Bernard Kalb, journalist and author whose career spanned six decades, dies at age 100

Bernard Kalb, the journalist, author and former U.S. Department of State spokesperson who resigned in protest, has died. He was 100.

The veteran foreign correspondent died of complications from a fall, said his younger brother, Marvin Kalb.

Bernard Kalb got his start during World War II, working for a camp newspaper in the Aleutian Islands under editor Dashiell Hammett, who would go on to write detective novels including “The Maltese Falcon.”

After two years in the Army, Kalb worked for The New York Times from 1946 to 1961, starting at the radio desk and moving to overseas assignments. Those included a four-month stay in Antarctica and a stint in Indonesia.

Moving to CBS in 1962, he returned to Southeast Asia, then joined his brother in covering the State Department in Washington. They moved together to NBC in 1980. In 1984, Bernard Kalb went to work as a spokesman for then-Secretary of State George Shultz under former President Ronald Reagan.

In 1986, the federal government launched a disinformation campaign after U.S. airstrikes on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s compound earlier that year, duping the dictator into thinking he was about to be attacked again. After the Washington Post exposed the campaign, which Kalb didn’t know about, he resigned.

“I am concerned about the impact of any such program on the credibility of the United States,” he said at the time. “Anything that hurts America’s credibility, hurts America.”

Kalb later returned to journalism, becoming the founding anchor of “Reliable Sources” on CNN from 1992 to 1998.

“Bernard Kalb was an important figure in journalism, and his pioneering efforts to hold our profession to account are immeasurable,” CNN Chairman and CEO Chris Licht said in a statement.

Kalb is survived by his wife, Phyllis, and their four daughters.

With News Wire Services