Student helps
'Running Brave'
Page 12
k
Tuesday, November 15, 1983
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 85, Number 51
Eugene puts Soviet Union in fishbowl
By Debbie Howlett
Of the Emerald
While the average Soviet isn't likely to put the United
States in a fishbowl as Martha Mautner, an expert on
Soviet-U.S. relations, did Monday night, Soviets are in
terested in the United States "when it becomes a pro
blem,'' Mautner said.
Mautner was in Eugene to discuss "people to people
perceptions" between Soviets and Americans with an au
dience of about 100 people at Harris Hall.
Mautner, the deputy director of the USSR and East
European office in the state department's bureau for in
telligence and research, has 38 years of experience in
U.S.-Soviet relations.
The "people to people perceptions" have definite
political implications, Mautner said.
"We always assume everyone we talk to is a friend,"
Mautner said prior to the lecture. "We tend to turn per
sonal relationships into national relationships." The United
States should deal with the Soviet Union on that basis,
Mautner said.
"We've got this detente era feeling and we are becom
ing disillusioned. It's time we should be disillusioned and
go on from there," Mautner said.
But Mautner's speech addressed a broader topic of
concern — the interaction between the people of the two
countries and how that interaction affects government
dealings.
Because the United States and the Soviet Union are
"diametrically opposed" in every aspect, the pressure from
United States toward the Soviet Union, especially pressure
in the human terms Americans are apt to focus on, is view
ed as "an attempt to ruin the cohesion of the Soviet state,"
Mautner said.
However, the Soviet view of the United States is more
often a matter of one's age, she said.
Citing a tremendous generation gap between the youth
and the aged, Mautner said the young are apt to emulate
and explore the tastes and preferences of other countries,
especially the United States.
However, the old guard, which “make our knee-jerk
reactionaries look like flaming liberals," would prefer to
return to a policy of “Karl Marx as the answer to a maiden's
prayer," Mautner said.
Mautner attributes a severe age spread, at least partly,
to josef Stalin's purges and the toll of World War II. And
the difference in ages has taken on more than just a
demographic significance.
It is with this generation gap that governmental rela
tions between the Soviet and United States will change,
Mautner said.
The politburo, the controlling members of the Soviet's
communist party, are all between 70 and 80 years old and
will soon relinquish control to younger, less idealistic party
members, Mautner said. Youth is no longer inspired by the
political rhetoric that captivated their parents, she added.
For that reason the Soviets tend to display a "milk and
honey” perception of Soviet life, Mautner said. While
restrictions on religion and communication are declining,
the communist party influence is still kept in full view,
Mautner said.
But when the time comes for the younger set to take
control of the communist party, they will still be "clones of
their elders," Mautner cautioned. "But their experiences
will be different," she said. They will not be "hung-up” on
the "old school's concerns."
An example is a Soviet people and government are
Martha Mautner
"very definitely in favor of arms control agreements/'
Mautner said. But acceptance depends on the "terms of
agreement/' Mautner said.
Just as U.S. politicians have to face their constituencies,
Soviet leaders must face a "rigid military that does not want
to give in to anything," Mautner said. And for an arms
agreement to be reached, the military must begin to soften
its stand, she said.
"That's where we're at right now," Mautner said.
Police believe one man
committed six assaults
By loan Herman
CM the Emerald
The sixth incident in a string of
campus-area sexual assault cases occur
red early Monday morning, and police
strongly believe that one person is
responsible for all six incidents, said Sgt.
Rick Allison of the Eugene Police
Department.
In Monday's incident, a 19-year-old
University sophomore was walking
along Agate Street outside her Hamilton
Complex dormitory room, when she was
grabbed from behind by a male suspect
and dragged along Agate Street about
6:30 a.m., police said.
The student elbowed the suspect in
his rib cage, momentarily stunning him,
and ran into her dormitory. The suspect
fled, Allison said.
It was the third such incident in as
many days in the campus area.
Saturday night a 17-year-old University
student was crossing Columbia Street
near her Hamilton dormitory room
when someone grabbed her wrist and
dragged her north along 13th Avenue.
The student, who had stepped outside
about 9:45 p.m. for a breath of fresh air,
pleaded to the suspect to be released.
He continued dragging her along the
street and eventually into the Visitor's
Parking Lot at 13th Avenue and Agate
Street, according to Allison.
When he neared a wooden booth in
the lot, the suspect shoved the student
to the ground and rolled on top of her.
The student scratched the suspect's
face, causing him to yell and roll off her,
and she ran away, Allison said.
About 1 a.m. the next day, police
believe the same suspect was responsi
ble for turning off the electricity within a
University student's apartment at 12th
Avenue and Ferry Street.
When the woman noticed the lights
go off in her apartment, she opened the
outside door and the suspect grabbed
her. She was able to escape the
suspect's grasp and run toward the
apartment manager's door, causing the
suspect to flee.
“I think his pattern is showing some
frustration," Allison said. "He’s trying
almost daily with no success. I'm afraid
of (the suspect committing) physical
violence because of his frustration."
The suspect is described as a white
fnale in his late 20s to early 30s, 6 feet 3
to 4 inches tall, about 165 pounds, with
brown collar-length hair and a "heavily
pock-marked face." The suspect usually
wears dark clothing.
Police believe the same suspect is
responsible for three related crimes as
well, the most recent occurring Nov. 2.
In that incident, the suspect entered a
campus-area home about 8 p.m. and
threatened a 21-year-old University stu
dent with a knife when she refused to
disrobe. The suspect fled the student's
home when he was confronted by her
roommate.
On Oct. 30 a Carson Hall resident,
who said her room had been locked,
was sodomized about 5:30 a.m. in her
dormitory room.
In what police believe was the
suspect's first reported incident, a Smith
Hall resident was sodomized in the pre
dawn hours in her dormitory room on
Sept. 13. The suspect fled when the stu
dent screamed, Allison said.
Allison urges anyone with information
relating to these cases to contact him at
the University's Public Safety Office,
686-5444.
Allison is "very confident" the suspect
has attacked other victims, as well, and
"if those victims came forward, they
might give us the information we need
to solve the case."
Because the suspect has attacked vic
tims only when it is dark, Allison cau
tions students to never walk alone at
those times. A Student Patrol escort ser
vice will escort students on campus and
within a two-block radius around cam
pus from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. every night. To
contact the service, call 686-5444.
Contraceptive court case
resumes in Eugene today
By Michele Matassa
Of the Emerald
A federal court case in which 15 Oregon
women are suing the manufacturer of the
Daikon Shield intrauterine device resumes
this morning in downtown Eugene after a
four-day break.
The trial of Pamela Van Duyn's case
began Nov. 7. The entire case is expected to
last several weeks.
Opening today's testimony in the Van
Duyn case will be the conclusion of a taped
1981 deposition by a quality control
employee who testeid the product during
the early 1970s.
In Thursday's portion of the tape, Eldrin
Crowder said tests showed that a multifila
ment tailstring used for removal of the con
traceptive device did not fulfill its function
and did increase the chance of pelvic
infection.
"I believe that bacteria could invade the
(normally sterile) uterus using the core of
the string as a channel,” Crowder said.
That testimony supported the plaintiffs'
claim, which charges manufacturer A.H.
Robins Company with product liability,
negligence and fraud. The women argue
that use of the Daikon Shield led to pelvic
inflammatory disease, permantly damaging
their reproductive organs.
In his opening statement for the plaintiffs
Nov. 8, Eugene attorney Michael Williams
claimed that the design of the Daikon
Shield's tailstring provides a "wick” for
bacteria to travel into the uterus.
"The reason that we're going to prove the
Daikon Shield was so highly related to in
fection and caused so many infections is
because it provided a highway for the
bacteria to get through the cervical plug
and up into the uterus,” Williams argued.
He said that Virginia-based Robins failed
to tell anyone when it was looking for an
alternative to the multi-fiber tailstring.
"At the time they are doing this (looking
for an alternative), they are busy selling
millions of these devices all over the coun
try, and they know there is a problem with
wicking and bacteria," he said.
Robins' attorney, Carol Hewitt of
Portland, stressed in her opening statement
the reliability of Robins as a pharmaceutical
agency.
"A.H. Robins is a reliable and highly
regarded pharmaceutical company. It has
always used caution and great responsibili
ty in marketing its drug products," Hewitt
said.
"The Daikon Shield was the most
thoroughly tested intrauterine device that
had ever been put on the market. It was
tested in more than 8,000 women before
Robins ever sold it nationally," she argued.
Expanding on other causes of pelvic in
flammatory disease, Hewitt said "it was not
the Daikon Shield ‘ that caused these
women's infection."
She said more than one million women
nationally, 10,000 in Oregon, contract the
disease yearly. And two percent to four per
cent of sexually active women become in
fected, Hewitt said.
She listed multiple sex partners, earlier
cases of the disease, age (under 25), prior
abortion, abdominal surgery and no
previous childbirth as factors that should
be considered while diagnosing the cause
of the disease.
The plaintiffs' first witness, Shanna
Swann, an epidemiologist from the Univer
sity of California at Berkeley, testified
Wednesday that IUD use "significantly in
creases a woman's risk of pelvic inflam
matory disease."
Swann cited six studies that, to her, show
ed "the Daikon Shield has a significantly
greater risk of pelvic inflammatory disease,
and particularly among woman who use the
device for three years or more," Swann
said.
In cross-examination of Swann, Hewitt
stressed it was only Swann's "opinion" that
Daikon Shields increase risk of infection.
Hewitt also focused on other causes of
disease, saying that statistics relating it to
Daikon Shield use are useless when taken
without considering other factors.
Swann said the statistics can be used
separately.
The court will spend a few weeks on the
Van Duyn case, then will proceed more
quickly through the remaining cases, said
presiding U.S. District judge Robert Belloni.
Van Duyn is suing for a total of $1 million
in compensatory and punitive damages.