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Nguyễn Ngọc Loan aims his pistol at Nguyễn Văn Lém.
Saigon Execution

Saigon Execution, also called Street Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner, is a 1968 photograph by Associated Press photojournalist Eddie Adams.[1] Taken during the Tet Offensive, it depicts South Vietnamese brigadier general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing Viet Cong captain Nguyễn Văn Lém[a][b] near the Ấn Quang Pagoda in Saigon.[3] The photograph was published extensively by American news media the following day,[4] and would go on to win Adams the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.[3]

Background

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Nguyễn Văn Lém was a VC captain.[2] He and his wife Nguyễn Thị Lốp lived as undercover arms traffickers in Saigon, trading tires as a front business.[5] He went by the code name Bảy Lốp.[2][c] At the start of the Tet Offensive, he was instructed to assassinate prominent figures who stood opposed to the VC, including Loan, United States army general William Westmoreland, and South Vietnamese president Nguyễn Văn Thiệu.[6]

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was the chief of the Republic of Vietnam National Police (RVNP),[7] and brigadier general of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).[3] He had anticipated the Tet Offensive, and was responsible for coordinating the ARVN response in Saigon – including leading the RVNP to capture the Ấn Quang Pagoda, which the VC were using as a base of operations.[8]

Eddie Adams was an Associated Press (AP) war photographer. Having worked previously as a US Marine,[9] He had a reputation for being fearless, taking pictures close to danger, and for often being "in the right place at the right time".[10] Adams was in Saigon to cover the Tet Offensive, and on February 1, 1968, he heard about fighting in An Quang.[11] He met with National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) journalist Howard Tuckner, along with cameramen Võ Huỳnh and Võ Suu, and soundman Lê Phúc Đinh. They shared a car to Chợ Lớn to cover the conflict.[3]

Execution and photograph

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Võ Suu's video of the execution, broadcast on NBC's Huntley–Brinkley Report, February 2, 1968.[12]

The NBC and AP crews arrived at the Ấn Quang Pagoda the same morning, and having seen nothing of interest by noon, were preparing to leave.[11] Then, they saw Lém, captured by ARVN marines, being walked up the street. The NBC cameramen began filming.[d][3] The Marines stopped at the Pagoda, where they presented Lém to Loan.[e][3] Loan instructed a marine to shoot him. The marine was reluctant, so Loan unholstered his gun. Adams believed Loan only did so to intimidate Lém, but nonetheless prepared to take a photo. As Loan fired his gun, Adams took the picture.[11] Suu's video camera followed Lém as he dropped to the ground, blood spurting out of his head.[13] Loan addressed the journalists:[14]

Many Americans have been killed these last few days, and many of my best Vietnamese friends. Now do you understand? Buddha will understand.

Effects

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The event received extensive attention in the US over the coming days; the photo was published on most American newspapers the following morning, and 20 million people saw the NBC's film of it on The Huntley–Brinkley Report that evening.[15] Various other organizations and American politicians commented on the event.[16]

The photograph is commonly characterized as having created a massive shift in American public opinion against the war. Historian David Perlmutter found little to no evidence to support this claim.[17]

Press coverage

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American public opinion

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Legacy

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Interviews of Eddie Adams

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Scholarly analysis

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Footnotes

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  1. ^ Born 1933;[2] Vietnamese: [ŋwiəŋ˨˩˦ vaŋ˧˧ lɛm˧˥]; code name Bảy Lốp[2] (pronounced [ʔɓa(ː)j˨˩˦ lop̚˦˥])
  2. ^ In this Vietnamese name, the surname is Nguyễn. In accordance with Vietnamese custom, this person should be referred to by the given name, Lém.
  3. ^ Bảy means "seventh child".[2][5] James S. Robbins wrote that Lốp was inherited from his wife.[2] Virginia Morris wrote that it came from their front business.[5]
  4. ^ Võ Huỳnh and Võ Suu were on opposite sides of the street. Huỳnh carried a silent film camera, and Suu a sound-on-film camera.[3]
  5. ^ After capturing the pagoda, Loan was using it as a base of operations himself.[11]

Citations

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  1. ^ Malkowski 2017, p. 58.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Robbins 2010, p. 145.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Bailey & Lichty 1972, p. 222.
  4. ^ Braestrup 1983, p. 348.
  5. ^ a b c Morris & Hills 2018, p. 25.
  6. ^ Robbins 2010, pp. 145–146.
  7. ^ Robbins 2010, p. 93.
  8. ^ Robbins 2010, p. 150.
  9. ^ Robbins 2010, p. 151.
  10. ^ Robbins 2010, p. 152.
  11. ^ a b c d Robbins 2010, p. 153.
  12. ^ Bailey & Lichty 1972, pp. 224–7.
  13. ^ Robbins 2010, p. 154.
  14. ^ Bailey & Lichty 1972, p. 223.
  15. ^ Perlmutter 1998, p. 36.
  16. ^ Robbins 2010, pp. 160–163.
  17. ^ Perlmutter 1998, pp. 40, 43–44, 47, 49–51.

References

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  • Bailey, George A.; Lichty, Lawrence W. (June 1, 1972). "Rough Justice on a Saigon Street: A Gatekeeper Study of NBC's Tet Execution Film". Journalism Quarterly. 49 (2): 221–238. doi:10.1177/107769907204900201. ISSN 0022-5533.
  • Braestrup, Peter (1983). Big story: How the American press and television reported and interpreted the crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington (Abridged ed.). London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-89158-012-3. OCLC 932324854. OL 3491247M.
  • Hariman, Robert; Lucaites, John Louis (2015). "Street Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner, Saigon, 1968". In Hill, Jason E.; Schwartz, Vanessa R. (eds.). Getting the picture: The visual culture of the news. London: Bloomsbury Academic. doi:10.4324/9781003103547. ISBN 978-1-4725-2422-5.
  • Harris, John M. (December 5, 2018). "Icons of Horror: Three Enduring Images from the Vietnam War". In Kerby, Martin; Baguley, Margaret; McDonald, Janet (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Artistic and Cultural Responses to War since 1914: The British Isles, the United States and Australasia. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-96986-2. ISBN 978-3-319-96986-2. LCCN 2018960999.
  • Malkowski, Jennifer (2017). Hill, Jason E.; Schwartz, Vanessa R. (eds.). Dying in Full Detail: Mortality and Digital Documentary (2nd ed.). Durham and London: Duke University Press. doi:10.4324/9781003103547. ISBN 9780822373414. LCCN 2016034893. OCLC 1103683280.
  • Morris, Virginia; Hills, Clive A. (2018). Ho Chi Minh's blueprint for revolution: In the words of Vietnamese strategists and operatives. Jefferson: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1-4766-6563-4. OL 26958194M.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  • Oberdorfer, Don (March 1, 2001). Tet!: The turning point in the Vietnam War (New ed.). Garden City: Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6703-3. OCLC 45137661. OL 7870734M.
  • Perlmutter, David D. (1998). Photojournalism and Foreign Policy: Icons of Outrage in International Crises. Praeger Series in Political Communication. Westport: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-95812-4. ISSN 1062-5623. LCCN 98-16908.
  • Robbins, James S. (2010). This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive (First American ed.). Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1-59403-229-5. LCCN 2009049374. OCLC 1409354676. OL 23972233M.
  • Zohar, Ayelet (September 3, 2021). "An Exploration of the Scarcity of Asian Images in Morimura Yasumasa's Oeuvre, 1991–2010". Third Text. 35 (5): 569–590. doi:10.1080/09528822.2021.2000241. ISSN 0952-8822.
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