From ABC News, The Weeknd Report, here's Tom Gerald.
Good evening. The nation's capital tonight is a city preparing for the upcoming
Superpower Summit, where the Soviet and American leaders are expected to take a
first step toward nuclear disarmament. As President Reagan and Soviet leader
Gorbachev did their homework for the summit today, demonstrators took to the
streets of Washington and Moscow demanding freer immigration for Soviet
Jews. We have reports first, Lark McCarthy in Washington.
Open up the iron door! Five, six, seven, eight! Let our people immigrate!
More than 200,000 people turned out to demand that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
allow more Jews to immigrate. Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel was among the
March leaders, along with former refuse-nik Nathan
Sharansky, who spent nine years in a Soviet jail.
Entertainer Pearl Bailey summed up the message in song. Let my people...
Vice President George Bush echoed that theme.
Mr. Gorbachev, let these people go. Let them go. Let them go.
President Reagan sent a letter of support, and speaker after speaker called for
true glass noses, openness, and open doors. We want to
believe that glass noses applies to Jews,
but so far it has not. But until they are all allowed out,
there is no glass noses. No missiles and tanks,
no camps and prisons can extinguish the light of candle of
freedom.
Light one candle for all we believe in.
About 8,000 Jews will be allowed to leave the Soviet Union this year,
compared to 900 last year. These demonstrators fear
exit visas could be cut after the summit. This demonstration was carefully timed
to bring the glare of international publicity
to the cause of Soviet Jewish immigration.
Organizers succeeded in staging a major rally, but the goal is major reform
from Mikhail Gorbachev.
Lark McCarthy, ABC News, Washington.
This is Rick Enderfurth in Moscow. The demonstration was organized by Jewish
activists to call attention to the refusal of the Soviet Union to grant
them exit visas, and Soviet authorities paid attention.
They brought in counter demonstrators to crowd them out.
Plainclothes policemen made certain that offending banners did not stay up very
long, and several scuffles broke out, including
this one involving CNN reporter Peter Arnett,
who was detained for several hours. And tonight on Soviet television, both
refuseniks and the press were denounced for worming their way into the rally
sponsored by the authorities and disrupting it. Still, there was
another side to the human rights story in Moscow today.
These Jewish refuseniks, some denied permission to emigrate from the Soviet
Union for more than 10 years, were recently told they were free to go.
And with Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union up sharply,
there is some hope that the Kremlin's human rights policy
may be changing. Despite this significant increase in Jewish immigration,
the Soviets' human rights policies will remain high on the agenda when Mikhail
Gorbachev arrives in Washington. And today's incident
with a refusenik demonstration may be added
to that agenda. Rick and Deferred, ABC News,
Moscow. There was another demonstration on another important human rights issue
today in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House.
About 750 people gathered there to demand an end
to the eight-year-old Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Since Soviet-backed government today released nearly 2,400 prisoners under a
new amnesty program, eventually 5,000 prisoners will be
released.
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The primary focus of this week's summit will be the signing of a new treaty to
eliminate medium-range nuclear missiles. But President Reagan and Soviet leader
Gorbachev will be looking beyond that to a potentially more important agreement,
limiting long-range nuclear weapons. More now from Kenneth Walker.
Even before the official signing of a treaty banning intermediate nuclear
weapons, Secretary of State Schultz on This Week with David Brinkley said the
focus of this week's summit will be on edging closer to a strategic arms
treaty. The next things on our agenda of arms control
are first of all here the strategic arms
effort to reduce those drastically 50 percent.
It's a very desirable objective. Chief arms negotiator Max Campelman said both
sides in Geneva last month produced a draft treaty that settled most of the
outstanding issues. There are still some important issues
that are to be resolved. Those include
disagreements on so-called sub-limits or the number of missiles based on land in
the air or at sea. Another sticking point is how each side
can verify that the other's not cheating. But the most crucial sticking point
remains what it was in Reykjavik last year
when the president and Gorbachev agreed to the concept of a 50 percent cut in
nuclear forces. President Reagan's SDI program that would
intercept Soviet missiles. Star Wars is the problem.
It is or will be maybe the correct way to put it will be the problem in the
future because up till now it's not yet there it's on the
drawing board. The Soviets have given every indication
that secretary Gorbachev is bringing new proposals designed to break the impasse
over SDI. If he does US officials say there should
be no reason why president Reagan can't sign such an agreement at another
summit next year in Moscow. Kenneth Walker ABC news at the
White House. ABC News live summit coverage will begin
tomorrow on Good Morning America when Soviet leader Gorbachev
makes a stopover in Great Britain for talks there with Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher. We'll also bring you coverage of Mr.
Gorbachev's arrival here in Washington scheduled for 4 45 p.m eastern time
Monday.
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homestyle entrees? Monday the summit begins with Gorbachev's
arrival in the U.S. and later the unprecedented verification measures of
the new arms treaty on ABC's world news tonight with Peter
Jennings. The war in the Persian Gulf heated up
today as Iranian gun boats attacked two tankers
bearing the flags of neutral countries. Iranian forces inflicted severe damage
to one vessel and caused a loss of life on the other.
Details now from Jim Hickey. Smoke from the stricken Singapore tanker in Norman
Atlantic could be seen 50 miles away. Up close it was an
inferno. Fire from bow to stern. She had been
ripped her captain said by rocket propelled grenades from Iranian type
speed boats. The distress call could be heard on
radios across the southern gulf.
Filled with highly flammable naphtha fuel the tanker was rocked by explosions for
hours after the attack. It was so dangerous ships were warned
to stay far away. This is Oman Navy major explosion risk.
All shipping remain five miles clear. All 33 crewmen were rescued
unhurt but aboard another tanker this Danish
vessel one man was killed when it was attacked earlier in the day.
A rescue helicopter crashed on deck and the tanker crewman died before he could
be taken to a hospital. Today's attacks occurred within
view of U.S. Navy warships escorting American oil tankers through
the gulf. Once again driving home how dangerous
the Navy mission here can be. Jim Hickey ABC News in the gulf.
In Haiti they're stopping stocking up on groceries bottle water and other
necessities in anticipation of a nationwide general strike said to begin
tomorrow. Major presidential candidates and trade
unions have called for the strike to force free elections and oppose the
ruling military junta which just last Sunday canceled Haiti's
first scheduled presidential elections in 30 years
after pre-polling violence broke out.
It's all as if something's up. What is it?
I just got back from spot checking 10 stores in the southwest.
We're cutting our throats out there. They don't have it by the advertising.
We have no inventory control. We have no common link.
Wrong department. Excuse me could you tell me the price of this lamp?
Uh I mean it's affecting our whole attitude.
Look every time we add a store we build a new phone system
from scratch. Do we have the number of the downtown store? No I don't have.
No I don't have that for you. The competition isn't sending sympathy cards.
If we don't tie our locations together pretty quick
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floor too long.
Tell me what you need to make it happen.
Live from Washington the Reagan Gorbachev summit all this week on Good
Morning America.
Finally tonight an exhibit which literally does reach out and touch
someone. In New York City celebrities from the
world of entertainment and politics have been captured in an unusual art form
especially planned for the blind or those who are sight impaired roughly
eight million Americans. The story now from Ned Potter.
In a New York lobby Mayor Koch meditates. Whoopi Goldberg wears a serene smile.
Stevie Wonder grins from ear to ear. One feels Stevie Wonder do you know?
Oh he has a big smile. He does. These are life casts exact moldings of famous
faces. Artist Willa Shallot has created them
so that blind people can touch them and in effect see these celebrities for
the first time. It allows them to make contact with a
world that often excludes them. Okay here is Michael J Fox.
He has like a baby face. Willa Shallot has made life casts her life's work.
My blind friends have told me that they consider very tacky to touch people's
faces but they are comfortable touching the life cast.
Shallot has made moldings of 1500 faces and her studio is crowded with them.
Richard Nixon peers from the wall as she spreads wet gauze on her assistant's
face. It's a bandage that has a special kind of
plaster in it that sets in only one minute.
The resulting shell is used to make a bronze colored mask.
Some are on display in New York at the Jewish Guild for the Blind.
It's so wonderful to be able to have something that I can enjoy whether
visually or tactfully. It's marvelous. Most visual art is frustrating for the
blind but this is an art form that reaches out to them.
Ned Potter, ABC News, New York. And that's our report for tonight. I'm
Tom Jarrell for all here at ABC News. Good night. From Washington this has
been the Weekend Report. Tomorrow watch World News Tonight with
Peter Jennings for a complete look at today's top stories.
The Weekend Report is a presentation of ABC News.