Maclean's

Cover story

Poland's Hour of Agony

The rumors had been circulating in Warsaw for almost a week. After 15 months of vacillating in the face of demands for reform, Poland’s Communist leadership had had enough. Finally, the time had come for ruthless drastic action against the country’s young, democratic Solidarity trade union.

12

DATELINE: HONDURAS

A balancing act on a tightrope

She lies on a bare black vinyl mattress in a metal crib. The sidebars are capped by a wire mesh dome, secured by a padlock. Her head is shaved. A dirty black dress covers most of her as she lies sucking her fingers. She cannot see or hear; she growls if touched. By Hal Quinn7 min

4

LETTERS

Prince of Peace and puny men

How the heavens must be ringing with the laughter of God in derision as puny men and nations meet once again to establish a futile peace (A Bold Bid for Peace, Cover, Dec. 7). We blithely go on our way, ignoring the Prince of Peace whose birth we supposedly celebrate at Christmas.

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ARCHITECTURE

New architecture rounds the corner

Looking down from his 31st - floor office in Montreal’s Place Ville Marie, David Culver, president of Alcan International, is anticipating his longawaited descent to ground level. Culver’s flight from his eyrie to a 19th-century townhouse on Sherbrooke Street is a move many high-rise office workers would envy.

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BOOKS

Under wraps: kids’ lit

As anyone who was a bookish child remembers, reading was the refuge of the child who didn’t quite fit. Nothing was better for such a kid than getting books for Christmas, because books, in those awkward times from age 8 to 12, could successfully insulate one from the increasingly important judgments of one’s peers. By ANNE COLLINS5 min

26

WORLD

Threats taken in deadly earnest

Whatever the rest of the world may think, President Ronald Reagan now seems convinced that Libya’s Moammar Khadafy is determined to murder him. And last week, there were indeed recurrent, detailed reports that Libyan assassination squads have been dispatched to kill the president, his close advisers and members of his cabinet. By Michael Posner5 min

8

PODIUM

Battle of the sexes recharged

Much has been written in recent years about our inexcusable habit of stereotyping women. I can easily understand why. Women are, indeed, often represented as wearing skirts, heedless of the fact that some of them wear trousers. In careless drawings, it is still customary to depict women with sizable mammary protuberances, though reality would frequently indicate this to be mere wishful thinking on the artist’s part. By George Jonas5 min

38

HEALTH

Pregnancy guilt trips

Sarah Lawton-Speert, a 27-year-old social worker, is in the seventh month of her pregnancy. Standing at a busy Vancouver intersection, she unconsciously holds her breath until the light turns green. She has read an article about the dangers of auto fumes on fetal development. By Eleanor Wachtel4 min

38

COLUMN

Waiting for a spring breakup

The night was clear, the moon was yellow and the peeves came tumbling down. It was 1968, a blacktie dinner at the fusty Toronto Club. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had just spoken to a business group and was taking questions. Asked the president of a U.S. subsidiary: By Roderick McQueen4 min

14

CANADA

Lévesque’s days of decision

René Lévesque needed some comforting. By week’s end, he was physically drawn and emotionally bent under an accumulation of burdens that had culminated in his dramatic Dec. 6 threat to resign from the Parti Québécois leadership at the close of a cathartic party convention. By David Thomas4 min

14

FOLLOW-UP

Flying with clipped wings

President Ronald Reagan’s gettough decision to fire 11,500 illegally striking air traffic controllers in August wreaked overnight havoc on air travel. Suddenly executives, vacationers and jet-setters were hit with major delays and cutbacks, and, in the case of white-knuckled passengers, acute anxiety about the safety of flying the friendly skies. By JANE O'HARA4 min