Two leading Russian dissidents go on trial amid worldwide protests.
Secretary of State Vance says the trials will aggravate relations with Moscow, but the soul
talks must continue.
From ADC, this is world news tonight.
With Max Robinson in Chicago, Peter Jennings in London, Barbara Walters special reports,
and tonight a comment from Howard K. Smith and from our Washington desk, Frank Reynolds.
Good evening and welcome to the first broadcast of the world news tonight.
Speaking for all the men and women of ABC News, I promise you an accurate, responsible,
and meaningful report on events at home and abroad.
We are aware of our responsibility to you and we intend to meet it.
Our major story tonight concerns brave men who dare to speak their minds.
Their fate is now more than ever before bound up with the future of relations between the
United States and the Soviet Union.
Here is Peter Jennings in London.
Frank, the men you're referring to went on trial on the Soviet Union today in cases almost
certain to further strain Soviet-American relations.
Alexander Ginsburg and Anatoly Sharansky are two of the Soviet Union's most prominent dissidents.
Ginsburg is charged with anti-Soviet behavior.
Sharansky is charged much more seriously with treason.
Both men pleaded innocent.
The trials are perhaps the most important political ones since the end of the Stalin
era.
Western reporting is severely limited.
First, because no Western newsman is allowed to attend, and in our case because a film
report our correspondent delivered to Moscow airport never arrived here in the West.
Given those restrictions, here's ABC's Charles Bierbauer in Moscow.
Sharansky, the indictment says, worked for the CIA, supplied Soviet state secrets, and
betrayed his motherland.
Sharansky's brother, Leonid, was the only person allowed to enter the Moscow court.
Interviewed by West German and other correspondents outside, the brother reported that Sharansky
had dismissed his lawyer and told the People's Court the charges are absurd.
Sharansky's 70-year-old mother, Ida Milgram, was barred from the court, and the dissident
community divided itself between the Moscow trial of Sharansky and the Kaluga trial of
Alexander Ginsburg.
Ginsburg, like Sharansky, is a member of the Helsinki group monitoring human rights violations.
Sharansky entered the dissident community as a would-be emigrant.
In 1973, he asked for a visa to go to Israel.
His wife of one day was allowed to leave in 74.
And we had a very hard year because I was haunted, I was arrested sometimes, persecuted
in different forms, and after one of such arrests, I decided to send my wife to Israel.
The Soviets are holding unusual twice-a-day briefings on the trial, but only a statement
is read, no questions are answered.
Correspondents are not allowed in the court, where Sharansky confronts the severest charges
yet to be faced by a Soviet dissident.
Charles Birbauer, ABC News, Moscow.
Here in Washington, for the second time in two days, the Secretary of State has denounced
the dissident trials, but at the same time has urged that we keep a sense of perspective
about overall relations with the Russians.
I regret the steps which have been taken recently and deplore the specific actions with respect
to the dissidents.
This has not helped the relations between our two countries.
It has aggravated, as I indicated, the relationship.
However, I think that we must continue to try and find common ground and hope that we
can get the relationships back to a better and more even keel.
Vance will leave tomorrow for Geneva and a meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko
to continue negotiations on strategic arms control.
He insists we should not link the trials to the talks.
However, a resolution was introduced in the Senate today by Senator Dole of Kansas calling
for a suspension of the SALT talks until we know the outcome of the dissident trials.
And Senator Henry Jackson of Washington said there should be no SALT talks if the trials
go forward.
Jackson made a speech on the Senate floor and strongly criticized the administration's
approach to the Russians.
He called it confused, uncertain, and often contradictory.
And Jackson complained that the President's tough talk has been offset by weak action.
However, our White House correspondent Sam Donaldson says officials there disagree.
The Soviet move has upset even angered White House officials who today seem determined
to make the Russians pay for it.
Press Secretary Jody Powell said the President would continue to speak out on human rights.
And Powell bluntly warned that even though the strategic arms talks are too delicate
to upset, a whole range of other American-Soviet relationships is now under review, particularly
other officials said, in the fields of trade, space, and technology.
Powell clearly meant to suggest that Washington intends to clamp down on the Russians in a
way that will hurt them.
These hints of action drew praise from five American Jewish leaders who met with National
Security Advisor Brzezinski to discuss the matter.
If there's one thing I've learned over these years, it's that the Soviets are pragmatic.
When it hurts them, they change.
When it doesn't hurt them, they don't change.
And there are lots of ways in which we can make it hurt.
At first glance, the recent immigration figures seem to dispute that theory.
From a 1973 high of almost 35,000, Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union fell dramatically
when Congress and then the Carter administration began making a public issue of it.
But during recent months, the rate has risen again, projecting to a total of 24,000 for
this year if the pace continues, evidence the Jewish leaders believe that keeping the
pressure on gets results in the long run.
There is one more factor at work here.
The feeling that the Soviet action is a direct slap in the President's face and for the sake
of his future credibility must not go unchallenged.
They thought we wouldn't respond, said one official.
They made a mistake.
Our posture has to be to make them pay for it.
Sam Donaldson, ABC News, The White House.
This is Bill Siemens.
Prime Minister Begin reacted in the Knesset today by suggesting how President Carter could
help even more.
This problem belongs to everybody and should interest everybody.
And therefore, he, for instance, President Carter, will write personally to Mr. Brezhnev
and demand that Sharansky be freed and that the Soviet authorities let him go to our country.
It may be an intervention, yes indeed, but it is absolutely legitimate.
Also in Jerusalem, the militant Jewish Defense League broke into the Russian Orthodox Church,
sprayed free Sharansky demands and broke windows.
Nine were arrested.
And at the Western Wall, a prayer vigil was underway, adding to the pleas for support,
reaching out to the free world from this focal point of Judaism.
Bill Siemens, ABC News, Jerusalem.
This is Sharansky's wife, Avital.
She lives in Israel but was in Paris today launching a campaign on behalf of her husband.
She will also go to Washington to seek American help.
She hasn't seen nor heard news of her husband since his imprisonment 16 months ago.
Not until she got a phone call partway during this interview with ABC's Jack Smith today.
Do you think that your husband is guilty?
No.
I think he's absolutely not guilty.
Why?
Has your husband done anything that could be construed by the Soviet authorities as
being high treason?
Why do you think he's innocent?
He's not doing nothing against Russian law and what he's doing, he's very active.
He's active for the Jewish movement because he's Jewish and won't go to Israel to live
in Israel.
And he works very actively in Helsinki group in Moscow.
And this all is not against Russian law.
I think it's Russian to be criminal about my husband and destroy every human rights,
his human rights.
He faces, he's being charged with high treason.
That means he faces a possible death sentence.
Are you at all worried that that may be carried out against him?
Yeah, I'm very worried.
Now he's in criminal hands, you know, and I think Russian do everything about him so
against law and like banditism, you know, and I'm very afraid about his life.
Here in Washington today, Barbara Walters talked with an expert about what this case
means.
Barbara?
The mother of Anatoly Sharansky in Moscow has turned for help to a Harvard law professor,
Alan Dershowitz, an expert in Soviet law.
He's tried without success to help defend Sharansky in Russia.
How does a trial for treason in the Soviet Union compare with one here?
We asked the professor.
There are similarities, but there are a great many differences.
The investigation that occurs in secret is the basic trial.
Sharansky therefore has been tried, has been found guilty.
Now there's a public trial, the purpose of which is simply to decide whether the earlier
trial was accurate or inaccurate.
He can, under Soviet law, have a lawyer, but the lawyer has to have KGB approval and he
refused to accept the lawyer that was appointed for him.
And he can't have witnesses unless the court agrees to call them.
Professor, is this trial a farce?
This trial is a farce.
There has been no case in the history of the Soviet Union where a dissident who has been
accused has been found innocent.
This is an even greater farce because Sharansky stands alone without even the assistance of
counsel.
There is no possibility, you think, that he will be found innocent and freed?
There's no possibility that he'll be found innocent.
There is some possibility, of course, that the sentence could be affected.
There is a possibility, and we hope it will happen, that he could be freed thereafter
as a result of diplomatic or political pressures.
Is Sharansky being tried primarily because he's a Jew?
It's because he's a Jew.
It's because he wanted to emigrate.
It's because he spoke English beautifully and was one of the leaders of the Helsinki
movement and communicated effectively with the press.
It's because he was a link between the various dissidents' movements.
And it's because he was a very outspoken and courageous man.
What is the importance of this trial to other Soviet dissidents?
It's a message to them that no matter how hard they try to remain within the spirit
and the letter of the law, they will be prosecuted and convicted if they speak out against the
system or seek to emigrate.
We also asked Professor Dershowitz if he thought that Jimmy Carter's push for human rights
has helped or hurt the dissident movement.
And he told us without doubt that it has helped.
In a moment, Frank Reynolds with the Washington Desk Report on the return of Congress.
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The Congress that came back to Washington today has much to do before going home again.
The administration hopes for a tax cut this year, but the size of the reduction will be
vigorously debated.
And the administration is praying for some kind of an energy bill.
That's been a high priority item for more than a year.
And once again, this summer and fall, there will be a battle royal over abortion.
The House and the Senate are in sharp disagreement about spending federal funds for abortions.
Right at the moment, the most visible controversy here is over the Equal Rights Amendment.
Yesterday, nearly 100,000 ERA supporters marched on Capitol Hill.
And today, they swarmed through the corridors of the Capitol, lobbying for an extension
of the deadline for ratification of the amendment.
The deadline is March 22, 1979.
Thirty-five states have approved the amendment, but 38 are needed before ERA can become the
law of the land.
Two days ago, the federal government proposed that all Firestone 500 steel belted radial
tires be recalled.
Firestone has denied that the tire is defective and says a recall is not justified.
Today, a subcommittee of the House of Representatives said the tire appears to have serious safety
problems.
And during the subcommittee hearing, a man appeared with firsthand knowledge of the Firestone
500.
Bettina Gregory has the story.
Robert Doyle appeared at the hearing when it was just about over.
He had brought a blown out Firestone 500 steel belted radial tire all the way from Martinsburg,
West Virginia.
This unexpected witness came because he'd read about investigations of the tire in the
newspapers.
He decided it might help to tell the subcommittee about his blowout on a tire that had been
driven only 15,000 miles.
I experienced first the tread coming off the tire and then almost instantaneously the tire
blew.
He was upset the dealer offered to replace the tire at 20 percent of cost and he felt
the dealer wasn't doing much to compensate for $250 worth of damage he said the blowout
did to his car.
Firestone Vice President John Flauberg tried to reassure him on the spot.
I'm sorry Mr. Doyle had this unfortunate circumstance but we have a regular system for handling
complaints of this kind and if the store manager to Martinsburg stars are familiar with it
I assure you he will be soon.
And Mr. Doyle's claim with the estimates that you have in your hands Mr. Chairman will be
given all possible favorable consideration.
You have my word for that Mr. Doyle has it for you.
Well I feel also as I stated that I am fearful of the remainder of the tires on the car at
this point.
When it was over a Firestone spokesman told me Mr. Doyle didn't have to come to the U.S.
Congress to get $250 to repair his car but as he and his wife left to drive back to West
Virginia Mr. Doyle said even under the high pressure of a congressional hearing he found
Firestone's response non-committal.
Bettina Gregory ABC News Capitol Hill.
The president today proposed to spend more money to help local communities fight crime
in a ceremony in the Rose Garden.
Mr. Carter said past federal anti-crime efforts have been uncoordinated and ineffective.
Under his plan paperwork will be reduced and funds increased.
The president also outlined a new program to improve security in large public housing
projects where the crime rate is particularly high.
Max.
Across the country Frank the city of Cleveland which has received a one million dollar federal
grant to beef up police presence in Cleveland's public housing projects has run into a problem.
The city had planned to take half of its 50 man public housing force out of their cars
and place them on one man foot patrols but the policeman refused charging that the projects
are high crime areas and foot patrols are too dangerous.
Here in Chicago the city's firemen and police are reported to be seeking a pay hike of between
seven and fifteen percent.
That is not expected to set well at all with the city fathers and out in Michigan the future
doesn't exactly look rosy for any kind of major pay hike for public servants.
Today in Michigan supporters of that state's equivalent proposition 13 filed a petition
calling for a 50 percent across the board tax cut.
The petition was backed by two hundred ninety five thousand signatures by law at least two
hundred and sixty six thousand names are needed to get on the ballot.
Petition supporters had hoped to have a larger cushion they expect that a number of signatures
will be disqualified.
Tax today slightly higher in moderate trading.
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The car is economical very economical use very little gas.
I wanted a mid-sized car and I looked at all of them I ended up with a Buick.
Buick century it's making a lot of sense to a lot of people.
Ladies and gentlemen you are about to see Donald O'Connor scratch his feet.
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Four people are being held hostage in New York City's World Trade Center by a man claiming
to have a bomb.
The story began this morning.
Lynn Sher has been covering it.
He came to the 36th floor of the World Trade Center this morning.
A Polish speaking former machinist who had lost two fingers in an accident at work three
years ago.
Apparently the man, Vladislav Fracek of Brooklyn, was unhappy with the $6,000 damages award
and wanted the state workman's compensation board to reopen the case.
When Fracek entered the courtroom and announced he was carrying a bomb, police evacuated employees
from the 36th and surrounding floors.
Those who didn't get out, the judge, two lawyers and another man.
Adeline Walker was the clerk in the courtroom when Fracek came in.
When told he would need more medical evidence to support his claim, he pulled out what he
said was a bomb.
The guard came to the door.
I motioned for him to open the door.
When he came in, the guard said, the door has to stay open.
The claimant ran to try to shut the door.
That's when I ran out.
The police negotiating team moved in and began to talk with Fracek through translators.
But as of late this afternoon, they were reporting little progress.
Have you confirmed that there is an explosive device upstairs?
No, we haven't.
With all the detecting equipment, you have not been able to tell whether in fact there
is something that could explode.
I brought the dogs in and the dogs have sniffed around.
They haven't come up with anything.
Lynn Sher, ABC News, New York.
The trial of Joanne Little got underway in Raleigh, North Carolina today.
Little is being tried for a prison break, which occurred shortly after she was acquitted
on charges of murdering a prison guard.
Well, today the judge refused to have the trial moved elsewhere and he would not permit
New York attorney William Kuntzler to join Little's defense.
Farmers in some of the western states continue to suffer through a plague of grasshoppers.
In this area, along the Colorado-Kansas border, the pests already have eaten up to 20 percent
of the crops.
Last winter's relatively mild temperatures resulted in ideal hatching conditions, and
where 10 grasshoppers per square yard can eat as much food as a cow and her calf, the
average density has been 50 of those insects per square yard.
Farmers who can't afford to have been spraying, but those who can't, the Colorado legislature
today took activity, or that is action, on a $7 million program to spray all that state's
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The space agency says the Skylab space station has developed power problems again and is
rolling in orbit.
NASA experts say, however, they think they can regain control of the Skylab, which is
being kept in position for docking with a manned space shuttle in late 1979.
In Houston today, a new group of astronauts began preparing for space shuttle missions,
including the first women astronauts and the first blacks.
Science editor Jules Bergman reports.
This is Judy Resnick, age 29.
She has a doctorate in electrical engineering and is one of America's first woman astronauts.
She and 34 other new astronauts began their training today at the Johnson Space Center.
There are five other women and three blacks in Judy's group.
One of the blacks, Air Force Major Fred Gregory, says he hopes he was picked for his flying
ability and not his color.
As a matter of fact, he was picked for both.
Washington ordered that blacks and women be included in the new astronaut program.
None of the six women are test pilots, though one flies small planes.
They are physicians, scientists, and engineers like Judy Resnick.
Titled mission specialists, they will handle experiments and logistics during space shuttle
flights.
Judy Resnick's already been measured for space helmet and suit.
What kind of mission do you want to fly, do you know?
I'd like to fly any mission, actually.
The intent of a mission specialist is to train us to be generalists and to learn a little
bit about every field.
And I don't really have anything particular in mind right now.
I'd be glad to find anything that they let me fly.
Astronaut Resnick got here early and has flown backseat of the T-38 jet trainer.
NASA is using her to test some of its training procedures for women.
So almost 20 years after the first astronauts were chosen, NASA finally has women and black
astronauts.
They'll be flying aboard the space shuttle in two years.
This is Jules Bergman, ABC News at the Johnson Space Center, Houston.
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I would not want to see decreased in any degree the free world protest against the loaded
trials of Sharansky and Ginsburg that began in Russia today.
But it's wise, especially in a time of passion, to realize the limits of our protest.
The Soviet state is founded on suppression.
And the only free election ever held there for the Constituent Assembly in 1917, after
Lenin had already seized government, the Bolsheviks lost.
Of 700 seats, they won 175.
To the main opposing parties, 375.
Lenin simply dissolved that assembly by force and by mass terror set up the dictatorship
which lives on the same artificial foundations today.
To understand the Soviet need for tyranny, think if it were ended.
The peasants would make up a big opposition group immediately.
The non-Russian majority of the Soviet Union would go the way of all national movements
today, demand independence, become ungovernable.
Forced obedience is thus the very air the state lives by.
And it would go to any extreme, even to war, to keep it.
But the situation is not all hopeless for us.
Quiet behind-the-scenes pressure has seen men like Solzhenitsyn released.
And the number of Jews released has been multiplied.
What the Russians cannot stand is highly publicized government-to-government demands to change
their ways.
That they will answer with just such trials as today's.
To tell the world there are limits beyond which they will not go and cannot go and survive.
It's not very pleasant, but it's a fact of life.
We can and should protest their behavior, but we shall have to live with it.
Frank?
Thank you, Howard.
That's our report on the world news tonight.
For ABC News, good night.
This has been ABC World News tonight.
This is ABC.