t7 University of California Berkeley Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Gobind Behari Lai A JOURNALIST FROM INDIA, AT HOME IN THE WORLD With an Introduction by William Randolph Hearst, Jr. An Interview Conducted by Suzanne B. Riess in 1981 Underwritten by The Hearst Foundation Copyright Cc) 1983 by The Regents of the University of California This manuscript is made available for research purposes. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows : Gobind Behari Lai, "A Journalist From India, At Home in the World," an oral history conducted in 1981 by Suzanne B. Riess, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1983. Copy No. Journalist Gobind Behari Lai, at home, 1980 Examiner Photo by Paul Glines TABLE OF CONTENTS Gobind Behari Lai INTRODUCTION by William Randolph Hearst, Jr. i INTERVIEW HISTORY v I INDIA AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 1 Family Life 1 School in Delhi 10 The First Coronation Durbar 12 Indian Independence Movement 15 Har Dayal and University Influences 18 II TO AMERICA, TO LEARN 23 Scholarships for Indians 23 The University of California 24 The Great Rebellion 25 The Power of the University-Educated Man 30 III INDIA, SYSTEM AND CASTE 35 IV CALIFORNIA, FRIENDS AND INFLUENCES 40 Professors at the University 40 Carleton Parker 41 Jessica Peixotto 44 The English Language 45 Anna Strunsky Walling 48 Freedom of Expression 50 V NEWSPAPERMAN, PLUS 52 Psychology of Feet 52 San Francisco Bohemians 54 Lai's Interviewing Philosophy 57 Some Topics of Current Interest 60 VI A SPEECH TO THE SAN FRANCISCO PRESS CLUB 64 Millikan and E=MC 2 65 Cancer Research 69 Lawrence's Cyclotron 71 An Interview with Einstein 73 VII ON SCIENCE AND THE MEN WHO DO SCIENCE 75 Quantum Mechanics and Complementarity 75 Measurement and Ether Drift 78 VIII THE SCIENCE WRITERS AND THE SCIENTISTS 81 NASW and Questions for Einstein 82 The "Supreme Court of Science" 85 Providing Newspapers with Science News 87 Hearst, Sr., and the American Weekly 89 Anecdotes about Medical Science Writing and Other Science Writing 93 IX SOME BELIEFS 98 The New Renaissance 98 Science for the People 100 The Instincts 102 X MORE ON SAN FRANCISCO'S BOHEMIANS 104 Raine Bennett and Company 104 George Sterling, and Mencken 105 The Gathering Places 109 Rationalists, and Believers 110 XI UNDERSTANDING INDIA 114 Rudyard Kipling 114 John Kenneth Galbraith 116 Eleanor Roosevelt 118 A Military Treaty with India 119 Sympathy with the Struggle 121 XII NEHRU AND GANDHI 124 Jawaharlal Nehru 124 Lai's Independence 127 Mahatma Gandhi 128 Some Thoughts of "An Ordinary Person" 130 TAPE GUIDE 133 APPENDICES 134 INTRODUCTION Gobind Behari Lai. It's not a run-of-the-mill name. Whether spoken or printed, it's a name that gets attention. In the printed form it has had tremendous exposure. Over the last six decades it has appeared as a by-line on thousands of stories in hundreds of millions of copies of Hearst newspapers and supplements. In person, too, Gobind Behari Lai commands attention. Not because he is typical of the loud talking, heavy drinking macho male that Hecht and MacArthur created as the not too accurate stereotype of a newspaperman in their great novel, The Front Page. Lai gets attention because he is the antithesis of the accepted mold. Five feet in height, Lai has been called a diminutive giant. In a half century of friendship and working relations, I have never heard Lai raise his voice. He has never smoked and the occasion is rare and very special when he will take so much as a glass of wine. Lai looks, dresses, talks and acts like a gentleman. And is. He is almost courtly in his manner of dealing with others. However, none should be fooled by Lai's kindly demeanor. In the pursuit of a story, he is tenacious and thorough. When on assignment, he is totally committed to getting the facts. During his long career with the Hearst organization, Lai has "gotten the facts" on some of the most important science stories of all time. Even today although he has soared past the 90-year mark he continues to pound out a steady flow of reports on the latest developments in research institutions throughout the world. I met Lai in the late 1920s, shortly after I went to work for Pop's morning the newspaper in New York City, the American . However, my grandmother was first member of our family to meet this soft-spoken, self-assured man of science. That was in 1913 or 1914. During her long tenure as a Regent of the University of California, Phoebe Apperson Hearst tended to make the Berkeley Campus her second home. She was always working on some project and providing her personal funds to improve the quality of education and of life for the thousands of students at the beautiful campus, just across the Bay from San Francisco. ii Gobind Behari Lai had come to California from his native India in 1912. Shortly thereafter, he enrolled at Berkeley. In addition to giving attention to his studies, Lai also devoted a lot of time to crusading for the independence of his native land. In fact, for a short time after his arrival in this country, Lai published a small newspaper committed to his cause. With these extra-curricular activities, it was inevitable that Lai would come to the attention of Dr. Benjamin Wheeler, President of the University. Apparently Wheeler was intrigued with the quiet and courtly young student who spent his spare time firing printed broadsides demanding that the British give India its freedom. In 1914, Lai stepped up his activities when the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand sparked the powder-keg of Europe and The Great War exploded on the world stage. Lai immediately launched a new campaign to keep the United States out of Europe's wars. Lai's position was one that had many followers as well as many opponents. The subject pro and con was widely debated on the campus and elsewhere. During those years, my grandmother frequently invited students and faculty members for weekends at her home in Pleasanton, about thirty miles east of Berkeley. These gatherings often developed into round-table discussions on a wide range of subjects. President Wheeler felt young Lai with his strong views on international matters might provide some yeast for her holidays at Pleasanton. He introduced the gentle firebrand to my grandmother and over the next two or three years, Lai was occasionally invited to the Hacienda. However, Lai did not join the Hearst newspapers under the sponsorship of my grandmother. He was independent minded for himself as well as for his native land and never broached to Phoebe the possibility of working for her son's newspaper. Instead, when he left the University, Lai travelled in Europe for a year or two before returning to San Francisco. Shortly after returning to the states, Lai worked as a reporter for the Daily News, one of San Francisco's evening newspapers . It was not until 1925 that Lai with only his Daily News track record to recommend him sought out Edmund Coblentz, Editor of the San Francisco Examiner, and applied for a position with Pop's first newspaper. Cobbie put Lai on general assignment which meant that he worked under the City Editor covering breaking stories on a wide variety of happenings throughout the Bay Area. ill Lai might have stayed on general assignment for evermore had not one of his stories been on an important scientific development that would have far- reaching impact. Pop, who was always keen about science, medicine, invention and discovery, spotted the story. He liked the way Lai had turned the obtuse and complicated language of the laboratory into terms the average reader could understand. He Pop who was then operating out of New York, did some checking on Lai's talents and general ability and when they proved satisfactory directed that Lai be assigned to the scientific beat. This literally meant the creation of a new post. In the 1920s in fact, until the relatively recent past few if any newspapers boasted a science editor. Obviously, Lai was in the right place at the right time. And his science report caught the attention of the right man. History proves that science was on the launching pad in the 1920s. New ideas, new products, new inventions and new formulae poured from laboratories and research institutions over the next fifty years. In the 1920s, radio was moving out of its swaddling clothes and spawning new ideas in electronic research. Television had made its flickering beginnings in laboratories in San Francisco and the east coast. Aviation won new stature in World War I and was now moving out of the county fair barnstorming syndrome. Some Buck Rogers types of those early days were seriously talking about exploring outer space. Albert Einstein was catapulted into national prominence with his theories on relativity and colleges were expanding their science classes to accomodate a burgeoning crop of future geniuses. Physicists and bio-chemists were working overtime trying to track down the building blocks of life while others were poking and probing at atoms and neutrons and the kind of medical magic that has come to fruition in the years immediately before and after World War II.