(FORTUNE Magazine) – ''Kindly run a Nexis search on the Center for Defense Information,'' shrilly demanded the Keeping Up analyst on the social issues desk, his voice cracking like Henry Aldrich's, ''as it is next to impossible for present company to tell from the attached New Yorker article why anybody old enough to wear knickerbockers would turn to the CDI if interested in acquiring a little sincere defense information.'' The New Yorker article was really a caution. A loving profile of Admiral Gene Robert La Rocque, founder and guiding spirit of the CDI, it scaled new heights of slavering uncriticalness with respect to the profilee, a military man turned peacenik. ''In almost every field, there are a few individuals who dare to break ranks and resist what seems their destiny,'' was author Herbert Mitgang's typically heavy-breathing comment on this transition. Your correspondent waited impatiently to see how Mitgang, who usually writes about cultural matters for the New York Times, would handle the part about La Rocque's appearance on Soviet television. This occurred in 1983, when the Russians were rudely asked by the Reagan Administration to let some American voices be heard in the Soviet Union for a change (because so many Bolsheviks were getting access to the airwaves in the U.S.). A weekly Soviet show called International Panorama responded by giving six minutes to Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam but then following him with La Rocque. Gene naturally criticized U.S. plans to deploy the MX, added that Reagan was not sincere about arms control, and left the Soviet commentator burbling with glee. Mitgang brings several different thoughts to this escapade. His big insight is that the ensuing attacks on La Rocque reflected bigotry and pique in your average admiral; in addition, La Rocque is sympathetically quoted about the utter unfairness of Time in running an ''ugly little picture . . . that looked as if I were scowling'' in its story about the broadcast. While loath to overrate the centrality of the ugliness issue, we must mention that the picture is not unflattering and the man is not scowling. Our Nexis search was really most discouraging. It turns out that the center is actually taken seriously in the press and gets mentioned a whole lot. The typical news story is one citing CDI data that somehow put down the Pentagon, or defense contractors, or the U.S. defense buildup. Altogether, Nexis turned up 108 CDI citations in the New York Times, 62 in the Washington Post. Several were stories about various glitterati who support the organization. Paul Newman is a director and frequent appearer for CDI, and hamburger heiress Joan Kroc, reputedly worth $640 million, has unfortunately bought La Rocque's ideas and given money to the center, putting a sorrowful new light on the numerous occasions when yours truly gave in to the kids and stopped at McDonald's. We intuit that Gene, Paul, and Joan feel seized by a profound insight: Nuclear war would be terrible. They weirdly fail to see that everybody else knows this too and furthermore that speaking baby talk to the Russians is not necessarily the best way to forestall nukery. So here we are looking at a UPI story about La Rocque's enthusiastic participation this summer in the great Mississippi Peace Cruise, whose climax featured Soviet agents and American innocents in Davenport, Iowa, singing ''Give Peace a Chance,'' and exchanging ''hugs, kisses, flowers, balloons, and literature,'' possibly including the New Yorker.