Iconic Image 5

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This month's Iconic Image is...

The Saigon Execution

Intro:

This photograph depicts a violent execution of an unarmed Vietnamese man by a South Vietnamese officer. It was snapped a fraction of a second after the gun had been fired. This image would cause international outrage and come to symbolize the brutality of the Vietnam War. It would also call into question, how photographs should be treated and whether they tell the whole truth of what they depict.

Part I

In late January of 1968, the communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army launched a series of coordinated attacks on dozens of South Vietnamese cities and American fortifications. These attacks were launched during the Vietnamese holiday known as, Tet. Therefore, these series of attacks on South Vietnam would be forever known as, the Tet Offensive. Despite catching the Americans and South Vietnamese by surprise, the vast majority of the attacks were quelled within 24 hours (the exception was the ancient city of Hue which took about a month). 

Among the American and South Vietnamese servicemen, were thousands of journalists and photographers who documented the Tet Offensive. One of them was, Eddie Adams of the Associated Press. During the Offensive, Adams was located in the backstreets of the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon. He noticed a small group of armed soldiers pushing a handcuffed man who was wearing plainclothes. Suspecting that something was about to happen, Adams followed the group to the edge of the street. As the group seemed to spread out, the prisoner stood still in the middle of the road. All of a sudden, one of the soldiers (who was clearly an officer) went for his sidearm (a Smith and Wesson Bodyguard revolver) and put it to the prisoner's head.

Adams quickly raised his camera and snapped a photograph as the gun went off. The prisoner's knees immediately buckled as a he collapsed to the ground (blood gushing from his head). Some of the soldiers spat and kicked his body while others recoiled in shock. The officer then put his sidearm back in it's holster and simply walked away as if his business was finished.

Part II

A total of three individuals are depicted in the photograph. They are the prisoner, the officer (who would later become a general), and a foot soldier to the officer's left. The foot soldier has never been identified. However, both the prisoner and the officer's identities are known.

The officer's name was, Nguyên Ngoc Loan. At the time, Loan was in command of the South Vietnamese National Police. When asked about the incident and how it would make him look, Loan responded with indifference. Immediately after the execution, Loan looked at Eddie Adams and said, "They killed so many of my people and of yours. I think Buddha will forgive me". Three months after the execution, Loan was interviewed by anti-war activist, Oriana Fallaci. When she asked him about it, Loan responded, "He wasn't wearing a uniform and I can't respect a man who shoots without wearing a uniform. Because it's too easy: you kill and you're not recognized. I respect a North Vietnamese soldier because he's a soldier, like myself, and so he takes the same risks that I do. But a Viet Cong in civilian clothes - I was filled with rage". 

The prisoner in Adam's photograph has also been identified. His name was Nguyên Van Lém. As General Loan had noted, Lém was indeed a captain in the Viet Cong army and an ardent communist. During the Tet Offensive, Lém had taken a small group of Viet Cong guerrillas into Saigon while disguised as civilians on a pilgrimage. The group then made their way to the homes of South Vietnamese soldiers and policemen who were on leave for the Tet ceasefire. They proceeded to massacre dozens of servicemen and their families in their own houses. By the time his unit was dispatched by American and South Vietnamese soldiers, at least 200 people were dead.

Among the dead from Lém's attack was a close friend of Colonel Loan's. Lieutenant-Colonel Nguyên Tuan, his wife, six of his children, and his mother had all been brutally murdered while they were eating dinner together. Tuan's nine-year-old son, Huan Nguyên (who later joined the American Navy) was the only survivor. 

Eddie Adams took a few more pictures before returning to the Associated Press's headquarters in Saigon. Adams later said that after dropping off his photographs, he went to lunch and, "...didn't think anything of it". It was war. That's how I felt. I had seen so many people die at that point in my life". He never could have predicted how this one image would forever change the public perception of war and the role of the Press in exposing it's brutality.

Epilogue:

When it was released, it sent waves of shock and outrage across the United States. The brutal summery execution of Nguyên Lem turned many American people against the war. It showed a severe dark side to the Vietnam War that many people had not seen before and did not wish to see again. 

After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, General Nguyên Loan fled with his family to the United States of America where he was granted asylum. In 1978, the House of Representatives had General Loan investigated for the summery execution of Captain Lém in 1968. The Library of Congress concluded that Loan had violated South Vietnamese law when he had conducted the summery execution in Saigon. Attempts to deport him back to Vietnam (where he would have likely been executed) were blocked by President Jimmy Carter. General Loan spent the rest of his life running a pizza parlor (while continually receiving death threats from anti-war activists) in the state of Virginia. He died on July 14, 1998, at the age of 67. Despite all the trouble it caused him, Loan never blamed Adams for taking the picture.

Eddie Adam's photograph ultimately received the Pulitzer Prize. However, when he learned of all the damage it had done to General Loan's reputation, Adams stated that he wished he had never taken it. After Loan's death in 1998, Adams wrote a statement to the Time magazine. It read, two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapons in the world. People believe them; but photographs can lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, "What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American people?" Adams himself passed away on September 19, 2004. 

The Saigon Execution remains one of the most iconic yet infamous images ever taken of the Vietnam War. It showed both the agony of war and the ugly truth about what war is. However, the image is also infamous because of what it failed to say. Today, many people look at this image with sympathy for General Loan. While his actions that day can be considered unprofessional (and illegal) for a man in his position, they can also be seen as a human reaction (one of both grief and anger at losing a friend to a violent attack). This image has a message that can be interpreted in many different ways. Ultimately though, it is up to the viewers to decide what it really means.

http://100photos.time.com/photos/eddie-adams-saigon-execution

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/02/01/a-grisly-photo-of-a-saigon-execution-50-years-ago-shocked-the-world-and-helped-end-the-war/

https://medium.com/history-through-the-lens/the-saigon-execution-da8f16c2366

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1998-07-17-1998198007-story.html

https://people.com/archive/unforgettable-vol-53-no-17/