Japan

Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived here on Sunday for three days of talks with Japanese leaders and visits to U.S. bases.

Television personality Hugh Downs went to the roof of a Tokyo department store Saturday to do one of the last shows on his nine-year "Today" program, firmly denying that he is giving up the video screen for good.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney wound up a two-week visit to Asia by watching a thunderous jetfighter drill here Saturday — and stocking up on Girl Scout cookies and peanuts from the commissary before his long flight home.

The first woman general in the 196-year history of the U.S. Army, Brig. Gen. Anna M. Hays, chief of the Army Nurse Corps, said Tuesday that it was wrong to compare her job to that of a division commander because she functions purely in a staff position despite the fact that she has roughly 21,000 people under her supervision.

To hear Jimmy Doolittle tell it, his fabled raid on Tokyo was as much quixotic as heroic, a pinprick thrust in which only slight damage was inflicted on the enemy and the real target could not even be seen.

"Play ball!" echoes across sandlots and manicured fields in overseas American communities on military bases.