In 1964, he was hired by The Washington Post to open a bureau in Bonn and report on Germany and Eastern Europe. Next, he was moved to the Moscow bureau, where his reporting on dissidents and the political role of the army got him expelled in 1969.
Shub was married to Joyce Lasky (sister of Floria Lasky) with whom he had a son and daughter; they later divorced. He then married the author Barbara (née Bellman) Raskin, the former wife of progressive social critic Marcus Raskin; the marriage also ended in divorce.