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

rted to strike rail , road and other targets in northern France . Only by threat

ening to resign did the supreme commander gain Roosevelt 's support and win the 

day . Eisenhower 's `` transportation plan , '' as it was called , ultimately pr

evented rapid German reinforcement of the landing areas and `` was perhaps his g

reatest single contribution to the success of Overlord , '' according to Eisenho

wer 's biographer , Stephen Ambrose . The Overlord concept had been substantiall

y revised since Eisenhower 's first rough cut in early 1942 . Under prodding fro

m Montgomery , who would command the landing forces , the first wave of the Alli

ed invasion force was increased from three divisions to five , while the attack 

zone was broadened from a 25-mile beachhead to 50 miles . The date , which had a

lready slipped to the spring of 1944 to allow more training and the buildup of f

orces in England , was pushed back another month , to early June , because anoth

er 1,000 landing craft were needed to ferry the extra troops . The critical choi

ce of a landing site , on what the Allied high command called `` the far shore ,

 '' came somewhat through default . Allied intelligence had amassed an immense a

mount of data on winds , tides and German defenses along the 3,500 miles of coas

tline from Norway to Spain ; British citizens , responding to an official reques

t broadcast by the BBC , had donated 10 million postcards and holiday snapshots 

, which permitted an Oxford University team to draw up detailed topographical ma

ps . The most obvious location was the Pas de Calais , which offered the nearest

 point across the English Channel obvious too to the Germans , who placed their 

stoutest defenses around Calais . Normandy was chosen because its beaches were m

ore sheltered , it had better exit routes leading inland and the defenses there 

were less robust . Even so , the assault faced formidable odds . Commanding the 

defenders in German Army Group B was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel , the Desert Fox

 of North African fame and perhaps the Wehrmacht 's most inventive general . Arr

iving in France in December 1943 , Rommel had found Hitler 's supposedly impregn

able Atlantic Wall to be poorly fortified , undermanned and porous . The average

 age of German defenders many of whom were actually Russian and Eastern European

 prisoners pressed into service was 37 . ( The average age of American troops on

 D-Day was 22 . ) With frenzied energy , Rommel began thickening the defenses . 

He ordered the sowing of 2 million mines a month and the construction of a half-

million obstacles steel stakes , barbed-wire thickets , automatic flame throwers

 and booby traps along the beaches and in potential landing zones inland . Germa

n strength in France increased from 46 divisions to 55 . Much of this was known 

to the Allies , who had the invaluable and top-secret advantage of being able to

 decrypt coded German radio traffic . These `` Ultra '' intercepts showed Anglo-

American planners the strength and location of most enemy forces . While Allied 

assault forces rehearsed on replicas of the invasion beaches built at Slapton Sa

nds in southwest England notwithstanding shoddy security , which permitted Germa

n torpedo boats to attack a convoy in April 1944 , killing 749 troops Allied cou

nterintelligence also sought to convince the Germans that the attack would come 

somewhere other than Normandy . In air and naval power , the Germans were hopele

ssly outgunned . With 12,000 aircraft , the Allied air forces available over Nor

mandy outnumbered the Luftwaffe better than 20 to 1 . On D-Day , Allied pilots w

ould fly 14,674 sorties compared with only 319 for the Germans . The relentless 

bombardment of railway yards with 50,000 tons of high explosives not only disrup

ted German military movements but also killed innumerable French civilians , inc

luding 3,000 in a 48-hour period . A week before the invasion , Churchill warned

 Eisenhower 's deputy , `` You are piling up an awful lot of hatred . '' Also ha

rassing the Germans was the French Resistance . Responding to two prearranged ra

dio messages `` It is hot in Suez '' and `` The dice are on the table '' the Res

istance cut rail lines in nearly 1,000 places and sabotaged hundreds of telephon

e wires . Yet Overlord seemed so audacious , so pregnant with catastrophe that t

he faint-hearted easily took counsel of their fears . The plan 's complexity cou

ld be felt in the heft of an early operations order for the U.S. 1st Army , whic

h contained more words than `` Gone With the Wind . '' Even Eisenhower gave way 

to defeatism , scribbling a note in anticipation of failure . `` I have withdraw

n the troops , '' he wrote in part . `` If any blame or fault attaches to the at

tempt , it is mine alone . '' -O- No apology was necessary . After postponing th

e invasion a day because of heavy rain and high winds , Eisenhower gambled on a 

predicted break in the bad weather . `` I don't see how we can possibly do anyth

ing else , '' he told his lieutenants . `` I am quite positive we must give the 

order . '' The order was given . As the late-summer twilight yielded to darkness

 , 24,000 men from three airborne divisions the British 6th and U.S. 82nd and 10

1st reported to 22 airfields in England and boarded 1,200 transport planes and g

liders . Despite predictions from the Allied air chief that the divisions would 

suffer up to 70 percent casualties , Eisenhower and Montgomery believed the unit

s were necessary to seal the flanks of the invasion zone from German counteratta

ck . Much of the airborne assault was a courageous fiasco . Only two of the six 

U.S. parachute regiments landed where and when they were supposed to . Some sold

iers drifted to earth 35 miles from their drop zones , while others were machine

-gunned to death during the eternal 43 seconds it took to touch down from 700 fe

et . Eighteen glider pilots from the 82nd Airborne were killed in the space of a

 few minutes . Yet the airborne forces won several tactical victories as well as

 strategic surprise . British glider troops brilliantly seized key bridges east 

of Caen ; far to the west , the Americans were first routed from the important c

rossroads at Sainte-Mere-Eglise but later succeeded in capturing the town . `` T

he very extent of its scatter , '' wrote Keegan , `` had multiplied the effect o

f confusion in the German high command , preventing it from offering any organiz

ed riposte . '' In the words of historian David Howarth , `` the Americans knew 

what was happening , but few of them knew where they were ; the Germans knew whe

re they were , but none of them knew what was happening . '' As dawn broke , an 

armada of more than 3,000 Allied ships appeared through the Channel mist , steam

ing through 10 lanes cleared by minesweepers . Two hundred of the vessels opened

 up with the most intense bombardment in naval history , their shells chewing hu

ge divots still visible along the coast today . The assault had been timed for l

ow tide to expose as many of Rommel 's underwater obstacles as possible . At 6:3

1 a.m. , only one minute behind schedule , the first landing craft dropped its r

amp and soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division began wading 100 yards to Utah B

each on the far western end of the invasion sector . Confusion and a strong curr

ent had conspired to push the first wave more than a mile from the intended land

ing zone . Theirs was a happy error ; the accidental beach was lightly defended 

. Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt , 57-year-old son of the former president and th

e only general to go ashore in the first wave , announced , `` We 're going to s

tart the war from here . '' But 10 miles to the east , at Omaha Beach , the 1st 

and 29th Infantry Divisions found only death and misery . Undetected by Allied i

ntelligence until the last minute , the Germans had more than doubled the forces

 on the bluffs fronting the beach . The defenders had barely been scratched by A

llied aircraft , which , unable to see through the heavy clouds , dropped most o

f their bombs far inland . In another intelligence failure , Army Rangers strugg

led up the 100-foot cliffs of Pointe du Hoc between Utah and Omaha clawing at th

e rock with grappling hooks , knives and fingers only to discover that the big g

uns they were supposed to destroy had been moved . All but 90 of the original 22

5 Rangers were killed or wounded . Below on Omaha , terrified , seasick American

 soldiers fell by the score as machine-gun bullets whipped the water white , the

n red . All 26 artillery guns in the first wave sank ; only two of 24 amphibious

 tanks made it ashore . Successive waves plunged grimly ahead , ignoring the shr

ieks of drowning comrades . Bodies lay in windrows along the shoreline . Dead me

n drifted on the making tide . Aboard the USS Aurora several miles offshore , Lt

. Gen. Omar Bradley , commander of the U.S. 1st Army , concluded at 9 a.m. that 

`` our troops had suffered an irreversible catastrophe . '' A catastrophe yes , 

but not irreversible . Farther east , on beaches Gold , Juno and Sword , British

 and Canadian troops punched ashore on a 20-mile front against lighter defenses 

and over easier terrain . The Americans at Utah pressed toward Sainte-Mere-Eglis

e . By nightfall , the British at Gold had penetrated six miles inland and linke

d up with the Canadians from Juno within sight of Caen . By the end of D-Day , n

early 175,000 troops were ashore at a cost of more than 10,000 casualties , of w

hom about 2,500 were killed . ( Exact figures were never determined for either t

he number of Allied soldiers landed in France by sea and air , or for casualties

 . Estimates of German deaths for the day range from 4,000 to 8,000 . ) The Alli

es had their toehold on France . `` Overlord , '' Stalin cabled Churchill , `` i

s a source of joy to us all . '' -O- Now came the hard part . Hitler had immeasu

rably aided the Allied cause by fragmenting his command structure and personally

 retaining control over more than half of the German tank forces in Normandy . I

n history 's most celebrated nap , the fuehrer went to bed in his Bavarian retre

at at 4 a.m. on June 6 and slumbered undisturbed by his inner coterie of sycopha

nts despite frantic pleas for armored reinforcements from his generals on the we

stern front . Rommel , who had taken leave in Germany , immediately rushed back 

to France . But by the time he was in position to command his forces and Hitler 

had woken to the gravity of his predicament , it was too late to level the kind 

of devastating counterpunch against the beachhead that Rommel had long believed 

imperative . By now , the best the defenders could hope for was to keep the inva

ders bottled up indefinitely , a task the Germans performed expertly for nearly 

three months . As the Germans had missed an opportunity , so had the Allies . ``

 A great amount of work , thought and intelligence-gathering had gone into the a

ssault phase getting a toehold on the beach , '' Bradley later wrote . `` But no

t nearly enough planning and intelligence-gathering had been devoted to the imme

diate problems of exploitation of the beachhead . '' Although Montgomery insiste

d for years that the campaign proceeded exactly according to his master plan , m

any historians hold him responsible for the failure to seize Caen immediately an

d plow through the disorganized defenders . Instead , the summer was spent launc

hing a series of bloody and costly offensives that accomplished little . Operati

on Goodwood , for example , gained the British seven miles of French soil at the

 expense of 6,000 casualties and 400 tanks . Other catastrophes intruded . A tre

mendous storm in mid-June demolished one of the Allies ' two floating harbors , 

temporarily cutting resupply to a trickle . American fighter pilots mistakenly s

trafed Canadian prisoners of war being marched toward Rennes , killing 15 ; erra

nt American carpet bombing around Saint-Lo inflicted 814 American casualties and

 killed Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair . Such setbacks notwithstanding , the campaign

 and the war had effectively been won once the beachhead took root . Allied air 

superiority , Rommel complained , left German forces `` completely paralyzed '' 

during the day ; the 2nd Panzer Division took 17 days to move from Toulouse to N

ormandy , normally a three-day trip . In a letter to his son , the field marshal

 bemoaned the loss of more men in a single day of Normandy fighting than in the 

entire summer of 1942 in the North African campaign . Cherbourg fell on June 27 

. By July 2 , the Allies had 1 million soldiers and 172,000 vehicles on `` the f

ar shore . '' The Russians tightened the noose around the Third Reich by launchi

ng Operation Bagration on the eastern front with 1.7 million Soviet troops and 2

,700 tanks . On July 25 , the Americans finally succeeded in breaking out of Nor

mandy with Operation Cobra , spearheaded by the intrepid , pistol-packing Lt. Ge

n. George S. Patton Jr. . Allied forces reached the Loire river on Aug. 13 ; les

s than two weeks later , Paris was liberated . Asked for advice by Hitler 's hig

h command , Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt , commander of German forces in the

 west , famously replied , `` Make peace , you idiots ! What else can you do ? '

' -O- Not for many months would there be peace , except for the dead . Total cas

ualties in the 80-day Normandy campaign are put at 637,000 , including prisoners

 of war , according to historian Carlo D' Este . The losses included 20,838 Amer

icans killed and 94,881 wounded . The estimated German tally was 200,000 killed 

and wounded and another 200,000 captured . So many rotting bodies littered the N

orman landscape that pilots 1,000 feet up covered their noses . By D' Este 's ca

lculations , five German tank divisions and 20 infantry divisions had been destr

oyed ; six other tank divisions and 12 infantry divisions were severely battered

 . Three German corps commanders and 20 division commanders had been killed , wo

unded or captured . `` It was , '' Rommel grimly observed , `` one terrible bloo

dletting . '' For the Allied victors , Normandy also sanctified the transatlanti

c relationship , double-knotting the bonds of an alliance that would endure near

ly five decades of Cold War and beyond . The landings brought to the continent t

he first wave in an inexorable invasion of American culture , political influenc

e and military leadership . And Normandy marked the beginning , agonizing though

 it was , of an enduring epoch of peace and stability in a Western Europe that i

ncluded a peaceful , stable Germany . Tens of thousands who came to Normandy a h

alf-century ago never left . There are 27 national cemeteries here containing th

e mortal remains of American , British , Canadian , Polish and German veterans .

 In the middle of the Colleville cemetery , where four of every 10 U.S. soldiers

 who fell in Normandy are buried , a little chapel contains this inscription on 

the wall : Think not only upon their passing . Remember the glory of their spiri

t . `` There 's a responsibility to pass the flame to successive generations , '

' said Joseph P . Rivers , superintendent of the cemetery for the past 11 years 

. `` We can't let it fade away . A nation can't forget its history . ''

 COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER , France The British showed a particular genius for deceptio

n , creating divisions and whole armies with fake radio traffic and cardboard mo

ckups . Among the many diversions that would confuse the Germans on D-Day was Op

eration Taxable , the dropping of dummy parachutists near Boulogne ; the dispens

ing of clouds of radar-jamming foil that simulated a ship convoy moving toward C

alais ; and the use of boats and electronic beacons to suggest an invasion force

 near Dieppe .

 President Clinton acted appropriately Thursday in decoupling human rights from 

trade policy in renewing most-favored-nation trading status for China . `` We ha

ve reached the end of the usefulness of that policy , '' he said , and we must s

adly agree . It was a difficult political decision , but one thoughtfully made i

n recognition of the need to build a productive , long-term , strategic relation

ship with China . A China engaged and open is far more desirable than a communis

t giant in isolation . That is not to suggest that China has made vast improveme

nts in human rights . It has not . Nor should the United States abandon the issu

e . The president was unequivocally clear on two points : that the United States

 will continue to champion human rights and that abuses continue in China . But 

the attempt to leverage trade for improvements in human rights has fallen short 

. The question now is what is the best way to pursue human rights in China ? The

 issue is real , but it should not be the defining element in political , econom

ic and security discussions with Beijing . Clinton now believes that advances in

 human rights are far more likely under improved relations and when they are not

 beneath the cloud of the annual MFN review . MFN is accorded the vast majority 

of U.S. trading partners without annual reviews . The status allows them to sell

 goods in the United States at the lowest possible tariffs . China 's MFN status

 was not subject to annual wrangling until after June , 1989 , when Chinese tank

s rolled into Tian An Men Square in a bloody confrontation with pro-democracy de

monstrators . Congress wanted China 's MFN renewal linked to human rights , but 

it was unable to prevail over President Bush 's preference for unfettered MFN . 

During the 1992 presidential campaign Bill Clinton accused Bush of `` coddling d

ictators '' in China . Last year President Clinton renewed MFN for China with an

 executive order that required China to meet seven conditions , related to human

 rights , prison labor and emigration issues . Secretary of State Warren Christo

pher certified that China had made improvements in two , but not the other five 

. That is probably because changing dynamics within China over the last year hav

e slowed improvements . Tensions between the central government and the province

s have widened with modernization ; further stress is resulting because , in lig

ht of the ages of senior officials , changes in leadership are expected soon . W

ith China in flux , Congress should support President Clinton 's balanced decisi

on on MFN , thereby presenting a united U.S. front to Beijing .

 For Republicans , this off-year is getting very interesting . The party that lo

st the presidential election usually makes some gains two years later . So Repub

licans were expecting to pick up seats in the House of Representative just on th

e basis of the historical form sheet . But two recent special elections have the

 party 's political leaders positively licking their chops . Early this month , 

Oklahoma voters filled a congressional vacancy with a Republican state legislato

r , Frank D. Lucas , who was running against a Democrat , Dan Webber Jr. , a for

mer aide to a U.S. senator . This district has not had a Republican representati

ve in 20 years . Then last Tuesday in Kentucky , Republican Ron Lewis , an evang

elical preacher and businessman , defeated former state Sen. Joseph W. Prather ,

 a Democrat , to fill a vacancy in a district that has been safely Democratic fo

r over a century . In Oklahoma , the winner stressed his conservatism and his op

ponent 's ties to Washington . In Kentucky , the winner stressed his conservatis

m and linked his opponent to the national Democratic Party . His best commercial

 went , `` If you like President Clinton , you 'll love Joe Prather . '' These s

traws in the winds are deeply disturbing to Democratic incumbents , especially t

hose in the even more conservative , more anti-Clinton districts south of the Bo

rder States . Some Democratic leaders in the 11 states of the old Confederacy ar

e so pessimistic about 1994 that they agree with Republican leaders who say the 

South might , for the first time , elect as many Republican representatives as D

emocrats . There are presently 77 Democrats and 48 Republicans . A gain of 15 se

ats would do the trick . A recent journalistic survey of just the eight Southeas

tern states concluded that Democrats could lose 14 districts . Even with no Repu

blican gains in the Southwest and the rest of the nation ( which is unlikely ) ,

 a shift of just 14 seats in the House would probably give effective control of 

legislation to a conservative bloc in the House of Representatives uniting behin

d the likes of Newt Gingrich . But can Republicans also make substantial gains i

n the Senate ? Probably. Democrats have 21 seats up this year ( and one the next

 ) , compared to only 13 for the Republicans . The unexpected retirements of Geo

rge Mitchell and David Boren , two Democratic shoo-ins for re-election , give Re

publicans a good chance in Maine and Oklahoma . And Democratic Sen. Richard Shel

by of Alabama is mulling over changing his party registration . If most of the a

bove Republican wish list happens , Clinton 's legislative agenda will almost su

rely be dead for 1995-1996 , and his own re-election chances threatened . For he

alth care and other priorities , it may well be now or never .

 It started a few nights ago , a horrible dream that left me shaken and sweat-so

aked and obsessing about .. . the Flintstones . They were all there in the dream

 : Fred and Wilma , Betty and Barney Rubble and all their annoying kids and grin

ning domesticated dinosaurs , chasing me with flaming torches and yelling `` Yab

ba-dabba-doo ! '' as we traversed some prehistoric suburban hell . And everywher

e overhead there were huge , billowing clouds of smoke from a thousand pot-belli

ed cavemen grilling big , greasy bronto-burgers . `` Why am I having this dream 

? ! '' I asked my wife after one particularly bad episode . She said nothing . I

n fact , when I looked over , she was lying there with her eyes closed . `` Oh ,