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

eone who became a government witness to `` save his own skin , '' said New York 

lawyer Gustave Newman . Despite the perceived flaws , the prosecution already ha

s achieved the public relations coup of `` portraying Rostenkowski as having com

mitted a monumental fraud over a lot of his career , '' said Baltimore defense l

awyer Arnold Weiner . The lawyers were almost unanimous in their belief that the

 charge that Rostenkowski tried to persuade a witness to withhold testimony will

 be troublesome for the defense . Dowd said that if the government can prevail o

n the obstruction of justice charge , it could `` poison the entire case . ''

 LOS ANGELES Rodney King , making his first public comments since the verdicts i

n his civil damage suit trial , said Thursday he was not surprised the jury awar

ded him no punitive damages , but King 's lawyer said the jurors themselves migh

t provide grounds for appeal . `` After the first ( verdict ) in Simi Valley , n

othing surprises me , '' King said , referring to the state court trial in which

 the police officers accused of beating him were acquitted , sparking the 1992 L

os Angeles riots . `` I 've gotten the short end of the stick from the Simi Vall

ey trial until now . '' But King said he had to concentrate on the millions of d

ollars that came out of an earlier verdict on compensatory damages and `` make s

omething out of that . '' He said he is attending classes to learn how to `` hol

d on to the money . '' King 's lead attorney , Milton Grimes , said Thursday dis

cussions with a juror troubled with how the verdict came about could provide the

 basis of an appeal . `` I think there are areas that warrant an investigation ,

 '' said Grimes , flanked by King at a news conference outside his office . `` I

t does bring out some information .. . that the verdict may be impeachable . '' 

King said he would not have sued for punitive damages if the officers `` had sho

wn some sign of remorse . None of them came up to me and said they were sorry . 

'' Grimes declined to identify the juror who contacted him . But the juror , Cyn

thia Kelly a self-employed seamstress from South Pasadena met with Grimes at his

 office later in the afternoon . Grimes said he was concerned by statements made

 by Kelly , the lone African American juror , that justice had not been not done

 and that she had to `` fight like hell '' to get the earlier verdicts favoring 

King . Grimes said he had been contacted by a second juror , whom he did not ide

ntify . `` I don't think we can say this is the final chapter in the trilogy of 

Rodney King , '' he said . `` We 're still looking for justice . '' After 11 day

s of deliberations , a nine-member federal jury found Wednesday that former Los 

Angeles Police Department officers Laurence Powell and Stacey C. Koon had acted 

with malice in the 1991 beating of King . But the jury decided unanimously that 

the officers had been punished enough and declined to award King as much as $ 15

 million in punitive damages . Earlier , the jury had awarded King $ 3.8 million

 in compensatory damages , payable by the City of Los Angeles , for the police b

eating . Grimes said he could not say how much of the $ 3.8 million King will re

ceive , after attorney fees and the expenses of the defendants are subtracted , 

but `` Mr. King will be left with a substantial part of the money . '' Grimes re

fused to let King comment on the possibility of another trial , but said the jur

y `` left us with an unresolved type of feeling . '' Grimes said he planned to i

nvestigate reports that three jurors may have discussed the case during a weeken

d barbecue and challenged the dismissal of former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl

 F. Gates as a defendant , and said he is considering appealing it .

 BEIJING Chinese authorities appeared to have cut off outside contact Thursday w

ith two Beijing professors whose son was shot dead by troops in the crushing of 

the 1989 democracy movement here . The couple had planned to begin a hunger stri

ke Thursday to protest police harassment over the mother 's challenge to officia

l accounts of the army assault , in Tiananmen Square . Ding Zilin , 57 , the boy

 's mother , had said that she and her husband , Jiang Peikun , 59 , would begin

 a two-day hunger strike in their apartment Thursday night if police did not hal

t surveillance of the couple and harassment of their visitors . `` I don't want 

to be confrontational , '' she said , before all contact was cut off , `` but I 

want an immediate stop to this . '' Ding has for years contacted families of tho

se who were killed and wounded in the attack and her research on the attack has 

been the subject of Western press reports in advance of Friday 's fifth annivers

ary of the massacre , in which troops killed hundreds of Chinese calling for dem

ocracy in this country . The government says it was `` counterrevolutionary rebe

ls '' or `` thugs '' who attacked soldiers in Tiananmen Square-and has enforced 

tight security to prevent any commemoration of the anniversary . Ding said by te

lephone early Thursday that police had prevented the couple from receiving visit

ors for the past few days and had reinforced a 24-hour police presence outside t

heir apartment on the campus of People 's University . She told reporters they w

ould stay at home and asked them to call her back Thursday evening . But about 1

1 a.m. , calls to her home began ringing unanswered . It was unclear whether the

 couple 's line had been cut off , or whether they might have been detained . Th

e university switchboard that routes calls to their home said simply that there 

was no problem with their line . A heavy police presence at the university part 

of the tightened security for the anniversary has made it impossible for journal

ists to enter the campus . A correspondent for the Wall Street Journal , Kathy C

hen , was detained for several hours this week after she chatted with students a

t Beijing University without registering at the gate . As part of the crackdown 

, at least one labor activist and six Christians have been detained , the Associ

ated Press reported . The labor activist , Wang Zhongqiu , a principal organizer

 of an independent labor organization and a postgraduate student at Beijing Univ

ersity , was taken into custody last week . The Christians were detained last we

ekend , and all but one have been released . In Tiananmen Square , where thousan

ds of students camped five years ago to protest corruption and demand greater fr

eedom , plainclothes policemen could be seen in force this week along with the u

sual tourists and schoolchildren . Officers carried walkie-talkies wrapped in ne

wspapers , slung compact video cameras over their shoulders . Several hotels hav

e been ordered to cut their transmission of the CNN television channel to guests

 ' rooms , hotel sources said , apparently out of worries that the network might

 air footage from the 1989 demonstrations . In some cases , the blackout of CNN 

may last as long as a week , hotel guests have been told . Although security in 

Beijing always tightens before the June 3 date , authorities are particularly un

easy this year . Because of widespread corruption , high inflation and disconten

t among peasants , laid-off workers , and others on fixed incomes , authorities 

fear that even small commemorative events may spark wider protests . Work units 

have been ordered to keep staff members on duty at night in the event of any pro

test , dissident sources said . Surveillance of foreign journalists has increase

d . Even foreign embassies have been pressured to cancel cultural exhibits and o

ther events unrelated to the anniversary .

 RICHMOND , Va. . Federal officials threatened Thursday to block every major new

 road project in Northern Virginia , including those needed for the planned Walt

 Disney Co. theme park near Haymarket , because Gov. George Allen has balked at 

a stringent pollution control program . In a letter to Allen , Environmental Pro

tection Agency officials declared that Virginia has not met requirements for car

 emissions tests under the federal Clean Air Act , and announced that they will 

withhold approval of transportation improvements beginning in 30 days . The agen

cy , which sets clean-air standards for projects that add cars and pollution to 

urban roadways , said it would lift the road-building moratorium if Allen were t

o reverse his stand within the next month . `` We needed to get their attention 

, '' said Peter H. Kostmayer , the regional EPA administrator who oversees Virgi

nia . `` The governor has given every indication that he does not want to do it 

our way . '' The move is an unusually aggressive attempt by the EPA to enforce n

ew anti-pollution laws , and it reflects the gulf that has developed between fed

eral officials and Allen 's pro-business administration over how to clean the Wa

shington region 's air . It also puts Allen in a sticky situation politically . 

The new Republican governor does not want to retreat from his opposition to the 

EPA demands , which have become a cause celebre for GOP lawmakers from Northern 

Virginia who believe its provisions to toughen car exhaust inspections are too s

evere for their constituents . But Allen is anxious to avoid doing anything that

 would threaten construction of the Disney 's America project , which has been t

he priority of his young administration . During the recent General Assembly ses

sion , Allen joined Disney officials in persuading lawmakers to approve $ 132 mi

llion in road improvements in the area near the 3,000-acre Disney site , about 3

5 miles west of Washington in Prince William County . Among other things , the p

ackage calls for widening Interstate 66 west of Manassas and building a new inte

rchange to the amusement park and related development . The EPA has demanded tha

t Northern Virginia cars which now may be inspected at service stations be check

ed at state-contracted facilities that would do such tests exclusively . EPA off

icials believe that would yield stricter tests and eliminate conflict-of-interes

t concerns that arise when a station inspects a car , then makes any repairs it 

needs to pass inspection . Kostmayer , a former Pennsylvania congressman , playe

d down any relationship between the EPA 's action and Disney 's America . `` Thi

s is certainly not an effort to sidetrack Disney , '' he said . Disney represent

atives expressed concern Thursday , but stressed that theirs would not be the on

ly project stalled . `` It 'd be pretty disastrous for the region , '' said Leon

 G . Billings , the company 's environmental consultant . Park opponents hailed 

the decision , repeating their contention that Disney 's project would attract t

housands more cars to the area that would damage the air quality . `` What 's go

ing on is that EPA is calling their bluff , '' said Chris Miller , a spokesman f

or the Piedmont Environmental Council .

 FREDERICK , Md. Armond Pastore remembers vividly that night four decades ago wh

en he crouched beside a dying Frank Olson and looked into the eyes of the man wh

o had just fallen from a 10th-floor window of New York 's Statler Hotel . `` He 

couldn't say anything , '' recalled Pastore , who was night manager of the Manha

ttan hotel . `` He was trying to say something . He was looking straight at me .

 '' Thursday , a team of researchers exhumed Olson 's body from a hillside grave

 here in hopes of giving posthumous voice to a man who had been an unwitting vic

tim of one of the most egregious government-run experiments of the Cold War era 

. Olson 's death plunge Nov. 28 , 1953 , occurred nine days after he had been a 

given a drink laced with LSD without his knowledge or consent by a researcher fo

r the CIA . Olson , a 43-year-old biochemist , was a civilian employee of the Ar

my 's biolological warfare lab at Fort Detrick , Md. , when he died . He and oth

ers had been given the hallucinogen at a gathering of Army and CIA personnel at 

a rural Maryland cabin . He was told within 20 minutes that he had taken LSD , b

ut he had difficulty coping with the experience , according to later investigati

ons . He was depressed and upset in the days that followed , and the CIA arrange

d for him to see a New York doctor . Olson 's death in New York was considered a

 suicide by investigators at the time , but his family has never been convinced 

that he willingly leapt through a closed window . `` This story has been a tough

 one to put to rest , '' said Eric Olson as he watched cemetery workers using a 

backhoe and shovels to uncover the brown concrete vault containing his father 's

 casket . Eric Olson , 49 , a psychologist , and his brother Nils , 45 , decided

 to have their father 's body analyzed now because they were going to have it mo

ved anyway to another Frederick cemetery , where they buried their mother last s

ummer . The Olsons asked James Starrs , a professor of law and forensic sciences

 at George Washington University , to assemble a team to do a thorough autopsy a

nd to look for any clues suggesting that their father might have been forced out

 the window . `` They deserve whatever knowledge we can give , '' said Starrs , 

who previously had done forensic investigations into the deaths of explorer Merr

iweather Lewis , the ax-murdered parents of Lizzie Borden , assassinated Louisia

na Sen. Huey Long and the victims of Albert Packer , a 19th-century Colorado can

nibal . Starrs said the original autopsy on Olson was perfunctory . No X-rays we

re taken , and there was little examination of the internal organs . He said the

 team will be looking for any evidence of LSD or other hallucinogens in Olson 's

 tissues as well as any hints of coercion such as a blunt-force wound to the hea

d or a dislocated shoulder . He acknowledged that it will be `` a tricky questio

n '' to sort out such evidence in a body that suffered massive trauma and also w

as embalmed before burial . Olson never told his wife , Alice , that he had been

 given LSD . The family first learned that there might be more to his death than

 they suspected in 1975 , when the Rockefeller Commission , studying illegal CIA

 domestic operations , reported that a man fitting Frank Olson 's description ha

d leapt from a New York hotel shortly after the CIA had given him LSD . Former P

resident Ford later personally apologized to the Olson family , and Congress pas

sed a bill in 1976 to pay $ 750,000 in compensation to Alice Olson and her three

 children . But the questions remained . What had happened that night in the hot

el room shared by Olson and Robert Lashbrook , a CIA official who had accompanie

d him ? Pastore , a former Mineola , N.Y. , resident who is now retired in Flori

da , said he found the incident suspicious from the outset . `` Nobody jumps thr

ough glass , '' he said in a telephone interview . `` They open the window and g

o out , '' the method used by several suicides when he was working at the hotel 

. ( Optional add end ) Pastore also said that a hotel telephone operator had tol

d him that `` the man in the room ( Lashbrook ) called somewhere out on Long Isl

and '' immediately after Olson 's plunge and reportedly said , `` Well , he 's g

one . '' Pastore said the other party responded , `` Well , that 's too bad , ''

 and hung up . Lashbrook , reached at his home in Ojai , Calif. , said he made t

wo calls after Olson 's death one to his CIA superior and one to the doctor who 

treated Olson . He denied making any comments such as those reported by the hote

l operator . Lashbrook repeated his long-held view that Olson committed suicide 

. `` I was asleep at the time , and I didn't see him go out the window , '' Lash

brook said . He said he was awakened by a noise and saw the window shade flappin

g . The CIA said in a statement that Olson 's death was `` a sad and tragic even

t . '' David Christian , an agency spokesman , said , `` The role of CIA employe

es in the events leading up to his death was extensively investigated in the 197

0s . The facts were made public at that time . The investigations indicated no r

eason whatsoever to suspect that homicide was involved . ''

 In OLSON ( Lane , Newsday ) sub for 10th graf ( Deleting reference to previous 

cases ) xxx the window . `` They deserve whatever knowledge we can give , '' sai

d Starrs . PICK UP 11th graf : Starrs said xxx

 WASHINGTON Five deaths in a 1993 hepatitis drug trial were an `` unavoidable ac

cident , '' an advisory panel of the National Institutes of Health concluded Thu

rsday . The new report , which clears the NIH 's scientists of wrongdoing , cont

radicts the view of the Food and Drug Administration , which said last month tha

t researchers in the NIH drug trials had committed `` serious violations '' of f

ederal regulations . The advisory panel , a subcommittee of the Advisory Committ

ee to NIH director Harold Varmus , found that `` only in retrospect are there cl

ues '' to the hidden toxicity of the experimental drug fialuridine ( FIAU ) . Fi

aluridine was believed to be a promising treatment for chronic hepatitis B . The

 disease , which can cause liver damage and death , has no other satisfactory tr

eatment . Two previous human trials of the drug produced no apparent toxic effec

ts . But in the 1993 tests , five of the 15 NIH patients died and two others sur

vived only after receiving liver transplants . After the deaths , the FIAU resea

rchers had said the drug 's deadly effects were hidden because they resembled sy

mptoms of hepatitis B and tended to occur months after the initial doses . The N

IH advisory panel agreed : `` There is no villain other than the emergence and i

dentification of a new and unique form of delayed drug toxicity , '' they conclu

ded Thursday . `` The FIAU studies represent the best of current practice in cli

nical investigations and exceeded regulatory requirements where such applied . '

' The recent FDA investigation produced very different results . The `` complian

ce letters '' released last month detailed numerous violations of FDA regulation

s , including not informing the agency immediately of adverse side effects . The

 drug 's sponsor , Eli Lilly & Co. , and the trial 's principal investigator Jay

 H. Hoofnagle of the NIH have until the end of June to respond to the FDA letter

s . An earlier FDA report suggested that optimism on the part of researchers may

 have led them to evaluate information in too favorable a light and to miss warn

ing signs . In that November 1993 report , the FDA said that four patient deaths

 prior to the 1993 trial might have been caused by FIAU , but were attributed to

 other causes . Liver toxicity had also showed up in two healthy patients who we

re given FIAU by Lilly , the FDA said , but the incidents were not reported unti

l after the 1993 FIAU patients had begun to die . The FDA is formulating new rul

es requiring scientists to gather more data about side effects and obliging them

to assume from the outset that medical problems in test subjects are caused by t

he drug . FDA spokesman Jim O' Hara said Thursday that agency officials had not 

yet had a chance to review the NIH panel 's report , but `` we stand by our repo

rt of November and the compliance letters that were issued in May . '' The NIH p

anel said that some of the FDA recommendations especially one that called for al

l new drug trials to track patients for an extended period to catch other exampl

es of delayed toxicity would be too expensive , and suggested that such steps on

ly be taken where such toxicity might be expected . But the panel recommended th

at animal tests for new drugs mimic as nearly as possible the treatment that hum

an test subjects will receive . Animals were injected with FIAU ; humans took th

e drug orally . Subsequent animal tests have shown toxicity with oral doses . Th

e stark difference between the two reports which NIH panelists referred to only 

as an `` apparent discrepancy '' could be seen a conflict between regulators at 

the FDA and the scientists at NIH . NIH panelists said that the FDA report was c

oncerned mainly with whether the agency 's procedures were followed in the trial

s . The NIH panelists , many of whom are experienced clinical researchers , went

 through a four-foot stack of patient reports , charts and diaries to determine 

what the researchers knew or should have known at each step of the process and i

nterviewed the scientists , nurses and surviving patients at length . Critics of

 the 's panel 's conclusions said that the NIH investigators were overly charita

ble about signals the FIAU researchers might have missed . Rep. Edolphus Towns ,

 D-N.Y. , who has been sharply critical of the NIH , called the report a `` whit

ewash '' which showed that `` NIH is simply not sufficiently removed from culpab

ility to evaluate impartially the tragic events that occurred . '' A surviving p

atient from the FIAU trial , Carl Schmid , complained Thursday of his interview 

with the NIH panel , saying `` I don't think it was a thorough review or a thoro

ugh follow-up , and that was disappointing . '' The Department of Health and Hum

an Services has said it will request a separate study of the FIAU affair by the 

independent Institute of Medicine ; NIH panel members said Thursday that the IOM

 might be able to reconcile the FDA and NIH versions of events . Stephen Straus 

, one of the chief FIAU researchers , said that panel members interviewed him fo

r four hours and that he was gratified by the result : `` They did a fabulous jo

b of investigating and unraveling a complex and tragic series of events . '' All

an J. Weinstein , vice president of Lilly Research Laboratories , said `` We 're

 pleased that an independent group of outside experts has concluded that this wa

s a novel toxicity and an unpredictable one . '' As for the tougher response by 

the Food and Drug Administration , Weinstein said , `` We respectfully disagree 

with the FDA . '' NIH director Varmus said he pressed the panelists to be `` cri