Marvin Kalb

NBC newsman Marvin Kalb will leave NBC News June 1, it was announced Sunday. Kalb, whose career as a diplomatic correspondent began 27 years ago at the CBS News bureau in Moscow, has been named director of the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Kalb in recent years has also been moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press." Kalb's last broadcast on that program will be May 3.

Marvin Kalb thinks he has the answer to the decline in political discourse and interest in politics: a series of debates and conversations with the major-party presidential nominees, to be covered by the major broadcast networks, cable and public television.

Marvin Kalb thinks he has the answer to the decline in political discourse and interest in politics: a series of debates and conversations with the major-party presidential nominees, to be covered by the major broadcast networks, cable and public television.

NBC chief White House correspondent Chris Wallace will replace Marvin Kalb as the permanent anchor of "Meet the Press." Kalb, longtime NBC diplomatic correspondent who will join the faculty of Harvard University soon, became moderator of the Sunday public affairs program in April, 1983, after three years as a panel member. Wallace will assume Kalb's duties May 10. He will also relinquish the Sunday "NBC Nightly News" anchor job after this weekend's broadcast. His replacement will be named soon.

In response to "Live From Baghdad: Let CNN Roll," by Marvin Kalb, Commentary, Feb. 1: Amazing! Kalb writes as if he never heard of propaganda and its wartime uses. He confuses the self-interest of his own journalistic trade with the interest of his country. The First Amendment may give Peter Arnett and CNN the legal right to act as a conduit for Iraqi propaganda, but that hardly requires the rest of us to admire their disregard of Sir Thomas More's observation that there is a great deal of difference between what can be done and what should be done.

The United States today extended to Syria a ban on sale of chemicals used to manufacture chemical weapons. The ban had been imposed two years ago on such sales to Iran and Iraq to hinder their further use in the 7-year-old Iran-Iraq war. State Department spokesman Marvin Kalb said the government was concerned that Syria may have chemical weapons capability and noted that Syria has taken Iran's side in the war.

Vice President George Bush has declined to participate in an ongoing public television series about the 1988 presidential campaign, "Candidates '88 With Marvin Kalb." He thus becomes the only one of the current presidential aspirants not to be interviewed by Kalb before a studio audience on the weekly, hourlong series. His replacement on the Jan. 3 broadcast, Kalb said, will be former Sen. Gary Hart, newly re-entered into the Democratic presidential race.

Showtime will follow its Nov. 30 premiere of the controversial TV movie "The Reagans" with a round-table forum of journalists, historians, biographers and educators discussing the former president. The discussion, which will originate from Washington on Dec. 1, will be moderated by former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank Sesno.

Halloween night is filled with several weird and scary shows for those who'd rather not brave the ghosts and goblins parading the streets outside. On "The Search for Houdini," a two-hour program from the Orpheum Theatre beginning at 8 p.m. on Channels 5 and 51, psychics will try to communicate with the legendary magician and escape artist, Harry Houdini.

"The Billionaire Boys Club," the real-life "Less Than Zero" story of convicted murderer Joe Hunt and his band of rich schoolmates, begins Sunday at 9 p.m. (Channels 4, 36 and 39) amid protests that airing this docudrama may prejudice the pending murder trials of several club members whose alleged crimes are dramatized in the two-part television movie.

The prestigious Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting was awarded Wednesday to a team of reporters from the Los Angeles Times for their coverage of large contributions to the Democratic Party by influential Asian donors. The Times' "Money from Asia" series triggered numerous investigations, forced the Democrats to return nearly $1.2 million in donations, and sparked a national cry for campaign finance reform.