White House appoints a communications aide

The White House has appointed a new communications czar, Monitor correspondent Richard Cattani reports. David R. Gergen was named assistant to the President for communications, in charge of the White House press office, speech writing, and publicity on communications efforts.

Mr. Gergen, a tall, scholarly graduate of Yale College and Harvard law school , will share daily press- spokesman duties with deputy press secretary Larry Speakes. Mr. Speakes now has the office, but not the title, of press secretary James Brady, still hospitalized after being wounded in the assassination attempt on the President. Mr. Brady is kept abreast of White House activities against the day of his eventual return to duty.

Gergen's appointment strengthens the presence of moderate Republicans in the White House. He, like chief of staff James Baker III, helped in the presidential campaign of George Bush last year. He previously had held research , speech writing, and communications roles in the Nixon and Ford White Houses, and more recently was managing editor of Public Opinion, a journal of social and political trends published by the Am erican Enterprise Institute here.