THE REAL SHULTZ?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302240035-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2012
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: March 7, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302240035-6
&SRQAD AT HOME I Anthony Lewis
The Real Shultz?
BOSTON
n public as in private life, nastiness
defines the character of its perpe-
trator. So we are reminded by the
Gelb affair: the State Department's
attack on Leslie H. Gelb of The New
York Times.
In Washington the episode is evi-
dently being treated as a case of petty
tyranny by one cranky official, or as a
bad joke. But it is not petty and not
funny. It gives us ugly insights into
the state of mind of the people who
hold power in this country today. And
it raises painful questions about the
Secretary of State.
Leslie Gelb is a colleague and
friend of mine. But it is not just my
opinion that he is one of the country's
outstanding chroniclers and analysts
of national security affairs. His hall-
mar. ks are care and an eye for the
larger meaning of events - charac-
teristics in evidence when, last
month, he wrote about U.S. contin-
gency plans to deploy nuclear depth
charges in Canada, Iceland, Ber-
muda and Puerto Rico.
The information had already been
published in those countries, and had
led to sharp public debate. Mr. Gelb's
article put the matter in military and
political context. It emphasized that
the President had not approved the
plans and that the other Governments,
though they did not know before the
news broke, would have to approve be-
fore any actual deployment.
Mr. Gelb undertook to limit.the facts
to what had appeared abroad, omit-
ting other, sensitive material. Presi-
dent Reagan's national security advis-
er, Robert C. McFarlane, directed the
State Department to cooperate with
Mr. Gelb on the story. Mr. McFarlane
and Secretary of State Shultz asked
the editors of The Times to withhold
the story; the editors declined, noting
that others knew all about it and that
only Americans were not informed.
Despite that history. of care and
confidential exchange with officials,
Mr. Gelb was subjected to an extraor-
o inary attack after the story ap-
peared. It came from Lieut. Gen.
John T. Chain Jr., director of the
State Department's Bureau of Politi-
co-Military Affairs - a job that Mr.
Gelb held from 1977 to 1979.
General Chain said the article "im-
pacts on our national security capa-
bility." He forbade his staff to talk
with Mr. Gelb. He had Mr. Gelb's pic-
ture removed from a wall where it
had hung along with pictures of other
past directors. In the frame he put a
sign saying, ".Removed for Cause.
The P.M. Director, 1977 to 1979, did
willingly, willfully, and knowingly
publish, in 1985, classified informa-
tion the release of which is harmful
and damaging to the country."
A few days later General Chain
lifted the order against his staff talk-
ing to Mr. Gelb. He also removed the
sign from the picture frame, but he
did not replace the picture. And be re-
iterated his grave charge against Mr.
Gelb.
It is easy to dismiss General Chain
as someone with the gravitas of a
petulant 3-year-old. But what be did
- what he is still doing - cannot be
so easily dismissed. He has used the
weight of office to bring what
amounts to a charge of treason, with-
out due process or any kind -of law,
against a person of demonstrated
patriotism and thoughtfulness.
General Chain reflects something
much larger: the zealotry that
seethes inside the Reagan Adminis-
tration. Taking a picture off the wall
is a perfect symbol of it. Those pic-
tures in Washington offices show
that, in America, government rises
above party. Or did until the offices
were taken over by people who know
there is only one right answer-'to
everything - and who want to dictate
The Truth to the press.
Gelb affair
raises hard
-questions,
It is one thing to ask the press to
withhold a story, as Presidents and
others have done before now. It is
quite another to call a reporter a trai-
tor when his paper rejects the re-
quest. Many times in our history pub-
lication has helped, not harmed, na-
tional security. But the Reagan peo-
ple, uninterested in history, want un-
challengeable power.
Where is George Shultz in all this?
He came to office with a reputation as
a man of quiet dignity and norideo-
logical conservatism, but lately he
has been sounding shriller every day.
And in the Gelb affair he has come
across as either a zealot himself or a
man too weak to challenge the bullies.
Mr. Shultz has said nothing about
General Chain's degrading perform-
ance. .His spokesman, Bernard Kalb,
said bureau chiefs decide such things
on their own - so "the Secretary ac-
cordingly supports" the general.
There is only one decent way out of
this affair, and George Shultz must
know it. That is to apologize to Leslie
Gelb and instruct everyone in the
State Department to stay out of the
smear business. D
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302240035-6