H-I AND CO IN THE NUCLEAR DISK OF NGC-4261

We detect radio absorption from neutral gas in the nuclear disk of NGC 4261 seen in front of the nuclear radio source. The gas surface densi ty is consistent with that inferred from the dust optical depth and a gas/dust ratio near the Galactic value. The moderately high velocity d ispersion of the gas suggests that the disk orbits would decay rapidly unless the disk is in essentially solid body rotation. The absorption seen in NGC 4261 is consistent with that expected in dust torus ''uni fied models'' of radio galaxies, but similar absorption is only seen i n a relatively small fraction of radio galaxies.