Leslie H. Gelb

Leslie H. Gelb is the current president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Gelb is associated with the Department of Defense and was director of the Pentagon Papers project (creation of the papers that were eventually leaked by Daniel Elsberg). He then was editor and columnist at the New York Times for twelve years.

Gelb is also on the board of the Baker Institute for Public Policy and reportedly has ties to the intelligence community. Gelb's name has been linked with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is also a Commissioner with the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century / Hart-Rudman Commission and its National Security Study Group.

Career

Gelb entered public life as an executive assistant to U.S. Senator Jacob K. Javits from 1966 to 1967. From there he became the director of policy planning and arms control for internation affairs at the U.S. Department of Defense from 1967 to 1969. From 1969 to 1973 he was both a visiting professor at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Gelb served as assistant secretary of state for political/military affairs for the U.S. State Department from 1977 to 1979. After working as a senior associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1980-81,) he spent the next 12 years at The New York Times as a columnist, deputy editorial page editor, op-ed page editor, national security correspondent, and diplomatic correspondent.

Affiliations

• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Board of Directors
• Global Kids Advisory Council
• New York Times

Publications

Among Gelbs works are "The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked" (co-author, 1980) and "Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unmaking of American Foreign Policy" (co-author, 1984).