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

 ear infections and are less likely to have allergies or diarrhea . Studies even

 show that nursing raises a baby 's IQ . Recent research in Israel has found tha

t breast milk contains a potent `` cocktail '' of hormones that may hold life-lo

ng benefits for a child 's health and development . Scientists are also explorin

g the possibility that breast-feeding may lower a mother 's risk of certain type

s of cancer . If that 's not persuasive , consider the pocketbook . In addition 

to saving on expensive infant formula , parents can now ponder another incentive

 . Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health studied 10,000 babie

s and announced last month that those who were breast-fed for more than a year t

ended to have straighter teeth than bottle-fed babies . But translating a wise c

hoice into real life is not always easy . Breast-feeding in public is not in its

elf a crime , but since the process can easily bare a breast to public view , it

 could conceivably be prosecuted under indecent exposure laws in various states 

. Those cases are rare , of course , but public disapproval is not . From museum

s and malls to mass transit buses , stores , sidewalks and restaurants , nursing

 mothers whose babies get hungry are accustomed to stares and sometimes even bei

ng asked to stop or leave . The New York law was prompted in part by an incident

 in an Albany mall when a woman breast-feeding her child in the food court was a

sked to cover up or leave . When the incident was publicized , a reader wrote to

 a local newspaper , fretting that nursing in public put society on a slippery s

lope toward fornication in the streets . Such worries would be amusing if they d

idn't have such dire effects . Cities like Baltimore face deep and abiding probl

ems posed by the number of unmarried teen-age girls who give birth . Compared to

 middle- and upper-income mothers , these young women are far less likely to bre

ast-feed . Yet , according to Judy Vogelhut , nurse coordinator of the Johns Hop

kins Breastfeeding Center , they are precisely the mothers and children who most

 need the benefits gained by breast-feeding . In addition to the health benefits

 , breast-feeding promotes the bonding process between mother and child somethin

g that does not always go smoothly when a young girl gives birth . Equally impor

tant is the natural contraceptive effect breast-feeding can have . It 's not foo

lproof , but it 's certainly better than nothing . Yet these young mothers are m

ore vulnerable than most women to disapproving attitudes toward breast-feeding .

 They often live in crowded conditions , making it difficult to nurse in private

 . Frowns from the baby 's father or taunts from other members of the household 

can easily discourage them . They also depend on public transportation , where s

nide comments can have a devastating effect . Vogelhut notes that when young mot

hers are told about the benefits of breast-feeding , they almost always want to 

do what 's best for their baby . But it would help if society made it easier for

 them . Already , cost containment efforts have resulted in policies that send w

omen home within hours after giving birth just when a new mother can run into pr

oblems with breast-feeding . On the other hand , governments and employers are b

eginning to recognize the value of incentives for breast-feeding . This year , t

he government of Quebec began offering subsidies of $ 37.50 a month to low-incom

e women who breast-feed their babies . In this country , the Special Supplementa

l Food Program for Women , Infants and Children , known as WIC , has begun offer

ing incentives by allowing nursing women to stay on the program longer . About t

hree-quarters of middle and upper-income women nurse their babies , compared wit

h fewer than 25 percent of women enrolled in the WIC program . A society increas

ingly burdened with soaring health care costs and with the social effects of chi

ldren having children is not one that can afford to indulge a misplaced prudishn

ess that confuses breast-feeding with indecency .

 They weren't a dashing couple the way she and Jack had been back in the high su

mmer of the '60s , brimming with grace and vigor , Bouvier charm wed to Kennedy 

charisma . One pairing like that is probably enough for anyone . Nor were they a

 controversial power couple the way she and Ari had been , ensconced in their pr

ivate island like pharaohs , he ruling the waves of commerce with his vast fleet

 , she nursing a secret pain and all the billions in the world . No , they weren

't dashing and they weren't billionaires , this odd couple of Fifth Avenue . The

y weren't married , either , because Maurice Tempelsman was still bound to his l

egal wife , an orthodox Jew who refused to grant him a divorce . So his years wi

th Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were unsanctified by religion , unnotarized by the

 law , and the press and the public hardly knew what to call him . Adviser , fri

end , escort ? Or what to call them . Companions , partners ? No one , I think ,

 publicly called them lovers , but that is what they clearly seemed , and when s

he suffered her unexpected illness and died last month , too young at 64 , he wa

s by her side every moment , faithful as any husband , devoted as any partner , 

devastated as any person who sees the comfortable vision of his declining years 

snatched away and replaced with the looming shadows of a lonely old age . Homose

xuals are not the only people who , for reasons not of our own design , are unab

le to marry those with whom we share our lives . There have always been people w

ho are married in spirit but not in law , wed in their own eyes but not ( at lea

st according to the rabbis and the priests ) in the eyes of God . But the pairin

g of Jacqueline Onassis and Maurice Tempelsman , and the cruel disease that ende

d their very private love story , struck a deep resonance with many gay people .

 Many of us know the awkwardness of terms like lover , longtime companion , dome

stic partner , none of which convey the heart 's truth . Too many know the horro

r of feeling within yourself , or on the body of your beloved , those implacable

 lumps that signify impending death . Too many have known the insecurity of beco

ming an overwhelming burden to someone who has no legal or religious obligation 

to carry that burden , but carries it anyway . And far too many have tasted the 

acrid bitterness that comes when , after that burden has been honorably borne an

d finally set aside by death , the survivor is cast aside by the family because 

he or she lacks the legal rights that legal spouses take for granted . So while 

the world watched the famous as they came and went , the gorgeous children , the

 celebrated cousins , the movie stars and senators and living legends , I strain

ed for a glimpse of the private mourner . I longed for him to be recognized , an

d was cheered to see that he was given pride of place as a member of the innermo

st family . Her hand was in that , I 'm sure , as though the grace that touched 

her first husband 's funeral she extended to this last partner at her own . Alth

ough Catholicism condemns adultery as seriously as any sin , Tempelsman properly

 partook in the religious rites of Jacqueline Onassis ' death as he had in the j

oys and sorrows of her life , and read from the altar of St. Ignatius Loyola a p

oem by Cavafy , the great gay poet of modern Greece , himself never married but 

long in love . In the last photo we have of this most private , most photographe

d woman in the world , taken just days before her death , Jackie is leaning on M

aurice 's arm in a sun-drenched Central Park , her daughter pushing a grandchild

 nearby . No shame . Dignity. And a model to the very end , in ways she never kn

ew .

 President Clinton 's first official visit to Western Europe calls to mind some 

incendiary comments made by former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt about how Am

ericans go about choosing their leaders . The time was the early '80s . soon aft

er Ronald Reagan took office . Schmidt was in his usual arrogant state of mind .

 His disdain for President Carter was already legendary . What was new was his l

ow opinion of Reagan , then embroiled in the backlash of some unfortunate remark

s about how he would conduct a nuclear defense of Western Europe . Schmidt noted

 that before he became chancellor he had served as minister president of Hamburg

 , as head of his party 's caucus in the Bundestag and as a minister of finance 

and defense . In other words , he was prepared . And his American counterparts ?

 Why they were provincials , mere ex-governors , who came to the White House wit

h zero experience in foreign affairs . And showed it . Schmidt had a higher opin

ion of George Bush . One can speculate about his grades for Bill Clinton . But o

f this we Americans can be sure : The president 's Western European hosts , desp

ite well-choreographed photo-ops , will be regarding their visitor with somethin

g less than admiration . When a high French official was recently asked what he 

thought of Clinton foreign policy , he said he found it hard to discern just wha

t the U.S. was doing day by day . That his own government had publicly conceded 

it was helpless in Bosnia without U.S. leadership can be small comfort to Americ

ans . By the verdict of his own countrymen , Clinton has been a politician so do

mestically focused that only lately has he realized his plummeting poll ratings 

reflect his sorry repute as a world leader . Clinton 's back-to-back visits to E

urope this month and next provide a needed opportunity to reverse his reputation

 . The White House is all a-jitter about how his D-Day appearance as a commander

 in chief who shirked military duty will play next Monday . But more important i

s what the human species thinks about Clinton as sole superpower chief confronti

ng ( in his words ) `` a new world threatened with instability , even abject cha

os .. . religious and ethnic battles .. . tribal slaughters , aggravated by envi

ronmental disaster , by abject hunger , by mass migrations . '' The president 's

 most cogent formula for dealing with this sorry mess is to avoid `` having to c

ommit the lives of our own soldiers where they should not be committed '' based 

on `` the cumulative weight of the American interests at stake . '' This will ha

rdly be reassuring to Western Europe , torn as ever between desire and resentmen

t on the subject of American leadership . And it will hardly save Clinton from h

is domestic critics , even though his low-profile sentiments are in sync with ho

me-folk unwillingness to take casualties overseas . But such are the burdens thi

s ex-governor of Arkansas has assumed , and he will get little sympathy from the

 Helmut Schmidts of Europe .

 The political crisis in Haiti has gone on so frustratingly long that it would b

e easy to overlook a couple of small but significant signs of progress there rec

ently for the Clinton administration . Under the fresh leadership of William H .

 Gray III , head of the United Negro College Fund and a former member of Congres

s , whom President Clinton recruited as his special envoy to Haiti , the United 

States has begun to rally the kind of regional support that will be needed to wa

it out the military junta that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in late 1

991 . Meeting with officials of the Dominican Republic , for example , Gray was 

able to get their cooperation in cracking down on the cross-border smuggling tha

t has allowed the Haitian junta to get around an international economic embargo 

. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola , and despite 

a history of rivalry between the two nations the Dominican government had turned

 a blind eye to smuggling of oil and other goods into Haiti in violation of the 

U.N.-imposed embargo . That was until Gray visited the Dominican Republic and pe

rsuaded President Joaquin Balaguer , whose recent re-election to office is being

 internally criticized due to election irregularities , that this might be a goo

d time for him to be on good terms with Washington . As a result , Balaguer orde

red hundreds of Dominican border guards transferred and replaced by elite troops

 from the Dominican army . The result has been at least a short-term drop in smu

ggling . On Tuesday , Gray was in Jamaica to work out the final details of an ar

rangement to better deal with the continued flow of Haitian refugees to the Unit

ed States . Henceforth , rather than be returned directly to their homeland , as

 has been U.S. policy , Haitian refugees will be taken into the Jamaican port of

 Kingston by the U.S. Coast Guard . From there , refugees with legitimate claims

 to political asylum will be transferred to the United States or to a refugee ce

nter at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba . But while encouraging , both of these steps are 

only temporary fixes . They help relieve some of the political pressure on Clint

on to `` do something '' about Haiti , and quickly . The problem is that this pr

essure could tempt the White House to invade Haiti . Ousting the thuggish clique

 that ousted Aristide would be easy work for the Marines , of course . But getti

ng the Marines out of Haiti after an invasion would be much more complicated . T

hat is why simply waiting out the Haitian junta is still the preferred option . 

Haiti 's military leaders must be convinced that Washington and the rest of the 

world intend to make life as difficult as possible for them until they step asid

e and allow their nation 's first popularly elected president to return . Gray '

s recent achievements in the Caribbean are important because they will contribut

e to that methodical long-term strategy .

 A DANGEROUS WOMAN , R , 1993 , 93 minutes , MCA/Universal Home Video , closed-c

aptioned , $ 95.98 . A melodrama without internal logic or moral perspective , `

` A Dangerous Woman '' features Debra Winger in a studied performance as Martha 

Horgan , the mentally retarded pariah of an inbred California farming community 

. Martha , whose slow-wittedness combines disastrously with her obsession for te

lling the truth , lives with her glamorous Aunt Frances ( Barbara Hershey ) , a 

widow whose affair with a married politician ( John Terry ) sets the film in mot

ion . Actually , it 's the pol 's wife ( Laurie Metcalf ) who starts thing rolli

ng when she plows her car through the porch and into the living room to confront

 the adulterers . Now that things are busted up , Frances can use the services o

f Mackey ( Gabriel Byrne ) , an itinerant handyman who proves handy at more than

 carpentry . An Irishman with an alcohol problem , Mackey is drunk when he lets 

Martha seduce him and when he and the equally potted Frances make whoopee in a p

ile of broken plates . The plot is a tangle really , which involves Martha 's lo

sing her crummy job at the dry cleaners . Accused of stealing from the till by t

he real thief ( David Strathairn ) , Martha is separated from her beloved co-wor

ker ( Chloe Webb ) , which leads to Martha 's revenge via cheese knife . Directo

r Stephen Gyllenhaal imposes neither aesthetics nor control on the film , which 

was written by his wife , Naomi Foner . Maybe she 's the dangerous woman . Rita 

Kempley -O- RUDY , PG , 1993 , 112 minutes , Columbia/TriStar Home Video , close

d-captioned , $ 95.95 . Notre Dame provides the mythological underpinning for th

e inspirational , reality-based story of Daniel Ruettiger , an undersized , unde

rtalented working-class dreamer whose childhood aspirations to play football for

 mighty Notre Dame have been consistently dashed by family , friends and educati

onal institutions . Even his dad counsels , `` Rudy , not everyone is meant to g

o to college . '' But Rudy ( Sean Astin ) has dreams beyond the Joliet , Ill. , 

steel mill that has swallowed Ruettiger men for decades , and he heads for South

 Bend with a duffel bag and a truckload of determination . There he 's counseled

 by a school priest ( Robert Prosky ) to enroll at right-next-door Holy Cross Co

llege to prepare himself academically ( with the aid of nerd tutor Jon Favreau )

 . Immersed in Irish football lore , Rudy gradually insinuates himself into the 

Notre Dame community by working for Knute Rockne Stadium 's groundskeeper ( Char

les S. Dutton ) , painting players ' helmets gold and announcing his intentions 

to the startled head coach ( Jason Miller ) . Rudy somehow makes the team as a l

ive practice dummy who will never suit up for a game , but his underdoggedness a

nd determination eventually earn him a shot in the last game .. . maybe . The mi

d- '70s setting ( the film was shot on campus ) and the quietly insistent Astin 

make believable a story that 's less about winning than about trying , a sweet-n

atured family drama in which years of effort are rewarded by a brief moment of g

lory .

 WASHINGTON Wall hangings and rugs woven on centuries-old looms by artists from 

the Navajo Nation go on view June 3 at the Renwick Gallery of the National Museu

m of American Art . The 38 weavings were made between 1980 and 1992 using a tech

nique handed down from generation to generation on the nearly 16-million-acre re

servation located where Arizona , New Mexico , Colorado and Utah join . `` Styli

stically , they 're all over the map , '' says anthropologist Ann Lane Hedlund ,

 who collaborated with Gloria F. Ross to commission and acquire the weavings for

 the Denver Art Museum . Some were woven in the old style of chief 's blankets ,

 19th-century shoulder blankets worn to indicate status .

 Have you gone too far in consuming for and with your pet ? Herbert Freudenberge

r , a psychologist in New York , warns that some people treat pets as `` surroga

te children that they never had . Anything that is too much is an extreme . '' C

heck these warning signs , compiled with the help of a few candid pet enthusiast

s : Do you find yourself counting the grams of fat your pet eats per day ? Are y

ou searching for a scented flea collar in the same fragrance recommended by your

 aroma therapist ? Does every cabinet , closet and drawer in your house/apartmen

t have a giant sack of pet food stashed in it ? Do you need organizers for your 

gigantic collection of pet toys ? Have you color coordinated your hamster beddin

g to go with the water bowl ? Does your dog/cat wear more jewels than you ? Does

 your pet 's chow cost more than yours ? Do the people where you shop know both 

you and your iguana by name ? Do you carry pictures of your grand-dog/grand-cat 

? Do your friends bring you luxury pet shampoo as a gift from Europe ? Does your

 pet get a haircut more often than you ?

 An extraordinary collection of original documents , including a 1575 memo from 

Queen Elizabeth I to a servant requesting that her closets be cleaned out and so

me of her clothes given to 40 poor women on Maundy Thursday , is on view at an e

xhibit that opened May 27 at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville , N.C. . The show 

is called `` George Washington Vanderbilt : A Man and His Treasures '' to mark t

he centennial of Biltmore , the largest house in America . The 250-room French R

enaissance-style mansion was designed by noted architect Richard Morris Hunt for

 the grandson of the dynasty 's founder , Cornelius Vanderbilt . Biltmore , whic

h is now a museum , remains in the family ; its owner , William Cecil , is a six

th-generation Vanderbilt . The royal correspondence is among approximately 1,000

 original documents inserted into a set of 29 gilded volumes entitled `` The His

tory of Holland House , '' published in the 1850s . Holland House was the London

 abode of an aristocratic English family from the 17th century until it was dest

royed by bombs during World War II . The folio-size volumes were purchased more 

than a century ago by George Vanderbilt . They have remained ever since in stora

ge at Biltmore , uncataloged and unseen by scholars , according to Jerry Patters

on , author of `` The Vanderbilts . '' Another exceptional document in the colle

ction is a 1782 letter from the Marquis de Lafayette to Benjamin Franklin tellin

g him it would be tough to get more `` pecuniary assistance '' from France for t

he young United States . Asked by Cecil to authenticate the collection , Patters

on , formerly a rare-book expert at Sotheby 's , said in an interview it contain

s unique items such as an autograph of Edward VI , Henry VIII 's son who died as

 a teen-ager , and funeral bills for William III showing how much his shroud cos

t . There are unpublished missives from literati such as Lord Byron , Samuel Joh

nson , Richard Sheridan , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Alexander Pope and William W

ordsworth . There is a letter in Old Russian signed by Catherine the Great and a

 1799 note about a soldier 's pension from Napoleon when he was still Bonaparte 

. Napoleon was a friend of the Holland family . Other treasures collected by Geo

rge Vanderbilt that are on public display for the first time since the museum op

ened in 1930 include numerous pieces of silver by famed 18th-century English sil

versmiths Paul DeLamerie and Paul Crespin . There are also memorabilia that shed

 light on the personality of Biltmore 's original owner , who died in 1914 : his

 boyhood diaries , French royalty cards ( an antique version of baseball cards )

 , pocket watches and even a ticket stub from a bullfight of long ago . A compan

ion show entitled `` Biltmore Estate : The Most Distinguished Private Place '' w

ill be mounted at the Octagon museum in Washington starting Oct. 17 . The centen

nial exhibit will remain until the end of 1995 . For information , call ( 704 ) 

255-1130 .

 WASHINGTON Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis took the subject of her official White Ho

use portrait very seriously . The February 1971 official presentation of Aaron S

hikler 's paintings of the former first lady and her late husband marked the onl

y return visit Onassis made to the White House after the assassination . Onassis