Bernard Kalb

Bernard Kalb (February 4, 1922 – January 8, 2023) was an American journalist, moderator, media critic, lecturer, and author.

Kalb was born in New York City on February 4, 1922,^[1] the son of Bella (Portnoy) and Max Kalb. His father was a Polish Jewish immigrant and his mother was a Ukrainian Jew.^{[2] [3]} He graduated from the City College of New York with a B.S.S. and later received an M.A. from Harvard University.^[4]

Kalb covered international affairs for more than three decades at CBS News, NBC News, and The New York Times . For nearly half of that time he was abroad, based in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Paris, and Saigon.

Near the end of his tenure at the Times, Kalb received a fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations—awarded annually to a foreign correspondent—and took a leave from the newspaper for a year.^{[citation needed ]}

Bernard Kalb and his younger brother, journalist Marvin Kalb, traveled extensively with Henry Kissinger on diplomatic missions and they later wrote a biography titled Kissinger. The brothers also co-authored The Last Ambassador, a novel about the collapse of Saigon in 1975.^[5]

In 1984, Kalb was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and spokesman for the U.S. State Department. It was the first time that a journalist who covered the State Department had been named as its spokesperson.^[6]

Kalb quit this post two years later to protest what he called "the reported disinformation program" conducted by the Reagan Administration against the Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi.^[7] Kalb said, "you face a choice, as an American, as a spokesman, as a journalist, whether to allow oneself to be absorbed in the ranks of silence, whether to vanish into unopposed acquiescence or to enter a modest dissent. Faith in the word of America is the pulse beat of our democracy".^[8]

In his later career, Kalb traveled as a lecturer and moderator. He was the founding anchor and a panelist on the weekly CNN program Reliable Sources from 1993 to 1998.^{[citation needed ]}

Kalb won an Overseas Press Club Award for a 1968 documentary on the Vietcong.^[9]

Kalb and his wife, Phyllis Bernstein, had four daughters. He turned 100 on February 4, 2022.^[10]

On January 2, 2023, Kalb suffered a fall and died from his injuries six days later at his home in North Bethesda, Maryland. He was 100.^{[11] [12]}

• Appearances on C-SPAN

• 1922 births
• 2023 deaths
• 20th-century American journalists
• 21st-century American journalists
• Accidental deaths from falls
• Accidental deaths in Maryland
• American men centenarians
• American expatriates in France
• American expatriates in Hong Kong
• American expatriates in Indonesia
• American expatriates in Vietnam
• American male journalists
• American male non-fiction writers
• American television reporters and correspondents
• American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
• CNN people
• City College of New York alumni
• Harvard University alumni
• Jewish centenarians
• Journalists from New York City
• NBC News people
• Television anchors from New York City
• The New York Times journalists
• United States assistant secretaries of state
• United States Department of State spokespeople

• All articles with bare URLs for citations
• Articles with bare URLs for citations from August 2022
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use American English from January 2025
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Use mdy dates from January 2023
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023
• People appearing on C-SPAN