lesson Sixteen
Section One: News in Brief
Tapescript
1. President Reagan announced today, that he and Soviet leader
Gorbachev will meet in Iceland October I 1 th and 12th to prepare for
a summit between the two leaders in the United States later this year.
The announcement came after the release yesterday from Moscow of
American reporter Nicholas Daniloff and a court appearance in
New York this morning by accused Soviet spy Gennadi Zakharov,
who pleaded no contesti6espionage charges and was. told to leave
the United States within twenty-four hours. Zakharov is now on his
way back to the Soviet Union and Daniloff has arrived back in the
United States. The movement of Daniloff and Zakharov and plans
for the meeting in Iceland were also announced today in Moscow.
The BBC's Peter Ruff reports. 'The announcement makes it clear
that this was at Mr. Gorba hev'@nm iation, and it's,also pointed out
c v
that this is simply a preparator eeting to a possible summit. It's
pointed out here that it will enable the Soviet Union to focus on
arms issues, particularly the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star
Wars program, President Reagan's refusal to join a test
and a possible arms deal involving medium-rangi
Europe. In a separate announcement, the official news agency Tas
revealed that Gennadi Zakharov had, as they put it, been released
from custody and was returning home. It made no mention of the
fact that I ie'd pleaded no contest in a court in New York. Then came
,the first official confirmation from the Soviet Union that the
Americar reporter Nicholas Daniloff had been expelled, The news
item did aot refer to him as a spy but as someone who'd been en-
gaged in inadmissible activity." BBC correspondent Peter Ruff in
Moscow.
2. There was the Soviet press today that prominent
Soviet disside and his wif@ will be allowed to leave for
the U s by October 7th. Secretary of State Shultz made
that announcement in Washington saying Orlov was the driving
force behind the Helsinki Monitoring Group of Civil Rights
Activists. In 1978, Orlov was sentenced to seven years in a prison
camp to be followed by five more years in internal exile. Shultz said
Orlov's release was in exchange for that of Zakharov and had noth-
ing to do with Daniloff's freedom.
Section Two: News in Detail
Tapescript
In just eleven days President Reagan and Soviet leader
Gorbachev will meet in Iceland for what is described by the two sides
as an idt@rim summit or a preparatory summit. The announcement
was made at the White House this morning at a news conference
held by President Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz cal-
led to discuss the Iceland meeting and the negotiations which had led
up to the release of Nicholas Daniloff yesterday. Negotiations for
the release of Daniloff went on for over a month. Today, at the same
time that the White House news conference was going on, Soviet
Foreign Minister Shevardnadze met with the press in New York.
NPR's Jim Angle was at the White House, and Mike Shuster was
with the Soviet Foreign Minister.
'Jim, since Daniloff was only released yesterday, and the details
of the negotiations leading up to his release were not known yester-
day, didn't this arm uncement of a summit announced before any
discussion of the D-.tniloff affair come as a surprise?'
"What was a surprise is that we did not know it was co
is not a surprise if you look at the overall context of preparations for
a summit and the discussions so far. Of course, the US had said it
would not attend a summit until the Daniloff case wag resolved, and
the President said today that he could not have accepted this
pre-summit preparatory meeting if Daniloff were still being held.
Today the matter was resolved. At least we heard that the other de-
tails of the matter's resolution, including the fact that Gennadi
Zakharov, the accused Soviet spy, was allowed to plead no conte 'st in
a New York court and allowed to leave the Urited States. The reso-
lution of that matter cleared the way for summit preparations. The
meeting, of course, this pre-summit meeting, was proposed by Secre-
tary Gorbachev, in a letter delivered to President Reagan by Soviet
Foreign Minister Shevardnadze on September ]9th. The
announcement of this meeting todav at the same time as the resolu-
tion of Zakharov's status is a way of both sides saying that they con-
sider the Daniloff matter resolved with the exception of one or two
details and that no obstacles now exist in the preparations for sum-
mit later this year in the US.'
'At the news conference this morning both President Reagan
and Secretary of State Shultz stress that there had been no trade for
Nicholas Daniloff. Jim, was this a trade?'
" Well, clearly, Daniloff's release, Zakharov's quick trial and
departure, and the release of the Soviet dissident were all part of one
-package. But to the extent that definitions are important, especially
in the diplomatic world and in terms of principles and precedents,
the US has insisted that there was no trade involved here. They say
Daniloff was released without a trial, an M iC' acknowledgement,
if you will, by the Soviet, that he is not a spy. Kakharov, on the other
hand, in pleading no contest to espionage ch4rges, allows, in a sense,
the US assertion that he was a s to stand. resident Reagan soujzht
today in his rema t W te H se that these were
Uers. " There is no connection between these two
re eases. I don't know just what you have said so far about this.
But there were other arrangement-. with regard to Zakharov that re-
sulted in his being freed." Margo, the President's referring there to
what the US sees as the only trade involved in this whole package,
and that is the Soviet agreement to allow Soviet human rights
activist Yuri Orlov and his wife to leave the Soviet Union by October
7th."
Section Three: Special Report
Tapegcript;
Today in the Supreme Court of the United States, a case in-
volving maternity leave: at issue wh6ther,. states may require
employers to guarantee that pregnant workers are able to return to
their jobs after a limited period of unpaid disability leave. NPR's
Nina Totenberg reports.
Nine states already have laws or regulations that require all
employers to protect the jobs of workers who are disabled by preg-
nancy or childbirth. Depending on what the- Supreme Court rules in
the case it heard today, those laws will either die or flourish. The test
case is from California. It began with Lillian Garland, the
receptionist at California Federal Savings and Loan. In 1982, she re-
turned to work after having a child and found she had no job-,-
"After working for California Federal for over three and a @i
years, I was told at that time they no longer had apposition available
for me. My question was, 'Well, what about the job that I've had fori
so many years?' And they said,- 'We hired the person that youi
trained in your place.' I was in shock."
Officials at California Federal say Garland should not have
been surprised, that she'd been told at the time she took pregnancy
leave that her job was not guaranteed. But the fact is that California
law requires all employers in the state to provide up to four months'
disability leave for pregnant workers. The leave time is unpaid, and
it is only available to women who, because of pregnancy or child--
birth, are physically unable to work. The law does require that such
workers get back the same job unless business necessity makes that
impossible. So when Lillian Garland was told she couldn't have her
old job back, she filed discrimination charges against the bank. The
bank then challenged the California pregnancy disability law in
court, claiming that the state law amounted to illegal sex discrimina-
tion. The bank's reasoning went like this: Federal law bans discrimi-
nation in employment. based on pregnancy, but the state law man-
dates disability leave to women for pregnancy while denying the
same leave time to men who are disabled by other ailments, such as
heart attacks and strokes. California counters that the state law does
not discriminate between men and women, that it treats them both
the same as to,all, ailments, bui-gra@ts@disability leave only to preg-
nant workers. Moreover, California argues that the state law in fact
equalizes the situation between men and women, allowing them bbth
h bt he pregnancy disability
to have children without t_FV j IT)- C/'-
case has produced so@triaViZe @Ae s 'Me Reagan Admini-
stration is siding with the California business community in arguing
that federal law requires no special treatment for pregnancy. Many
of the major national women's organizations agree, but argue that
the way to cure the problem is to give everybody unpaid disability
leave in case of illness. Other women's organizations, particularly in
California, argue that singling out pregnancy for special treatment is
not sex discrimination. Feminist Betty Friedan defends the
California law.
'It's not discrimination against men to do something about the
fact that women give birth to children. It's a fact of life. If men could
carry the baby, if men could go through the nine months, if men
could have the labor pain, you know, they also should have coverage
for pregnancy. You're not discriihinating against men; you're recog-
nizing a fact of life: that women are different than men.'
On the other side, the lawyer for the bank, Ted Olson, argues
that special treatment for pregnancy is ob iously discrimination, an
that California companies risk bein by one group of people
g sue
ti'iey follow fe,,iei-al law and by another group of people if they follo
state law.
"The Ctlifornia law requires special treatment of pregnancy; th
federal law requires equal treatment of pregnancy. An employer-
entitled to know which law it must follow.'
The fact is, though, that much of the California business co
)i,tinity objects, most of all, to being told that it has to provide an
Disability leave. Here is Don Butler, President of the Merchants an
Manufacturers Association, which is a party to this law suit.
"What we have to get back to, though; is who's going to set th
disability leave policies. Is the federal government, is the state o
California, or are we, the employers, going to set? You, th
employee, have the choice of working for our company under the fol
lowing conditions or working for another company under othe
conditions. And I believe that that was what built@this country to b
a great free enterprise system. And if we're going to legislate it, the
we're going to destroy a lot of the incentives to ...'
'But basically you don't want to be told to have a disability pol
icy at all."
'Right.'
In the Supreme Court this morning, perhap! ues-
tion was asked by Justice Louis Powell, who po@
situation to California Deputy Attorney General Marion Johnston.
"Let us assume,' said Justice Powell, "that a man and a woman in
the same company leave their jobs on the same day: he, because he is
ill; she, because she's about to have a child. And they return on the
'same day, but under the California law she gets herjob back and he
does not. Is that fair?" asks Justice Powell. Lawyer Johnston re-
sponded, "It may not be fair, but it's legal. California law,' she said,
simply requires that employers treat all their employees, men and
women, in the same way with respect to pregnancy. But, since men
e off." A'decision in the
don't get pregnant, they don't get the ti mted until next year. I'm Nina Totenberg
California case is not expec in Washington- ,
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