LEAD:  A BRIGHT SHINING LIE  John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.  By Neil Sheehan.  Illustrated. 861 pp. New York:  Random House. $24.95.

THE MAN WHO WAS THE WAR

LEAD: When Dr. Vernon Sylvest, a pathologist in Richmond, Va., lost $60,000 in several oil and energy ventures in the early 1980's, he decided he wanted more to show for his money than worthless pieces of paper. He bought land because, he said, ''I figured land was a sure thing.''

Land Investors Seeking More Remote Locations

LEAD: DOWN a winding country road, amid a cluster of seven clear ponds, the Ponds of Plymouth, where 823 single-family homes are planned, is now home to the first 80 families.

NATIONAL NOTEBOOK: Plymouth, Mass.;
80 Homes Sold, 743 to Go

LEAD: Two past Olympic champions from the United States were defeated in their quest of another gold medal today. But their losses were balanced for the American team by the fact that they each lost to teammates setting Olympic records.

THE SEOUL OLYMPICS: Track and Field; Moses Loses; Griffith Joyner Wins

LEAD: IS the cold war over? Has the West won? The questions may seem impudently provocative in the midst of an American campaign that has Michael S. Dukakis scrambling to demonstrate that he is as tough-minded on defense as George Bush, while the Republican's running mate dismisses Mikhail S. Gorbachev's innovations in the Soviet Union as warmed-over

The Idea That Democracy Pays Helps Reshape East-West Ties

LEAD: EVERY weekend in July when many of his friends and colleagues are preparing for their long drives to the Hamptons, Si Newhouse boards a jet and heads for his house in Palm Beach to spend the weekend reading.

Si Newhouse Tests His Magazine Magic

LEAD: A GROWING condominium market in this quiet city of 200,000 on the Canadian side of the Detroit River has hundreds of Americans streaming across the river in search of new housing at a favorable price.

NATIONAL NOTEBOOK: Windsor,Ont.;
Condo Buys Near Detroit

LEAD: WHEN he is hard at work, Richard Larson sometimes finds himself watching videotapes, his eyebrows arched in perpetual scrutiny. He doesn't watch ''Top Gun'' or ''Meatballs'' or anything fun like that. He peers at tapes of customers in line at checkout counters at Zayre department stores. People shuffle forward, merchandise gets shoveled on checkout conveyors.

Conquering Those Killer Queues

LEAD: In an effort to identify incompetent health practitioners, the Department of Health and Human Services is creating a nationwide data bank of disciplinary actions taken against physicians, dentists, nurses, therapists and other licensed health professionals.

AGENCY WILL TRACK THOSE DISCIPLINED OVER MEDICAL CARE

LEAD: FALL arrived last week, causing many Westchester residents to eye branches for the first colorful signs of the season. But Geoffrey Thompson of Yorktown has set his sights lower, often stopping his car to gaze at trees that are on the ground.

The Quest for Firewood Dwindles

LEAD: When the Town of Islip began to have second thoughts about the industrial zoning of some land near Long Island MacArthur Airport, Racanelli & Associates, one of Long Island's largest industrial builders, had second thoughts about holding on to it. Instead, they sold the 75-acre, factory-sized lot in Holbrook to the Holiday Organization, one of Long Island's largest residential builders.

POSTINGS: $86 Million Islip Development; 359 Homes Near the Airport

LEAD: Setting a Presidential tone will be a preoccupation for the nominees tonight, for voters respond to nonverbal cues and not just to words. Page 24.

A Matter of Technique

INSIDE

LEAD: For the first time in history, a woman was elected yesterday to be a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Episcopal Diocese Chooses First Woman to Be a Bishop

LEAD:  SWIMMING: Kristin Otto of East Germany kept her perfect record intact: five golds in five events.

Olympic Highlights

LEAD: WHEN the Department of Housing and Urban Development labeled this city's West Side as ''no longer viable'' in 1972, residents refused to let their historic neighborhood die.

NATIONAL NOTEBOOK: Kansas City, Mo.; A Revival for The West Side

LEAD: In the last 28 months, even as Yonkers risked bankruptcy in its battle against a court-ordered housing desegregation plan, the public schools here have moved quietly and methodically to abolish deeply rooted segregation in the system.

IN YONKERS, A MEASURED INTEGRATION OF SCHOOLS

LEAD: If he had snookered the world, he laid the groundwork more than a year ago. After Ben Johnson of Canada lowered the world 100-meter record to 9.83 seconds in the world track and field championships in Rome in 1987, he said the time would probably stand another 50 years. He was off by 49. So what is the world to make of his miscalculation?

THE SEOUL OLYMPICS: The Best in the World; Fastest Runs Even Faster

LEAD: When Luis Cancel, director of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, was growing up Puerto Rican in New York, he couldn't learn much about the art of his own people. ''There was no information about 20th-century Puerto Rican or Latin American art in the libraries I went to,'' he said, ''and there were no art history courses that could feed my interest at the schools I attended.

The Many Accents of Latino Art

LEAD: American astronauts are at last ready to return to orbit on the space shuttle Discovery, seeking to revive the nation's flagging civilian space program and to end the long struggle with self-doubt and paralysis that followed the worst disaster in space flight history 32 months ago.

Space Shuttle Is Poised to Fly With Fragile Cargo of Dreams

LEAD: THE Founding Fathers intended the House of Representatives to be the part of the Federal Government closest to the electorate and thus most responsive to shifts in political winds. Describing the function of the House under the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton declared: ''Here, sir, the people govern.

It's a House of the Same Representatives

LEAD: ''BEGINNING at a hickory tree standing near the east corner of an orchard.'' So goes the deed description to the Francisco Farm, 280 acres owned by the Francisco family for three generations. But the rural boundary markers may be about to give way to a 590-home subdivision that would occupy most of the western half of Andover Borough and almost triple the population of the Sussex County community, which straddles

Two Farms, Two Fates

LEAD: A $3 billion state transportation bond issue that would include $690 million for a fourth lane on portions of the Long Island Expressway, as well as for other Long Island road projects, will go before the state's voters on Nov. 8.

Roadwya Expansion Awaits Bond Issue

LEAD: Finance ministers of the largest industrial democracies said yesterday that the world economy is growing at a faster pace than had been expected, that employment has increased and that inflation is being contained.

World Economy Judged Healthy

LEAD: She invested four years of hard work, testing her will and physical endurance as well as the patience of the coach who became her husband. Now, on a warm afternoon, thousands of miles from where Jackie Joyner-Kersee first envisioned competing in the Olympic Games, she walked to the starting line on the brick-red track for the 800-meter race, only two minutes and a pocketful of seconds from winning an elusive gold medal in the heptathlon.

TOP WOMAN CLIMBS HIGHER

William Alton Carter was an American farmer, businessman, brewer, and politician. The younger brother of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, he promoted Billy Beer and Peanut Lolita; and he was a candidate for mayor of Plains, Georgia.

Billy Carter, American farmer and businessman (born 1937)

Billy_Carter

Arthur Vööbus was an Estonian theologian, orientalist, scholar, author, professor, and church historian.

September 25, 1988

Headlines from September 25, 1988

THE MAN WHO WAS THE WAR

Land Investors Seeking More Remote Locations

NATIONAL NOTEBOOK: Plymouth, Mass.; 80 Homes Sold, 743 to Go

THE SEOUL OLYMPICS: Track and Field; Moses Loses; Griffith Joyner Wins

The Idea That Democracy Pays Helps Reshape East-West Ties

Billboard 200

Appetite For Destruction

Hysteria

Tracy Chapman

He's The D.J.; I'm The Rapper

Roll With It

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for September 25, 1988