Published in the Chicago Tribune on September 17, 2013
Loyal Gould, a
former Associated Press foreign correspondent who later chaired journalism
programs at Ohio State, Wichita State and Baylor universities, has died. He
was 86. Among the highlights of Gould's career was filing almost hourly
from Berlin when East Germany's communist rulers built the Berlin Wall in
1961. Gould reported on life in East Berlin after the wall was completed
and escorted President Richard Nixon and his daughters when they toured the
wall, which divided the city until 1989. Gould died Sept. 8 at his home in
Chicago, six years after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, according to
his wife, Yanling Li Gould. "He was given 18 months to live when he was
diagnosed in 2007," she said. "He lived longer than anyone's expectations.
He fought hard." Gould joined the AP in Nebraska in 1957 as the statehouse
correspondent in Lincoln. He was named a foreign news editor and U.N.
correspondent in 1958. From 1960 to 1965 he reported from Europe for the
AP. Gould was born in 1927 in Chicago and studied in Germany and
Switzerland before graduating from Florida State University. He later
earned a master's degree and doctorate in Germanic philology - the study of
languages - from the University of North Carolina. He was an instructor at
Texas Technological College and a reporter for the Amarillo Globe-Times
before going to work for the AP. Gould, who served in a U.S. Navy
underwater demolition unit during World War II, also reported on the trial
of 21 Germans who served in Auschwitz during the Holocaust and the
opposition of most Germans to such war crime trials. After working a year
for NBC News in Europe and Asia, Gould was named the director of the
international journalism program at Ohio State in 1966. He moved on to
chair the journalism department at Wichita State in 1970, and chaired
Baylor University's Department of Journalism from 1974 to 1993. After
stepping down from Baylor, Gould hit the lecture circuit, promoting an
uncensored press in both Africa and Asia. Gould's first wife, Ilse, died in
2000. In addition to his second wife, he is survived by an 8-year-old
daughter, Loyan Ebba.