May 5, 1996

Scottie Pippen, the graceful, attacking and sometimes attacked Bulls guard-forward, was saying recently that he's only "70 to 75 percent" of what his optimum physical fitness could be. "Seventy to seventy-five percent of Scottie Pippen," said Jerry Krause, the Bulls' general manager, "still makes him one of the three or four best players in the game."

Christie Whitman of New Jersey wants to make Bob Dole her kind of Republican. Magazine, section 6.

The $10 million condominium conversion of the 1897 Dietz Lantern Factory at 429 Greenwich Street, between Laight and Vestry Streets -- according to its developers TriBeCa's largest loft conversion -- is almost finished -- with 23 of its 28 lofts sold. The City Wine and Cigar Company, a private club with wine storage for its members and a restaurant and tasting room open to the public, will take up the entire 7,000-square-foot ground floor.

Six months ago, while neighboring Liberia seemed well on its way to ending its catastrophic civil war, Sierra Leone stood out in the minds of many in this region as the most hopeless case in West Africa. Army officers who had seized power ruled over the capital, Freetown, enriching themselves in the clandestine diamond trade. South African mercenaries bloodily prosecuted a seemingly unwinnable bush war against one of the continent's most vicious guerrilla movements.

Kent Diebolt has dangled with the angels and saints -- Augustine, John Chrysostom and Jerome, to name a few -- all in the interests of divining the location of cracks, leaks, deteriorating mortar and steel girders within the stonework of towering structures. Mr. Diebolt and his colleagues at Vertical Access of Ithaca, N.Y. -- rock climbers all -- have come up with a way for architects and engineers to reduce significantlythe costs of literally high-level inspections.