still expect the network 

to command the largest share of dollars spent during the upcoming `` upfront '' 

season , the period in which ad agencies purchase air time for their clients on 

fall programs . But a sense that tougher times could be on the horizon made for 

some black moods at Black Rock last week . `` People are very down , '' said one

 executive last week . `` They 'd be lying if they said otherwise . ''

 Among the events buffeting CBS : The loss of sports programming . CBS has been 

outbid for the right to televise the Super Bowl , the 1996 Olympics , the World 

Series and , most important , NFC football games ( Murdoch 's Fox took the NFC a

way in December , paying $ 1.6 billion ) . While sports were a hugely expensive 

proposition CBS has written off more than $ 600 million from what it paid on its

 baseball and football contracts in the past four years the big games were , in 

fact , loss leaders for the network : They attracted viewers who later tuned in 

CBS ' primetime programs . `` They 're going to save money ( without sports ) , 

but this has taken away some of their ( promotional ) muscle , '' said Joel Sega

l , national broadcast director at McCann Erickson , a major advertising agency 

. A black eye from the cable industry . After persuading Congress to pass a law 

enabling broadcast TV owners to negotiate rights payments from cable companies ,

 CBS was stiff-armed by the cable industry last summer in its efforts to obtain 

cash fees for allowing the cable companies to carry CBS shows . NBC , ABC and Fo

x , meanwhile , negotiated deals in which cable companies agreed to air cable ch

annels owned by the three broadcasting companies . A rebuilding job in its progr

amming staff . Jeff Sagansky , the CBS Entertainment president who engineered CB

S ' rise in the ratings , stepped down last month , citing a desire for `` a mor

e entrepreneurial challenge . '' Since becoming the top programming executive in

 1990 , Sagansky took CBS from No. 3 to No. 1 by shoring up what the network cal

ls `` The Franchise , '' its popular Sunday and Monday night schedules . Sagansk

y 's successor is Peter Tortorici , the network 's programming strategist . As i

t is , Sagansky , like NBC 's Brandon Tartikoff before him , may be jumping ship

 at the right moment .

 Toothpaste containers . Cereal boxes . Car ads . Those 1-800 numbers that enabl

e you to call companies long distance with the companies picking up the tab seem

 to be everywhere . In fact , there are almost 3 million toll free 1-800 numbers

 in use today . And AT&T Corp. 's top 800 service marketing executive , Dan Shul

man , predicts that a million more will be added by the end of this year . `` It

 's just explosive growth , Shulman said . On a typical day , more than 40 perce

nt of the 160 million calls that AT&T 's network carries are to 800 numbers . La

st year , about 22 billion such calls were made , with AT&T accounting for about

 60 percent of the market . It used to be that 800 numbers were mainly used by F

ortune 500 companies , Shulman said . But now companies such as Kiwi Internation

al Air Lines Inc. the Newark-based airline formed a year and a half ago , rely o

n them . Kiwi , which has 830 employees and revenue of $ 125 million , has six t

oll-free numbers . It uses two as reservation lines for customers , two for trav

el agents and two for pilots and other employees who need to call for schedules 

and other information . Small and medium-size businesses particularly retail gro

ups that have discovered catalogue shopping have been a major source of growth f

or the 800 business in recent years , analysts said . The 800 business also bene

fited during the economic downturn , which forced companies to try to become mor

e marketing savvy , analysts said . Companies used 800 numbers to try to encoura

ge customers to call whether to complain , buy or inquire because these calls we

re the source of rich marketing data . For instance , a car company running nati

onwide ads listing an 800 number might notice that a majority of the responses c

ome from a particular region or from people of a particular age , income or sex 

, and could target those groups for more attention , said Ed Stukane , executive

 vice president of Keyes Martin , an advertising and direct marketing firm in Sp

ringfield , N.J. . While toll-free phone service can add considerably to a compa

ny 's costs , Shulman said there are ways for firms to minimize their exposure .

 For instance , a small Maryland company that sells only to customers in Marylan

d and adjacent states could limit its 800 service to those states . `` You can s

pecify that these are the area codes that I want to receive 800 phone calls from

 , '' Shulman said . `` Therefore , you are not paying for calls that don't brin

g you business . '' Jerome Lucas , president of Telestrategies Inc. , a McLean ,

 Va.-based telecommunications consulting firm , said the practice could be seen 

as `` telecommunications redlining '' and predicted it will become more controve

rsial in coming years . He said companies may be attracted to the practice as a 

way to prevent 800 fraud . Ted Pierson , a Washington telecommunications attorne

y , said hackers use machines to dial 800 numbers at random until they get into 

a phone system . They then use other machines to find ways to use the phone syst

em to make outgoing calls . The hackers can then make free long-distance calls .

 Because a good portion of such fraudulent calls originate in large urban areas 

, such as New York City , Lucas predicted some companies may try to block toll-f

ree calls from these points .

 WASHINGTON The Clinton administration may not fight legislation that would give

 white-collar federal workers a double-barreled raise in January . The president

 requested funds for a 1.6 percent civilian-military raise . Current law , which

 calls for a series of annual national and local catchup raises , had targeted e

mployees for a nationwide across-the-board adjustment of 2.6 percent next year ,

 plus smaller locality increases . The Senate budget resolution endorses the ful

l national and locality raises , and the House Treasury , Postal Service money b

ill , the usual vehicle for federal pay raises , calls for the 2.6 percent natio

nal raise , plus locality raises . The fact that Rep. Steny Hoyer , D-Md. , inse

rted the language suggests the Clinton administration has been persuaded not to 

fight the higher amount . There is lots of generalized support for keeping the 1

995 federal pay raise low members of Congress aren't likely to get it but it is 

not as well organized as the smaller , pro-pay raise coalition built around the 

congressional civil service caucus officially known as the Federal Government Se

rvice Task Force . The bipartisan House-Senate group has one thing in common : A

ll of its members represent states or districts chock full of civil servants , r

etirees or military personnel . Task force members who crossed House-Senate and 

party lines to keep the pay raises on track included Maryland Democratic senator

s Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski ; representatives Jim Moran , D-Va. ; Frank

 Wolf , R-Va. ; Leslie Byrne , R-Va. ; Connie Morella , R-Md. ; and Kweisi Mfume

 , D-Md. ; the District of Columbia 's delegate , Eleanor Holmes Norton , a Demo

crat ; and from beyond the Washington region , Rep . Norm Dicks , D-Wash. , and 

Rep. Vic Fazio , D-Calif . Giving fully funded raises means executive branch age

ncies must get another $ 400 million ( over and above the amount requested by th

e president ) and the Defense Department will need an addition $ 300 million . I

f agencies were forced to `` eat '' the difference , it would mean they could gi

ve full pay raises but would have to fire or furlough some employees to afford p

aying the others . The indications that the administration willn't make its 1.6 

percent raise a do-or-die effort is a good sign both for 1995 paychecks and also

 for low-seniority workers who are first to go in economy-inspired layoffs .

 News of the D-day landings traveled far and fast . In the United States , newsp

aper extras carried banner headlines of the Allied assault on the Normandy beach

es of northern France . In Nazi-occupied Europe the accounts spread by short-wav

e radio from Britain . One week shy of her 15th birthday , an excited Jewish gir

l in Amsterdam , the Netherlands , named Anne Frank described in the June 6 , 19

44 , entry to her diary how she and her family huddled around a radio in their a

ttic hideaway to hear details of the invasion . `` This is the day , '' she wrot

e. `` .. . I have the feeling friends are approaching . '' While it was quickly 

understood that D-day would alter the course of World War II irrevocably in the 

Allies ' favor , not even the most farsighted visionaries were in a position to 

grasp the event 's lasting significance : That the 70,000 Americans who set foot

 in Northern Europe on that gray , stormy June day were the vanguard of a U.S. p

resence that would not just help win the war , but remain to preside over a half

-century of peace . For the United States , D-day was part of a watershed . For 

Europe it was more . For better or worse , the Normandy invasion was one of a se

ries of events that propelled America past the point of no return on the road to

ward a permanent global role , a permanent European presence and its first peace

time alliance . ( Begin optional trim ) Psychologically and politically , the U.

S. casualties taken that day and during the subsequent 11 months of fighting unt

il Nazi Germany 's surrender gave America little option but to push aside instin

ct , reject a return to isolationism and instead stay on to help preserve the pe

ace in Europe . In the years since , about 16 million American service personnel

 and their dependents have served in Europe . ( End optional trim ) Only the col

lapse of communism , a deepening budgetary crisis and a string of pressing domes

tic problems have led Washington to begin unwinding its presence in the region .

 From a peak of 325,000 in 1989 , U.S. troop strength in Europe now stands at ab

out 150,000 . It is scheduled to fall to 109,000 by the end of 1996 . The troop 

withdrawal reflects a larger shift in America 's national priorities those now e

mbodied in Bill Clinton . As a result , more question marks hang over the future

 of the transatlantic relationship than at any time since the Iron Curtain fell 

across Europe . For Europeans , adrift on a sea of frightening new problems and 

searching to redefine themselves and their role in a post-Cold War world , this 

ebbing American interest is disturbing . After all , they owe a lot to their tra

nsatlantic partner . It was , for example , the American military and economic s

upport in the early post-war years that halted the Soviet Union 's westward adva

nce , steadied governments vulnerable to communist takeover in France , Italy an

d Greece and kept West Berlin alive with a 15-month airlift . As Soviet Cold War

 bullying intensified , it was a U.S. president , John F. Kennedy , who traveled

 to Germany , reminded Moscow that the defense of America began in Berlin , then

 declared himself a citizen of the beleaguered city with his famous declaration 

, `` Ich bin ein Berliner . '' It was U.S. pressure that helped pave the way for

 Germany 's swift rehabilitation into the community of Western democracies and A

merican money that flowed into an exhausted Western Europe under the Marshall Pl

an , restoring hope and igniting an unprecedented economic recovery . And it was

 leaders such as Dean Acheson , Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles , wh

o repeatedly gave crucial support to the French visionary Jean Monnet as he work

ed to overcome regional jealousies to build a European Common Market . `` We 've

 all buried the amazing importance of America in process of European integration

 , '' said William Wallace , a senior research fellow at Oxford University 's St

. Antony 's College . `` The whole thing was American-driven . '' ( Begin option

al trim ) Added Pierre Jacquet , deputy director of the French Institute of Inte

rnational Relations , `` Without it ( the American presence ) , Europe would hav

e fallen back again into the 1930s , with nations trying to export their problem

s to each other . '' Instead , the Common Market 's successor the European Union

 stands at the center of the Continent 's future . It is about to enlarge from 1

2 to 16 member states and albeit hesitantly has reached out to the former Soviet

 satellite states in the east . EU member nations still squabble with each other

 , but war between them is only a slightly less remote possibility than armed co

nflict between California and Nevada . ( End optional trim ) The Vietnam War deb

acle , coupled with Western Europe 's growing economic strength , the student re

volutions that swept the region in 1968 and the dollar crises of the early 1970s

 ended the European sense of awe for America that characterized much of the rela

tionship 's early years . Some sharp foreign policy clashes during the Carter an

d Reagan presidencies and a love-hate relationship with the growing American cul

tural invasion led many Europeans to nurture a new stereotype of the United Stat

es that of a powerful , but naive ally , whose quick-trigger , overly simplistic

 world view constituted a danger only slightly less than that emanating from Mos

cow . But few on either side of the Atlantic could challenge the reality that We

stern Europe 's stunning revival had unfolded and matured under the protection o

f America 's security guarantees . Indeed , many argue that both a long-term Ame

rican political role and military presence in Europe remain vital for the contin

ent 's stability . Anyone watching the EU 's futile efforts to prevent conflicts

 on its own within the region would be hard-pressed not to agree . The war in Yu

goslavia , the first major political crisis post-war Europeans have had to face 

without immediate American leadership , has been a diplomatic disaster and a dem

oralizing blow to the EU 's self-confidence in addition to a great human tragedy

 . `` Our biggest problem is that for the last 50 years , America has told us wh

at to do , '' said Wallace , the Oxford fellow . `` We may not have liked it , b

ut it always gave us a starting point . Now this is gone . '' ( Begin optional t

rim ) Added Stanley Crossick , chairman of the Belmont European Policy Center , 

a Brussels-based political think tank : `` We got things right after the war bec

ause of strong U.S. leadership , the brilliance of the Marshall Plan and the vis

ion of our own statesmen . Now we no longer have the same U.S. leadership , our 

own leaders are weak and there 's no Marshall Plan . '' ( End optional trim ) Bu

t there remain many elements that will keep America and Europe locked together .

 Despite the new importance of Japan and other Asian markets , Western Europe re

mains America 's biggest overseas trading partner . Since 1945 , the Old World h

as drawn an estimated $ 200 billion in U.S. private investment roughly 40 cents 

of every American dollar invested overseas . The $ 195 billion in EU-U.S. trade 

last year accounted for more than one quarter of all global exports . Such figur

es help support the claim that America 's decision to defend Western Europe was 

no act of altruism , but far more a policy based on enlightened self-interest th

at has paid off .

 While many Europeans are ill at ease with the intrusions of Americana , only th

e French have cared enough to seriously fight it . Over the years , they have la

unched a series of counterattacks most notably in December , when they fought to

 the last bitter minute to successfully retain their leaky defenses against the 

growing influx of American films and television programs during global trade neg

otiations . Declaring the defense of the French language a `` political priority

 , '' Premier Edouard Balladur 's government has also passed a law requiring tha

t a minimum of 40 percent of all songs played over the country 's airwaves be in

 French and issued an official dictionary of some 3,500 new terms , such as `` r

estauration rapide '' instead of fast food and `` disque audionumerique '' inste

ad of compact disc , to replace Anglicisms that have crept into the language . H

owever , a walk through Paris is proof that Americana is well entrenched . A tin

y sandwich shop just off the Place de la Bastille , for example , seemed typical

ly French except for the Hollywood chewing gum , the Jack Daniels whiskey , the 

Getaway pinball machine in the corner , and the framed photo of a Harley-Davidso

n motorcycle on the wall .

 D-Day marked a watershed in American political , military and economic involvem

ent in Europe , and with 16 million American servicemen and their dependents hav

ing been stationed in Europe since then , a powerful transatlantic cultural bond

 has been forged and continues to grow despite European ambivalence . From the G

I chewing gum , jazz music and Ernest Hemingway paperbacks in the late 1940s , t

o the Levi 's , NFL sweat shirts , Pizza Hut restaurants , hard-rock music , Hol

lywood films and TV game shows found virtually everywhere in Western Europe , Am

erican soft-power has steamrollered the continent . It is a truth that makes man

y Europeans wince , but 3 decades after the Treaty of Rome committed them to the

 path of integration , the common thread through Western European mass culture i

s American . `` At the mass level , it has contributed to a cultural homogenizat

ion across Europe , '' declared Philipp Borinski , part of an academic team at M

ainz University that is studying the future of the transatlantic relationship . 

American pop music , scientific writings and successful business styles helped c

atapult English into the role of a de facto international language , adding furt

her to this cultural impact . Widespread knowledge of English has made northern 

Europe especially vulnerable to American influence and , although the Romanesque

 countries to the south have resisted this trend , they too have succumbed , at 

least in part . `` These countries are more influenced than they like to admit ,

 '' noted Wilfried Wiegand , who edits the cultural pages of Germany 's leading 

national daily , the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . `` In Italy it 's now fash

ionable for young people to eat hamburgers and learn English . In a country that

 values form and elegance , this is a way for young people to show they are diff

erent . '' In Germany , American ideas flooded into a cultural vacuum left in th

e wake of Nazism . Probably nowhere else in Europe have American habits and tast

es from jazz clubs to corporate board rooms taken greater hold . While the react

ion to the Vietnam War and the 1968 student protests both carried a distinctly a

nti-American character and worked to tarnish America 's image as a political rol

e model , they paradoxically strengthened the American cultural impact . With fe

w home-grown symbols to challenge the Establishment , Western Europe 's young re

volutionaries listened to the protest messages of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan , cult

ivated Andy Warhol 's art and adopted Eldridge Cleaver and Angela Davis as polit

ical heroes . `` It was a lifestyle revolution in the direction of America , '' 

said Borinski , who views 1968 as a clear break from traditional West European m

ores , one that has brought Europe permanently closer to the United States . He 

argued that American cultural influence has generated a greater sense of persona

l freedom in Germany , eroded authoritarian strains within society , and general

ly boosted the status and confidence of the individual all developments that hav