Bernard Kalb’s résumé is almost unrivaled. New York Times correspondent. CBS News correspondent and Washington anchorman. Diplomatic correspondent for NBC News. Assistant secretary of state for public affairs. CNN media critic. Author of books on foreign policy and foreign affairs.

And intrepid photographer of Antarctica.

Who knew?

Readers of this newspaper knew in the winter of 1955-56, because Mr. Kalb’s articles and photographs took them to places few had ever seen. (When The Times chased a story to the ends of the earth, it usually got there.)

Many of these Antarctic pictures — and those made by Walter Sullivan, the dean of science reporters, and Allyn Baum, a Times staff photographer — haven’t been seen for a half century. They are every bit as fascinating today as they were then.

“The subject matter screamed with its own appeal,” Mr. Kalb said modestly about photographs that show a confident sense of light and composition. (Slides 1, 2, 5, 7, 12 and 16.)

Mr. Kalb, now 89, has warm memories of the memorably cold posting. They begin with his being called to the desk of the city editor, Frank S. Adams, and told that his next assignment would be to accompany Operation Deepfreeze, the largest-ever United States expedition to Antarctica. It was to be led — at least honorarily — by Rear Adm. Richard E. Byrd, the legendary polar explorer. “I was overjoyed to get the opportunity,” Mr. Kalb said.

His story moves next to Madison Avenue and 45th Street, where Abercrombie & Fitch had its flagship store in the days when the company outfitted adventurers and anglers, not striplings and nymphs. There, Mr. Kalb purchased a two-piece set of extra-warm cashmere underwear for $99 — equal roughly to $800 today, allowing for inflation — and charged it to The Times.

Good luck trying to put that on your expense account these days, Bernie.

Then it was off to Antarctica, via New Zealand, aboard the Glacier, the Navy’s newest and most powerful icebreaker. Mr. Kalb arrived at the bottom of the world on Dec. 17, 1955. Forty days later, he wrote in his journal: “So far so good. Haven’t used the phrase ‘bottom of the world’ in any story. A.P. man, by contrast, crazy about it. However both of us having hell of a time trying to find synonyms for ‘ice.'”

Times Talk (March 1956)

Mr. Kalb was equipped with the last word in newsgathering technology: a manual Olivetti typewriter light enough to perch on his knee and a Rolleiflex camera. By necessity, he filed his dispatches through Navy radio operators, who treated press accounts as low-priority messages. He would send out his undeveloped film rolls whenever he learned that a supply plane was bound for New Zealand.

The A.P. man, Saul Pett, won a coin toss with Mr. Kalb for the privilege of occupying the lone press seat aboard a flight directly over the South Pole, on Jan. 13, 1956.

Mr. Kalb’s ample consolation prize was to find himself cast as Admiral Byrd’s conversational companion. “I was a kid in awe,” he said. Because The Times had been a staunch backer of Byrd’s earlier exploration, the admiral felt especially close to the paper. (In 1929, he had named several Antarctic features after members of the family that owns The Times: Sulzberger Bay, Ochs Glacier, Mount Iphigene and Marujupu Peak — Marian, Ruth, Judith and Punch Sulzberger; the latter a nickname for Arthur Ochs.)

The underwear was such a hot topic among expedition members that the matter finally came to the attention of Admiral Byrd himself, who favored suits in the reindeer line. When told what the underwear was made of, Byrd simply exclaimed, “The devil it is!”

After showing the underwear to his hero, Mr. Kalb felt he could not desecrate the garment by actually putting it on. Once back in New York, he returned it to Abercrombie — unworn.

The Times was given a $99 credit.