This Time, Review Gets the Play

--Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” sent chills through American audiences more than 50 years ago. Now, a new Israeli play has touched a few raw nerves--and it has yet to open. Entitled “The Leak,” the drama, by journalist Matti Golan, describes a fictional Israeli prime minister who shoots himself because his embezzlement of government funds is soon to be divulged. But when Israel Radio aired a review of parts of the play, the station received dozens of phone calls from alarmed citizens. In one segment, a sports broadcaster is interrupted with a news flash: “We have to stop the broadcast of the basketball game. . . . A report received just now says that the prime minister was found tonight dead in his study. His personal handgun was on the floor nearby. A police spokesman said there was no doubt that the prime minister committed suicide.” Ziva Levin, a spokeswoman for the Israel Broadcast Authority, said: “We received dozens of phone calls from alarmed listeners, in spite of the fact that at the start of the review, we warned that the report was only fictional.”

--President Reagan on Sunday returned to the White House after spending the weekend at his Camp David retreat and confirmed that he is weighing a full pardon for Patty Hearst, whose conviction for bank robbery had been commuted on Jan. 19, 1979, by President Jimmy Carter. A full pardon would wipe Hearst’s official record clean. “I’ve asked everybody to look into this for me,” Reagan said. The Times two weeks ago reported that the Hearst case was one of several controversial pardons being considered by the President. David C. Stephenson, the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, is said to be reviewing the case. The newspaper heiress was kidnaped and held hostage by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a terrorist group, and was convicted in 1974 for helping the group rob a San Francisco bank.

--British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher issued a challenge to women, calling on them to skirt male prejudices in order to attain key public offices. Interviewed in the British magazine She, at a time when sex discrimination is reported to be widespread in the country’s business community, Thatcher said: “I want . . . a far bigger proportion of women for . . . public office. There must be so many clever, capable women out there that we do not know about, who have control of budgets in their companies, who would be every bit as splendid as men in public office.” Thatcher, chosen in 1979 as her country’s first female prime minister, presides over an all-male Cabinet.