HOW N.Y. TIMES HURT U.S. NATIONAL INTERESTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302240031-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2012
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: March 16, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/14: 6IA-RDP90-00965R000302240031-0
CLB1700
ON PAGE 49
HUMAN EVENTS
16 Marcn 1985
I WEEK'S NEWS FROM
_ Insid ashington
IW
How N.Y.Times Hurt U.S. National Interests
_
Americans concerned about the abuse of power
by the liberal media have a new semi-hero?Lt.
Gen. John T. Chain Jr., the director of the State
Department Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs.
In response to a New York Times reporter who
disclosed- top-secret information, the general has
publicly said, in effect, "Shame on you!"
Ironically, the Times reporter, Leslie H. Gelb,
was director of the Bureau of Politico-Military Af-
fairs in the Carter Administration. This fact, in
Chain's view, made the disclosure even more
serious and irresponsible.
In a front-page story on February 13, Gelb
reported the contents of a classified U.S. govern-
ment document on U.S. nuclear weapons strategy.
He resealed the names of the countries identified in
the document as possible recipients of U.S. nuclear
weapons and also described the recise character-
_
of the weapons that might be deployed in
such an emergency.
The document had been given to the Times by an
associatc of-the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a
controversial think-tank often criticized for cozy-
ing up to Communist regimes. How IPS got hold
of this document is a question that observers say
should be answered by the Justice Department.
As a result of the story, Gen. Chain barred his
staff from talking to Gelb. Moreover,. Gelb's
photograph in the State Department ? put there to
honor his service in the Carter years was ordered
removed.and 'in its place was inserted the state- ?
_
. "Removed for cause;The P.M. [i.e. Gelb) did ?
willingly; -willfully and knowingly publish in 1985
classified information,' the release of which is
harmful and damaging to the country."
Gen. Chain has since backed down from these
strong actions. He lifted the -order barring mem-
bers of his staff from talking to Gelb and the state-
ment replacing the photograph has also been
removed. However, the photograph itself has not
been returned, and Gelb is sore about it.
"I would like the picture restored and my good
name restored as well," Gelb told us. He said Gen.
Chain's actions were "totally uncalled for."
Gelb's story was written in such a way as to sug-
gest that countries which enjoy the protection of
the U.S. nuclear umbrella have the automatic right
to know how they might fit into U.S. nuclear
defense strategy. But the document itself dealt with
a hypothetical situation and the countries named in
it ? though not told in advance of the plans ?
would be free to accept or reject the deployment of
U.S. nuclear weapons.
Gelb noted in his story that the document had
already been the subject of press coverage in other
countries and had caused an uproar in some be-
cause they had not been "informed" by the. U.S.
Administration of their possible role. What Gelb's
story succeeded in doing was cause even more of an
uproar.
. One of the countries named in the document, for
example, was Canada. On the same day that Gelb's
article appeared;-the-conservative-government -of -
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney came under in-
creasing internal pressure to pledge not to allow
U.S. nuclear weapons on Canadian soil under any
circumstances.
The fear expressed by Administration of-
ficials is that these countries may be pressured
into following the example of New Zealand,
which recently announced that it would not
even allow U.S. warships with nuclear
weapons or propelled by nuclear power to
dock at its ports.
The role in the controversy played by the In-
stitute for Policy Studies ? an organization ex-
tremely critical of 'U.S. nuclear policy?was
acknowledged in the part of Gelb's story that was
continued back on page 12. He noted that the
document, dated 1975, was "apparently" given to
authorities in Canada, Iceland, Bermuda and
Puerto Rico by William M. Arkin, who was identi-
fied as just "a nuclear weapons expert at the Wash-
ington-based Institute for Policy Studies." Arkin
also "made available" the document to the Times.
When we asked why he did not disclose the left-
wing orientation of the IPS, Gelb said it wasn't his
general practice to describe organizations on either
side of the political spectrum. "Once you get into
the business of labeling," he said, "that is a way
of discrediting or pigeonholing." He said what an
organization says "should speak for itself."
But in the opinion of internal security and intel-
ligence experts, the IPS is an organization that
should be exposed and discredited. The group has
been criticized over the years for serving Com-
munist aims.
In 1983, for example, when the IPS staged a
"conference on disarmament" in cooperation with
two agencies of the Soviet regime, 10 members of
Confirmed
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/14: CIA-RDP90-00965Ronnm994nm1 _n
-
DeCia-s-sified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302240031-0
? the?U.S.?Senate blasted- 4he?Soviet agencies_as..
? "fronts for. Soviet intelligence" and the IPS as a
group "which has for 20 years consistently sup-
ported foreign policy objectives that serve the in-
terests of the Soviet Union." More than 75 mem-
bers of the House also blasted the affair. ? -
Gelb, as a former top. official of the State
Department, must have realized that the IPS pur-
pose in distributing the secret document was to
discredit or undermine U.S. foreign _policy. The
key question is why he went along with the effort.
Gelb said that he would stand by the statements
made by his superiors on why it was published. .
In effect, the Times has claimed that Gelb's arti-
cle contained no information that hadn't been pub-
lished elsewhere and that he received guidance
from the State Department so he would report the
information in a "responsible manner."
On the first claim, one official told us, "That
doesn't address the moral issue. It's information
that's harmful and damaging to the U.S. Whether
it's been published elsewhere doesn't mean that
you have to again make it public. If it's wrong to
publish it, it's wrong whether it's been published
elsewhere before or not. 'Putting the information
out on the front page of the New York Times under
the name of a respected journalist certainly gives it
- more visibility." , ?
On the second claim, the Official said the State
Department in no way encouraged or approved the
?
story. The official added that Gelb was not fur-'
nished with any additional information but was
told that the information he did have could be
; damaging to the U.S. ? Indeed,' the Times has
acknowledged that Secretary of State George
?
Shultz asked the paper to withhold the story.
? Gelb himself admitted that his own story was go-
' ing to cause_problems for the government he once ?
served. Referring to reports about the secret docu-
ment that had appeared in other countries/ Gelb
wrote:
"Administration officials expressed concern
that further disclosures would contribute to what
they called a growing 'nuclear allergy' around the
world?recently evidenced in New Zealand and
Western Europe?to any kind of involvement with
nuclear weapons."
Gelb's February 13 story, in which he disclosed
the names of the countries identified as possi-
ble recipients of U.S. nuclear weapons in emer-
gency circumstances, was followed by another
story on February 14 identifying four other loca-
tions for the possible deployment of such weapons.
Again, Gelb cited a report provided by "the Wash-
ington-based Institute for Policy Studies" as his
source.
This report, however, was not a secret U.S.
document. It was written by William Arkin.
whom Gelb had described in his first story as a
"nuclear weapons expert."
' Arkin's official title is "Director of the Arms
Race and Nuclear Weapons Research Protect" of
the IPS. He is the author or co-author of several
books and articles on nuclear weapons He's
described former
analyst with the U.S. Army in Berlin"d
former senior staff member of the left-wing Center
for Defense Information in Washington.
When Arkin was asked if he would talk to
HUMAN EVENTS about his role in the Gelb con-
troversy and his distribution of the secret docu-
ment in other countries, he said, "Why should I
talk to you? You're going to do a story." He
said, "absolutely not," to the question, "Don't
you like HUMAN EVENTS?"
However, Arkin did simmer down long enough
to hand over to us a copy of his report, dated
February 1985, which was the basis for Gelb's ad-
ditional disclosures on February 14.
"This report will discuss U.S. contingency plans
for deployment of nuclear weapons and the grave
political impact such plans can have," it states. "As
the public furor over these plans demonstrates, the
excessive secrecy which hides U.S. nuclear deploy-
ment plans can injure alliances .and foreign rela-
tions."
ut the problem wasn't the secrecy. It was the
unauthorized disclosure of that secret information
to a left-wing activist and its publication by a New
York Times reporter who officials say should have
known better.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/14 : CIA-RDP90-00965Rnnnln9 9Arlrl'" 1 n