Time
72
COVER: Fatal Attraction hits gold as a nightmare parable of sex in the '80s
Warning: Fooling Around May Be Hazardous to Your Health. In its story of a married man who has a quick, hot affair and then lives (just barely) to regret it, the film taps a nerve of anxiety to become the decade' s zeitgeist hit. -- Stardom comes to Actress Glenn Close, whose homicidal character can be seen as an avenging angel of feminism. See CINEMA.
34
WORLD: Amid hope and skepticism, Central America' s peace plan goes forward
A crucial deadline is met as Nicaragua agrees to talk to the contras about a cease- fire. President Daniel Ortega Saavedra tells why in a Time interview. Meanwhile, in the region' s key trouble spots, Nicaragua and El Salvador, life remains hard. -- Gorbachev cautiously denounces Stalin' s crimes. -- Habib Bourguiba, ruler of Tunisia for three decades, is ousted.
54
BUSINESS: To avoid a recession in 1988, Washington makes a sacrifice: the dollar
By pouring money into the economy and easing interest rates, the U. S. allows the dollar to plummet against other major currencies. Although most economists agree the dollar' s fall is inevitable, it is a dangerous move that will carry a new set of economic risks. Meanwhile, the U. S. is making progress toward cutting its budget deficit and encouraging global economic coordination.
18
Nation
Marijuana use wrecks Douglas Ginsburg' s Supreme Court omination. -- Caspar Weinberger retires, and the Pentagon gets Frank Carlucci, a battlewise bureaucrat less leery of compromise. -- Homely but authentic, Paul Simon is moving ahead in the Democratic presidential race. -- Winds of change in Mississippi.
66
Medicine
In Brazil an international medical team tries out an experimental drug on victims of the West' s worst radiation accident.
68
Religion
An era ends for the Religious Right, as Jerry Falwell departs from Moral Majority and Candidate Pat Robertson looks to the future.
87
Books
Margaret Thatcher' s Britain makes a rich subject for Margaret Drabble' s tenth novel. -- A sardonic memoir of 40 years at the U. N.
94
Health & Fitness
Judging the shape you' re in? What counts is not how much you weigh but how much is fat. -- At last, the exercise Laundromat.
96
Theater
Cinderella, Rapunzel and Little Red Ridinghood meet in Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim' s brilliant new Broadway musical.
98
Essay
The death of a battered New York City child raises pity, fury and a question: How are you to react when you hear a scream in the night?
10 Letters
14 American Scene
83 People
86 Sport
90 Sexes
95 Video
97 Dance
98 Milestones
Cover: Photograph by Herb Ritts