February 18, 1999

Fourth and final article in series, Global Contagion: A Narrative, on global financial crisis; crisis that began 19 months ago in Thailand is knocking on gates of American heartland and could be landmark crisis of post-cold-war era; while simplest challenge is for US to sustain strong growth rates, broader task will be to prevent nationalistic catacylsms in worst-off countries, like Russia and Indonesia, and to contain political and security risks of explosive frustration if crisis bites further into places like China and Latin America; while economy has demonstrated tremendous flexibility and resilience, uncertainties arise because US stock market is 64 percent higher than in December 1996 when Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, warned against irrational exuberance; photos; chart (L)

Mike Wise Sports of The Times article holds Michael Jordon's retirement gives new generation of basketball players chance to be viewed more realistically; photo (M)

Corporations hire historians and researchers to investigate their possible links to Nazis; Ford Motor Co, General Motor Co and Bertelsmann, have hired well-known academics to write their wartime histories or scour ancient file rooms worldwide for damaging or exculpatory information; at stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements, potential public embarrassment, and even business complications; Deutsche Bank said recently that independent historians it had hired had found records confirming that bank helped finance building of Auschwitz death camp; Saul Friedlander, who has been hired by Bertelsmann to do research on publishing pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic books during World War II, comments; chart; photo (M)

Justice Department civil rights officals say they have been probing New Jersey State Police for over two years to determine whether troopers illegally single out black drivers on highways; probe apparently was spurred by 1996 case in which state judge ruled troopers in southern NJ pulled over drivers using race-based profiles; Atty Gen Peter G Verniero says he viewed dealings with Justice Department as part of routine, cooperative assessment, not formal probe; plans to continue own probe (M)

Officer-trainees in Kosovo Liberation Army are still preparing for war even as talks progress in France to reach agreement between rebels in Kosovo province and Serbian Govt; those at training school near village of Suva Rika say they will obey superiors' commands following any peace with Serbs; say core of rebel force must remain intact and armed, in order to protect ethnic Albanians when Western forces leave; over period of year, rebel army has gone from ragtag guerrilla bands to force of between 10,000 and 15,000, equipped with increasingly sophisticated weapons and bent on achieving not only autonomy for Kosovo being offered at peace talks, but independence for Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority; photos; map (M)