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

y waiter at the Waldorf-Astoria , build a campfire in Central Park , become sex 

objects for slumming socialites , befriend a horseback cop ( Ernie Hudson ) who 

's nursing his own cowboy fantasy . Eventually , `` The Cowboy Way '' settles in

to conventional urban action , the sole difference being that in the big chase s

equence , Sonny and Pepper are on horseback and the bad guys are on a Brooklyn-b

ound subway train . You 'll get more realism in a Roadrunner cartoon . When a mo

vie misfires this badly , you can usually trace it to the moment of inspiration 

, and sure enough , the production notes reveal that gee-whiz producer Brian Gra

zer ( Ron Howard 's impetuous partner ) came up with the idea of modern-day cowb

oys in New York while horseback riding in California . Just think , Woody , had 

it rained that day , we might have all been spared . One star .

 Def Leppard bassist Rick Savage has put his condo overlooking Beverly Hills on 

the market at $ 549,000 , furnished . Since Savage and four other British teen-a

gers got together to make music 17 years ago , their `` light-metal '' band suff

ered the death of its original guitarist , Steve Clark , and the loss of drummer

 Rick Allen 's left arm in a serious car accident . Allen relearned to play the 

drums using one arm and his feet . `` They 're in Ireland and don't spend enough

 time here to merit having the condominium , '' said a listing broker . The cond

o , which Savage bought in 1988 , has two bedrooms in almost 1,700 square feet .

 It 's in a 32-story building with vast city views . The 146-unit , nearly 30-ye

ar-old building is where actor George Hamilton bought a condo in March . -0- Act

or John C. McGinley who appears in the 1994 films `` Surviving the Game , '' `` 

On Deadly Ground , '' `` Mother 's Boys , '' `` Car 54 , Where Are You ? '' and 

the upcoming `` Wagons East , '' the late John Candy 's comedy Western has purch

ased a three-bedroom home with ocean and canyon views in Malibu , Calif. . McGin

ley , who began his film career with appearances in `` Platoon '' ( 1986 ) and `

` Wall Street '' ( 1987 ) , bought a two-story traditional on a bit more than an

 acre for close to its last asking price of $ 729,000 , sources say . Built in 1

986 , the house originally had been priced at nearly $ 1.3 million . -0- Thomas 

Calabro , who plays the lying , womanizing louse Michael Mancini in `` Melrose P

lace , '' and his actress wife , Liz , have moved into a Los Angeles home that t

hey purchased for $ 300,000 , sources say . The traditional-style , 2,000-square

-foot residence was built in the 1950s . -0- Claudia Christian , who stars as th

e icy brunette Commander Susan Ivanova in the sci-fi TV series `` Babylon 5 , ''

 and her husband , Rod Dyer , a graphic designer in the film industry and a rest

aurateur , have leased a home in the posh Los Angeles community of Bel-Air for c

lose to its monthly asking price of $ 7,500 , furnished , sources say . The four

-bedroom , 3,200-square-foot home has a woodsy yard and a wine cellar built into

 a hill .

 The rankings for books sold in the New York area , as reported by selected book

 stores : HARDCOVER FICTION 1.THE CHAMBER , by John Grisham . 2 . THE ALIENIST ,

 by Caleb Carr . 3 . THE CELESTINE PROPHECY , by James Redfield . 4 . REMEMBER M

E , by Mary Higgins Clark . 5 . INCA GOLD , by Clive Cussler . 6 . A WAY IN THE 

WORLD , by V.S. Naipaul . 7 . WALKING SHADOW , by Robert B . Parker . 8 . THE DA

Y AFTER TOMORROW , by Allan Folsom . 9 . THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY , by Robe

rt James Waller . 10 . LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE , by Laura Esquivel . NONFICTION

 1 . IN THE KITCHEN WITH ROSIE , by Rosie Daley . 2 . EMBRACED BY THE LIGHT , by

 Betty J. Eadie with Curtis Taylor . 3 . MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL

 , by John Berendt . 4 . MAGIC EYE , by Tom Baccei . 5 . SOUL MATES , by Thomas 

Moore . 6 . LIFE OF THE PARTY , by Christopher Ogden . 7 . STANDING FIRM , by Da

n Quayle . 8 . D-DAY , JUNE 6 , 1944 , by Stephen E. Ambrose . 9 . THE HALDEMAN 

DIARIES , by H.R. Haldeman . 10 . BEYOND PEACE , by Richard Nixon . PAPERBACK 1 

. PLEADING GUILTY , by Scott Turow . 2 . ROAD TO WELLVILLE , by T. Coraghessan B

oyle . 3 . I ' LL BE SEEING YOU , by Mary Higgins Clark . 4 . THE CLIENT , by Jo

hn Grisham . 5 . LISTENING TO PROZAC , by Peter Kramer . 6 . SCORPIO ILLUSION , 

by Robert Ludlum . 7 . AFTER ALL THESE YEARS , by Susan Isaacs . 8 . PIGS IN HEA

VEN , by Barbara Kingsolver . 9 . CRUEL & UNUSUAL , by Patricia Cornwell . 10 . 

THE STAND , by Stephen King . Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Po

st News Service

 JERUSALEM Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked a training base of

 the Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas near the Lebanese town of Baalbek early

 Thursday , killing as many as 45 and wounding 200 . Striking at 2 a.m. , as the

 estimated 400 guerrillas slept in tents on a rocky hillside , 10 Israeli fighte

r-bombers rocketed the base in waves and followed with intensive canon fire , ac

cording to Lebanese officials . Six helicopters then raked the exposed camp with

 more rocket fire and strafed it with machine guns for nearly 15 minutes . Leban

ese Foreign Minister Faris Bouez , putting the death toll at 45 , called the att

ack `` a massacre '' and `` naked aggression against Lebanon 's sovereignty and 

security and a big challenge to the peace process . '' Hezbollah declared its re

venge would be `` swift and merciless . '' About 11 hours later , the first of t

hree barrages of Katyusha rockets 25 in all fell in Israel 's Western Galilee re

gion , landing mostly in farm fields and causing no casualties and little damage

 . Hezbollah also rocketed Israel 's self-declared `` security zone '' in southe

rn Lebanon . Mordechai Gur , Israeli deputy defense minister , quickly warned th

at Israeli forces would respond `` seven-fold '' against Hezbollah , if its rock

et attacks upon Israel continued . `` This is something we willn't put up with ,

 '' Gur said . Anticipating intensified clashes , Israeli forces increased their

 firepower in southern Lebanon early Wednesday , 24 hours before the raid on Baa

lbek , by bringing four heavy , long-range artillery guns north across the borde

r into Lebanon , according to U.N. sources . After the first rockets fell near t

he northern Israeli town of Nahariya early Thursday afternoon , residents in the

 region were ordered into bomb shelters and fortified `` security rooms . '' Pri

me Minister Yitzhak Rabin described the Baalbek attack as part of `` an ongoing 

war '' between Israel , Hezbollah and other Islamic fundamentalist groups oppose

d to Israel 's agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization on Palestini

an self-government and to other efforts to achieve Middle East peace . `` Whenev

er we have an opportunity to hit terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah witho

ut causing civilian casualties , we will do it , '' Rabin said . `` We have alwa

ys done so , and we will continue to do so . '' Israel had acted in self-defense

 in hitting the Hezbollah base , Gur asserted , for the guerrillas had `` all pa

rticipated in operations or were about to take part in operations . '' Lt. Gen. 

Ehud Barak , Israeli chief of staff , said Israel had acted on extensive informa

tion on the Hezbollah training session from aerial reconnaissance and other `` v

ery precise intelligence . '' The Israeli Cabinet approved the operation at a sp

ecial session Wednesday . But the attack brought warnings that the unrelenting c

onfrontation between Israel and the Hezbollah in Lebanon could endanger efforts 

to negotiate peace agreements throughout the Middle East . In New York , a spoke

sman for U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said he was deeply concern

ed by `` the escalation of violence at a sensitive time in the Middle East . '' 

( Optional add end ) The attack was one of Israel 's most successful against Hez

bollah and the fiercest since its weeklong bombardment of southern Lebanon last 

July a demonstration of Rabin 's determination to ensure not only Israeli securi

ty in the face of Hezbollah attacks but to protect the peace process from a back

lash among Israelis concerned about `` weakness '' on the part of Rabin . The ac

tion also reflected Rabin 's loss of faith in Syria the dominant power in Lebano

n as a partner in the Middle East peace process . Rabin said earlier this week t

hat he saw no chance of an early breakthrough in Israel 's talks with Syria desp

ite U.S. mediation in recent months . `` This can be seen as a signal to the Syr

ians : You aren't doing anything against Hezbollah , about the ( Israeli ) MIAs 

, so don't expect us to make any concessions to you , '' said Yossi Olmert , a l

eading Israeli specialist on Syria and Lebanon . `` What you didn't do , we 'll 

do regardless of your sensitivities . '' Hezbollah enjoys Syrian protection in L

ebanon , as well as Iranian patronage . The base hit Thursday is in Lebanon 's B

ekaa Valley , about seven miles from the Syrian border and 44 miles east of Beir

ut . With 40,000 troops in Lebanon , Syria is the dominant political and militar

y power in the country . Israel halted its onslaught last July only after U.S. S

ecretary of State Warren Christopher had secured Syrian pledges that Hezbollah w

ould not attack Israeli communities from southern Lebanon . The Israeli bombardm

ent last summer killed about 150 people , mostly Lebanese civilians , and drove 

several hundred thousand people from their homes . With the Baalbek attack , Olm

ert suggested that Israel has moved to a preemptive rather than a retaliatory ap

proach to Hezbollah , which likes to describe itself as waging the Arabs ' only 

sustained armed confrontation with the Jewish state . `` They can't know what 's

 going to come next they should be nervous , '' Olmert said . `` It creates unce

rtainty , and that is always good for Israel. .. . This was a serious blow , but

 not a crippling one . ''

 Claiming she was tortured with machetes and left for dead in a killing field ne

ar Port-au-Prince , Alerte Belance , a 32-year-old Haitian housewife now living 

in Newark , N.J. , Thursday sued a Haitian political party that Belance said was

 behind her attack . The unusual lawsuit , filed in federal court in New York , 

names as defendant the Front for Advancement and Progress in Haiti ( FRAPH ) , a

n organization with close ties to the Haitian military . The group has represent

atives in New York and Miami . Human-rights observers with the United Nations an

d the Organization for American States have said that FRAPH is behind the rash o

f violence against supporters of exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide

 , who was overthrown in a military backed coup in October 1991 . Some U.S. offi

cials in Port-au-Prince have called FRAPH a terrorist organization . Rigaud Noel

 , described as assistant general coordinator of FRAPH in New York , said of the

 lawsuit , `` We ignore it . '' Noel refused to answer questions about his group

 's activities but said whatever happened to Belance happened in Haiti and `` we

 had nothing to do with it . '' Representatives of FRAPH in New York and Miami r

ecently have denounced U.S. policy against the military government in Haiti and 

attacked supporters of Aristide . In one communique included in Belance 's lawsu

it , Lyonel Sterling , general coordinator of FRAPH-New York , condemns the `` A

ristidien mob '' and its alleged violence against Aristide 's opponents . The do

cument concludes : `` Never , never again will ( the FRAPH ) stand idly by and l

et our oppressors , foreign or domestic , impose on us your demented leader , Je

an-Bertrand Aristide . '' Belance and her attorneys are suing FRAPH under the Al

ien Tort Claims Act , a law that also allowed Evans Paul , the current mayor of 

Port-au-Prince , to sue Prosper Avril , a former Haitian dictator , for damages 

. That complaint is to be heard Monday in federal court in Miami . Belance 's su

it is believed to be the first instance of using the Alien Tort Claims Act to su

e a political party . In Haiti , the national leaders of FRAPH , including a for

mer Haitian U.N. diplomat Emmanuel Constant , have denied the group is involved 

in terrorizing Aristide supporters . But recent reports by human-rights organiza

tions charge that FRAPH members are even more repressive than the feared Tonton 

Macoutes , who enforced the will of former dictator Claude `` Papa Doc '' Duvali

er for three decades . Belance , who lost an arm and fingers during the machete 

attack , said she and her husband were awakened in their Port-au-Prince home by 

gunshots early on the morning of Oct. 16 , 1993 . Her husband , who had done pol

itical work for Aristide , jumped out a back window . Belance , speaking through

 an interpreter in New York , said four men armed with automatic weapons dragged

 her into a car and drove her to Titayen , outside of Port-au-Prince , where she

 said bodies frequently are dumped . There , she said , she was attacked with ma

chetes and left for dead . She claims the men identified themselves as members o

f FRAPH . Belance today is severely scarred on the neck and face . She lost her 

right arm below the elbow and a finger on her left hand . Three months after the

 attack , she and her husband were granted refugee status by U.S. officials in P

ort-au-Prince and allowed to immigrate to the United States . Her attorney , Mic

hael Ratner , of Center for Constitutional Rights in New York , said the lawsuit

 was designed in part to bring attention to the presence of FRAPH representative

s living and working in the United States . `` We want to shine a spotlight on t

hese people , '' Ratner said . State Department officials Thursday declined to c

omment on the case . The State and Treasury departments are responsible for enfo

rcing U.S. sanctions against the leaders of the coup against Aristide , includin

g FRAPH members .

 PORTSMOUTH , England It 's the scale of it all that 's hardest to fathom . By t

he first week of June 1944 , there were 3 million troops in southern England mor

e than the entire population of Mississippi . It took 24,459 special trains just

 to move them to the 24 embarkation points for D-Day . On the way , they passed 

rural lanes flanked with shoulder-high stacks of artillery shells , mountains of

 medical supplies , forests filled with tanks . There were fields of artillery ,

 cobwebbed with camouflage netting and miles of halftracks and jeeps . The invas

ion fleet of some 7,000 ships was the largest the world has ever seen . It inclu

ded 1,213 warships , 4,126 landing ships , 736 support ships and 864 merchantmen

 . They needed 287 minesweepers just to clear the way . The beachhead stretched 

nearly 50 miles . There was only one problem with all those troops and equipment

 : how to unload them on the far shore . The test of the invasion was not gettin

g ashore but staying ashore . The troops could go in over the beach , but they w

ould need 12,000 tons of supplies and 2,500 vehicles unloaded every day . That ,

 in turn , required ports , both to speed the handling of cargo with docks and r

eady ground transportation , and , more importantly , to shelter unloading ships

 from the English Channel 's notorious weather . The Normandy coast has few such

 ports , and the closest major ones , Le Havre and Cherbourg , were so heavily f

ortified that they would have to be pounded to pieces before their capture . Unt

il they could be seized and repaired , there seemed to be only one answer . Said

 Winston Churchill : `` We shall build our own ports and take them with us . '' 

Thus was born Operation Mulberry , a project of technological hubris as daunting

 for its time as the manned space program would later be in its . Operation Mulb

erry would absorb the round-the-clock labors of more than 20,000 men for more th

an half a year and suck up every bit of available steel and concrete in a Great 

Britain already reeling from wartime shortages . And it would be brought to frui

tion , despite obvious physical visibility , in almost total secrecy . What it e

nvisioned was no less than the instant creation on an exposed coast of two separ

ate protected anchorages , each fully two square miles in area , or approximatel

y the size of Britain 's own major channel port at Dover . Within these harbors 

would be dock space sufficient for unloading simultaneously six amphibious landi

ng ships ( LSTs ) , plus moorings for an additional eight larger cargo ships . T

he most maddening challenge was a requirement that the docks remain at a level w

here vehicles could roll right onto them through the bow-opening doors of the LS

Ts . Since tides in Normandy rise and fall a whopping 21 feet twice a day , this

 meant semi-floating docks whose height could be adjusted somehow on retractable

 legs . And since the beaches in Normandy have a very gentle slope , it also nec

essitated a series of floating piers that could reach out half a mile to the doc

ks as the tide retreated and advanced . In all there would be seven miles of pie

rs for the two harbors , and at least one of the three docks and pier combinatio

ns in each harbor would need to be heavy enough to handle 40-ton tanks . Dover ,

 also artificial , had taken seven years to build . The Mulberrys were to be bui

lt in seven months . `` Don't argue the matter , '' wrote Churchill in a famous 

memo . `` The difficulties will argue themselves . '' -O- The English Channel , 

as many a sailor has discovered , is not a nice piece of water . It is prone to 

fog and dangerous tidal rips and wrapped in stormy , unforgiving shores . Its we

ather is fickle and treacherous , its currents disorienting and its waters cold 

. But June is usually relatively calm , which is to say one rarely encounters 40

-knot winds . July and August are even calmer , and since the Mulberry harbors w

ere only thought necessary for three months ( within which time the French ports

 would have been seized and functioning ) , they would be designed to anticipate

 neither serious gales nor more than eight-foot seas . Even so , their strength 

on paper was impressive . The key ingredient of the harbor was a concrete shell 

, or caisson , roughly the size of a five-story building . It would be built in 

six sizes , the largest 60 feet high and displacing more than 6,000 tons . A tot

al of 212 caissons were built , using in the process 600,000 tons of concrete an

d more than 31,000 tons of steel . Each caisson was to be towed across the chann

el and flooded in series so as to make two giant breakwaters , one of them fully

 1 miles long and 4,000 feet off the beach , and the other , a fifth as long , p

erpendicular to the beach at the outer breakwater 's southern end . A third brea

kwater nearly 2 miles long , at the north end of each beach , was to be composed

 of 70 old `` block ships '' ( including an ancient Victorian battleship ) steam

ed across the channel and scuttled with explosives . Beyond the outer breakwater

 was to be yet another type a mile-long floating barrier of 200-foot steel ponto

ons , or `` bombardons , '' to dampen wave action . The caisson project alone ta

xed the resources of the United Kingdom to the very limit . Construction started

 Oct. 31 , 1943 , and quickly fell behind schedule as the 25 contractors involve

d scrambled for work sites and labor . With nearly every man , woman and child i

n Britain already occupied on war-related tasks , most of the caisson builders h

ad to be imported from neutral Ireland . Dorothy Moore , now 86 , was in charge 

of lodging those in Gosport , where they were billeted with local families . She

 remembers them as `` very strong , good-hearted fellows , but very rough . They

 worked very long hours , and were given to going to bed with their muddy boots 

on , or relieving themselves out the bedroom window after an evening at the pub 

. Things like that . '' None of them had the least idea what they were building 

. Nor did most workers at either end of the project . Jerry Jerrard of Southampt

on , then a 20-year-old physicist fresh out of the University of London , was pa

rt of an `` operations research group '' assigned to Operation Mulberry . All he

 knew was that it was something concrete . `` We had a chemist , a civil enginee

r , a mathematician and me in the group , '' he remembers . `` We were working o

n things like metal stress in tank treads several projects simultaneously and I 

was assigned to compute the stresses involved in the caissons . But the stresses

 they asked for had nothing to do with waves or water . They concerned mostly wh

ether we could mount anti-aircraft guns on the top . For all we knew it could ha

ve been a block of flats . '' Ray Beachill , 66 , of Portsmouth had just left sc

hool at age 16 to work as an electrician 's apprentice in 1944 . His first job w

as running power cables to the tidal zone of nearby Langstone Harbor , where one

 caisson was being built . `` It was very hard work . We were working outside in

 the winter with snow and everything right at the water 's edge , which is alway

s the coldest place . Gale winds kept breaking the electric cables and I 'd have

 to climb up there in the gale with no protective clothing on and hope I didn't 

get blown off . '' The Irish workers , he says , were worse off still . `` They 

'd be up to their waist in water sometimes when the tide came in , and this was 

January , mind you. .. . I don't mind telling you I was just as glad to see the 

back end of that thing when they finally towed it away . '' When they did , he h

ad still not learned what it was . Six weeks before D-Day , however , it appeare

d that the Germans did know . William Joyce , the Nazi radio propagandist known 

as `` Lord Haw-Haw , '' declared on the air that `` we know exactly what you int

end to do with those concrete units . You think you 're going to sink them on ou

r coasts in the assault . Well , we are going to help you boys. .. . When you co