NOTEBOOK

By MELISSA AUGUST, JANICE M. HOROWITZ, NADYA LABI, LINA LOFARO, JAMIE MALANOWSKI, EMILY MITCHELL AND ALAIN L. SANDERS

WINNERS & LOSERS

RECKONING WITH THE PAST

[WINNERS]

MISS UNIVERSE Adios, avoirdupois. Venezuelan Alicia Machado breaks into sweat to regain winning form

OLD DOMINION Virginia finally retires minstrel-era song as official state tune. Don't carry me back anymore

MIKE DITKA Can you Bear it? Chicago's Iron Mike leaves sportscasting to coach New Orleans Saints

[& LOSERS]

PAT BOONE The bland plays on as pop music's white sheep goes heavy metal in a new album

DAVID LETTERMAN NBC balks at lending old Late Night clips for Dave's anniversary show on rival CBS

IMELDA MARCOS Unpaid $200,000 electric bill may cause power shutoff at husband's air-cooled crypt

BY THE BOOK

To the growing list of popular "how to" manuals, add this release from the CIA, recently made public under a Freedom of Information request from the Baltimore Sun. The agency says it no longer follows the rules of the 124-page 1983 "human-resource" handbook, used to train security forces in Latin American countries, which includes passages on mental torture:

A threat is basically a means for establishing a bargaining position by inducing fear in the subject. A threat should never be made unless it is part of the plan and the "questioner" has the approval to carry out the threat. When a threat is used, it should always be implied that the subject himself is to blame by using words such as, " You leave me no other choice but to... " He should never be told to comply "or else!"

The threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys resistance more effectively than coercion itself. For example, the threat to inflict pain can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain. In fact, most people underestimate their capacity to withstand pain. In general, direct physical brutality creates only resentment, hostility, and further defiance.

HISTORICAL WIT

President Clinton tried out some new material on Jan. 25 at the Alfalfa Club's private dinner--an annual opportunity for Washington power brokers to wine, dine and be deliciously unkind. Some off-the-record excerpts:

"We decided we were going to be more proactive about managing our place in history. This week at the White House we operationalized the Posterity War Room... I haven't seen Ira Magaziner this pumped in years. We will take our case to the media... Mike McCurry is going on A&E Biography. Erskine Bowles will be on the History Channel... My media team is busy putting together spots that will go negative on James Buchanan and Warren Harding... And James Carville has announced that he is making a full-scale assault on the scholars at the Heritage Foundation.... The Posterity War Room has already put together a comparative fact sheet... I want to share some of it with you: 'Bill Clinton added 1.5 million acres of land to our national parks. By his own admission, George Washington was personally responsible for the deforestation of cherry trees. Bill Clinton reduced crime on our streets; Thomas Jefferson's Vice President shot a guy! Bill Clinton has signed more nuclear disarmament than James Madison, Andrew Jackson, and James K. Polk combined.'"

HAIL TO THE CHI

There's a leak in the Oval Office, and it's getting the President into all sorts of trouble. The President's chi (Chinese for energy), the source of his power, is seeping out the windows and beneath the doors, leaving him exposed. The solution: redecorate, adhering to the principles of feng shui, the Chinese art of putting an individual in harmony with his surroundings. That's the evaluation of one of the field's experts--Master Pun Yin from Tin Sun Metaphysics in New York City--who explained that it's all about location, location, location...

Can't get a bill past Congress? Hardly surprising--the chi of the Oval Office is "pulling in different directions, making it difficult to have a meeting of minds," explains Pun Yin. Ideally, the office should be moved elsewhere--preferably to a rectangular space, where straight walls provide spiritual support and enhance feelings of control.

Whitewater, Paula Jones, John Huang..."It's no wonder that steamy subjects overshadow his term," says Pun Yin. The room's overall chi is hot and uneasy. The five key elements--water, wood, fire, earth and metal--are imbalanced. According to Pun Yin, the fire element is interacting dangerously with Clinton's personal element, wood, leading to conflict.

1 Watch out, Bill. Move the desk away from vulnerable windows and curves. Face the rising sun and re-energize.

2 Waste not your chi. Seal off that drafty door--it's sucking the life force out of the room.

3 Keep and eye on Hillary. A family photo and spiritual symbol atop the table and fireplace can be reminders of "warmth, love and a higher consciousness."

4 Black is bountiful. Reupholster the couches in black to represent and reinforce the water element.

5 Cold water works wonders. Place a fountain in front of the windows--the fire element is hottest in the South. Cool down the raging chi and thereby avoid potentially compromising situations.

HEALTH REPORT

THE GOOD NEWS

--Interferon to the rescue. The drug appears to stop the growth of a particularly hard-to-treat BRAIN TUMOR called malignant meningioma. Researchers think that interferon may work by choking off the vessels that supply blood to the malignancy.

--A new DIABETES drug. The FDA has approved Rezulin, the first in a new class of drugs that may reduce or end dependence on insulin shots. Rezulin helps patients make better use of insulin by resensitizing the body to the hormone.

--Reconnaissance for ANXIOUS FLYERS: the Federal Aviation Administration plans to post airline-safety records, including accidents and major fines, on the Internet. The information should help travelers decide which carriers have the best track records. Check it out before checking in.

THE BAD NEWS

--Kids may feel relieved, but they won't be breathing any easier. ALLERGY SHOTS seem to offer no added benefits to children with severe allergy or asthma who are already on the proper medication.

--As if finding time to work out isn't hard enough. Research shows that to get maximum health benefits, you need an hour of sustained, vigorous EXERCISE five days a week. Current government guidelines suggest just half an hour of moderate activity on five days.

--Get that queasy feeling at the office? It may not be your boss. A small Swedish study finds that, in some people, flickering light from a COMPUTER SCREEN can cause brain waves to spike to unusually high levels--which may give rise to fatigue, headache and tingling skin.

Sources--GOOD NEWS: Neurosurgery; Food and Drug Administration; Federal Aviation Administration BAD NEWS: New England Journal of Medicine; Archives of Internal Medicine; Journal of Occupational and Environment Medicine

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

JIGGS, 58; PALM SPRINGS, CALIF. Last Cheeta in vintage Tarzan films

Swinging from vines in the 1930s and '40s, Johnny Weissmuller was King of the Jungle. But on the ground he often played straight man to his sidekick, Cheeta. More than a dozen chimpanzees took the role, and the last was genial Jiggs. Born in Liberia, he was brought to the U.S. by Hollywood trainer Tony Gentry along with sister Susie--another Cheeta portrayer--who died last month at 64. Gentry's nephew Dan Westfall, a theater performer, inherited the pair and built a facility on his property to house them. The scene-stealing siblings were in more than 15 Tarzan movies, and as a specialty, Westfall says, "Jiggs would always grin with his upper lip above his mouth.'' In retirement, Jiggs has become an artist--a simian Grandpa Moses--and sales of his paintings are to fund the Cheeta Project, a non-profit foundation that will aid other chimps and keep Jiggs on his daily diet of fruit, Purina Monkey Chow and the occasional Oreo as a treat. Tarzan's tree house was never like this.