Press: Closed Door

After Leslie Gelb resigned as director of the State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in 1979, his former employer, the New York Times, welcomed him back as national security correspondent. His stint in Government, after all, had only enhanced his sources. Last week, however, Gelb was declared persona non grata at a key stop on his beat: the Bureau of Politico- Military Affairs. The director, Lieut. General John Chain Jr., who has been cooperative with journalists, ordered his staff not to speak to Gelb again. The reason was a report by Gelb in the Feb. 13 edition of the Times that described U.S. contingency plans for placing nuclear weapons in foreign countries and Puerto Rico. Before it was published, Secretary of State George Shultz asked the paper to quash the story. Said Chain: “Disclosure of this type of information contributes little to the public’s understanding and serves only to aid our potential adversary.” The Times replied that everything in Gelb’s story had already been reported in the foreign press. Executive Editor A.M. Rosenthal said the development would not affect Gelb’s work: “He is someone sources like because he knows more than the people he is talking to.”