Who Was Bernard Kalb? Former Journalist And State Department Official Dies At 100

Veteran American journalist and former State Department spokesperson Bernard Kalb died Sunday at the age of 100.

He had spent his final moments at his home in Maryland's North Bethesda. Kalb died from complications from a recent fall, his brother Marvin Kalb informed CNN.

"We are all grateful for the many years we have been able to spend with a truly remarkable human being," he told the outlet.

Kalb, known as a seasoned print and broadcast journalist, has had stints with The New York Times, CBS, NBC and CNN. He is also remembered for his 1986 resignation from the State Department to protest against the government's "disinformation campaign," The Washington Post reported.

Who was Bernard Kalb?

Born in February 1922 in Manhattan to immigrant parents, Kalb went on to graduate from City College of New York in 1942. He married Phyllis Bernstein in 1958.

Kalb's first big break in journalism is considered to be with The New York Times in 1955. He was picked to cover "Operation Deep Freeze," when he accompanied adventurer and polar explorer Richard E. Byrd to the South Pole. The expedition lasted nearly four months, the Washington Post reported.

After working for NBC for about five years, Kalb made the switch to the State Department in 1985 during President Ronald Reagan's administration. He served as the assistant Secretary of State for public affairs, a job that he later defined as an "opportunity that came out of some marvelous blue."

Kalb decided to step down as a government executive after Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward reported that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was a target of a "secret and unusual campaign of deception" scheme of the U.S.

Kalb said he was unaware of the alleged plan and resigned.

"You face a choice...whether to allow oneself to be absorbed in the ranks of silence, whether to vanish into unopposed acquiescence or to enter a modest dissent," he said at a State Department presser.

For his last major stint with the U.S. media, Kalb joined CNN and served as a lead panelist for the channel's "Reliable Sources" show between 1992 and 1998.