Jim Michaels is the top editor at Forbes magazine, a position he has held for almost 40 years, making him one of the senior-most journalists in the business.

After serving in World War II, Michaels joined the New Delhi bureau of the United Press wire service in the last months of the Raj. In 1948, he beat the competition (by several minutes) to the biggest story of his life: the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. It was his story that was carried on the frontpages of most of the big newspapers around the world the next day. He has visited and reported on India several times over the years and his magazine continues to cover the subcontinent on a regular basis.

Below is an excerpt from the first story to announce the death of the Mahatma & and another from the funeral coverage the next day.

Gandhi's Assassination: 'Bapu [father] is finished'
By James Michaels

[excerpt begins]

New Delhi, January 30, 1948: Mohandas K. Gandhi was assassinated today by a Hindu extremist whose act plunged India into sorrow and fear.

Rioting broke out immediately in Bombay.

The seventy-eight-year-old leader whose people had christened him the Great Soul of India died at 5:45 p.m. (7:15 a.m. EST) with his head cradled in the lap of his sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Mani.

Just half an hour before, a Hindu fanatic, Ram Naturam, had pumped three bullets from a revolver into Gandhi's frail body, emaciated by years of fasting and asceticism.

Gandhi was shot in the luxurious gardens of Birla House in the presence of one thousand of his followers, whom he was leading to the little summer pagoda where it was his habit to make his evening devotions.

Dressed as always in his homespun sacklike dhoti, and leaning heavily on a staff of stout wood, Gandhi was only a few feet from the pagoda when the shots were fired.

Gandhi crumpled instantly, putting his hand to his forehead in the Hindu gesture of forgiveness to his assassin. Three bullets penetrated his body at close range, one in the upper right thigh, one in the abdomen, and one in the chest.

He spoke no word before he died. A moment before he was shot he said--some witnesses believed he was speaking to the assassin--"You are late."

The assassin had been standing beside the garden path, his hands folded, palms together, before him in the Hindu gesture of greeting. But between his palms he had concealed a small-caliber revolver. After pumping three bullets into Gandhi at a range of a few feet, he fired a fourth shot in an attempt at suicide, but the bullet merely creased his scalp.
[excerpt ends]

o o o o o

Creamation: 'Gandhi Still Lives'
By James Michaels

New Delhi, January 31, 1948: The body of sainted Mohandas K. Gandhi today was committed to the flames of the burning ghat as violence touched off by his assassination flared anew in Bombay.

The ancient Hindu ceremonial was carried out on the banks of the Jumna, one of the five sacred rivers of India, in a demonstration of national grief.

Devadas Gandhi, eldest son of the slain leader, touched fire to the pyre to consume the earhtly remains of India's great soul.

For the moment India's capital was unified by grief over Gandhi's death.

His body was borne through the streets of New Delhi and Old Delhi in such a procession as India had never seen. As the cortege passed, the hundreds of thousands of mourners left their places and followed the bier in a procession that wound more than five miles long behind Gandhi's body.

At the banks of the Jumna, the huge mass of humanity, wailing and weeping, packed around the newly bricked burning platform for as far as the eye could see.

Gandhi's body was placed on the pyre with wood heaped below and around it.

While the crowd raised a cry: "Gandhi! Gandhi! Gandhi!" Devadas began the ceremony.
[excerpt ends]

From "A Treasury of Great Reporting: Literature Under Pressure from the Sixteenth Century to Our Own Time" edited by Louis L. Snyder (Simon & Schuster 1949).