THE GELB AFFAIR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100480017-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: November 10, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

CAT
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100480017-0
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE_ V7/
ALEXANDER COCKBUR.N
game. In 1977 The Tunes ran a long series by -John
The Tunes is becoming so freigbtCd witll conflicts of in- Crewdson critical of ties between journalists and secret
terest, actual or potential, that I'm surprised it doesn't just government operations. The Times presumably believes in an
run a disclaimer notice in place of the editorials. The most ob- independent press in Western Europe as well as in the United
vious example in recent dayshas *,paper's continued States. The paper is now in the awkward position of having as
use of Claire Sterling as a repoo,cr of tiyt cireu nstances Sur- one of its most prominent reporters someone who not long
rounding the attempt ou the PopC'.s life, ago was advocating covert interference.
As disturbing as the use-of SterUpg is the Pasc of Leslie There are other serious problems. Gelb, today a journalist,.
Gelb, national security correspondent for The Times. Gelb refuses to divulge matters to which he was privy as a govern-
worked in the Pentagon (where he,supqvised the compiling ment official in 1978. For a servant of government this may
of the Pentagon papers) before removing, to the Brookings be admirable, but what about a servant of the press? It is not
Institution and thence to The Tunes, where-he served as na- as though Gelb were the gardening correspondent- His beat
tional security correspondent before joining Cyrus Vance's covers the terrain with which he was concerned when he was
State Department'es director of the Bureau of politico- at the State Department. Much of his journalism since he
Military Affairs. His. place at the newspx.~per was taken by returned to The Times has concerned the missiles and kindred
Richard Burt, who later, with Ragan, assumed Gelb's old weaponry whose virtues he was seeking to promote in 1978.
position at the. State Department. Gelb returned to his job There is presumably other information acquired when he was
at - The Times after a stint at the ,Carnegie Endowment, in government that he feels duty-bound not to share with his
On October 23, Walter Pincus, who covers the national readers. But is this a seemly credential for a national security
security beat for The Washington Post, disclosed a recent correspondent?
study undertaken by the Center for. Prgss,.Politics and Public It depends on how one views Gelb and how realistic one
Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School, which revealed that in cares to be about the supposedly disinterested objectivity with
1978 Gelb helped set up a covert C.I,A, program to influence which a reporter approaches his beat, particularly the na-
the European press to write approvingly. about the' neutron tional security beat. As such things go, Gelb has, in the pres-
bomb. The program was desi&.ned to cause "U.S. sym- ent context of The New York Times and particularly when
pathizers and agents in the European press to give more measured against the scandalous performance of Richard
favorable press coverage to the bomb, either for money or for Burt, been mostly a moderate and well-informed ..ice in
free." The Harvard study said that the program had been favor of arms control, though of course he accepts the usual
suggested in two State Department memorandums written in premises of the cold war. So a realist could make an assess-
The Gelb Affair
January 1978. One, by Gelb, was titled "Proposal. for Action
in Response to Soviet And-Neutron Bomb Campaign," and
the other, by Gelb and George Vest (then Assistant Secretary
of State for European and Canadian Affairs, the post now
occupied by Richard Burt), was called"`Covert Action to
Counter International Anti-Neutron $omb- Forum.".
The study concludes that the covert' program was under-
taken and that it met with some success., European coverage
of the neutron.bomb changed markedly in the spring of 1978.
Pincus's story quoted "one official" involved in the program
as saying Gelb was "the only one'who questioned" the use of
covert tactics. Pincus reported that Gelb "would not com-
ment on his role in the operation or how it'turned out." Two
days later The New York Times ran a story by Philip Taub-
man which was shorter, thanPincus.'s but slightly less
agreeable to Gelb. Taubman quoted the study as saying Gelb
"was a leading advocate of the covert program.." He cited no.
official to claim a more beneficent role for. him. Gelb.said he
could not recall details of the propQsals buf insisted that they
were intended to supplant.more, ambitious. plans.. . . j
None of this was iIlegaI, C I A jai tin_lat the agency's .
use of U.S., journalists; foreign hacks are considered fair
NATION
10 November 1984
ment of Gelb's overall political trajectory and not grieve ex-
cessively about what he did in 1978. Those who would argue
that this is shortsighted ex parte relativism should take up my
demand that all national security correspondents submit to
public confirmation hearings in the Senate.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100480017-0