1968: Nguyen Van Lem
February 1st, 2009 Headsman
Around noon of February 1, 1968, in the opening days of the communist Tet Offensive, South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan summarily executed a Viet Cong prisoner on the streets of Saigon — and photographer Eddie Adams captured perhaps the war’s most unforgettable image.
An American cameraman also captured it in on celluloid. Caution: The last few seconds of this clip show … well, a man being shot in the head at point-blank range.
Though the image brought Adams the Pulitzer Prize, he would express discomfort with it later in life, and eulogized General Loan in Time magazine when he died in the U.S. in 1998.
The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera … photographs do lie, even without manipulation.
For Adams, the lie was the omission of context — that the plainclothes Lem had allegedly just been caught having murdered not only South Vietnamese police but their civilian family members; that Loan was a good officer and not a cold-blooded killer.
Adams’ editor has said that many such summary executions were taking place during the Battle of Saigon — a broader context to the image no matter its specific fairness to the executioner.
But of course, the shot gained its deeper resonance from the growing disgust with the Vietnam War … and from its concise tableau of a century’s brutality. Here is a frozen image of Orwell’s boot stamping on a human face, forever.
Like any great work of art, Adams’ serendipitous photograph took on a life of its own … and a tapestry of meanings richer than its creator could ever have intended.
Also On This Date
Possibly Related Executions
Entry Filed under: 20th Century, Borderline "Executions", Capital Punishment, Death Penalty, Execution, Guerrillas, History, Martyrs, No Formal Charge, Notable Participants, Occupation and Colonialism, Popular Culture, Public Executions, Revolutionaries, Scandal, Shot, Soldiers, Summary Executions, USA, Vietnam, Wartime Executions
Tags: 1960s, 1968, battle of saigon, capitalism, communism, eddie adams, imperialism, journalism, nationalism, nguyen ngoc loan, nguyen van lem, photography, photojournalism, pulitzer prize, tet offensive, vietnam war
February 1st, 2009 at 8:02 am
The fact that there were “many summary executions” without trial does not excuse this one. The “But mom, all the other kids are doing it” defense has never been accepted in a court of law.
The only evidence we have that the victim was a criminal is from the mouth of his killer.
Nguyen Ngoc Loan never faced justice for his murder, and in fact lived out a life of relative ease in the United States. He should have been tried for war crimes.
February 1st, 2009 at 3:38 pm
In my opinion, this is easily the most powerful photograph of all time. The calmness of General Loan sandwiched between the tension on the faces of the soldier on the left and Nguy?n V?n Lém just speaks volumes about how treacherous this war was. Everytime I watch the video, I still jump when Loan fires the shot.
February 1st, 2009 at 8:52 pm
War sadly is war, whether you photograph it or you don’t photograph it.
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
It’s an amazing composition; that just makes its spontaneity so much more remarkable.
This would be a completely different picture if the executioner’s chest and/or the prisoner’s back faced the camera.
May 1st, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Yes, this photogaph is power full, but a photograph is like a book. One has to read the whole book to understand it. The executed individual was a Viet Cong member. The Viet Cong did one thing and one thing only, which was to murder innocent members of the legitimate government of South Vietnam.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:35 am
Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan should have been tried for war crimes. Just why did the story come out that Nguyen Van Lem (the Vietcong captive) was a murderous person? I suppose that these are only the words of the general in defense of himself specially when his American neighborhood learned of his real identity.
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:20 am
War is stupid, when will man accept this and refuse to go off to fight for some rich jerks.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:43 am
[...] Isaac Newton which was guest-blogged by the author of a recent book about the case February 2009: Nguyen Van Lem, the Viet Cong summarily executed in a famous Vietnam War photo and newsreel January 2009: Ted [...]
November 9th, 2009 at 11:29 am
There was no war crime here, however shocking the action may have been. A combatant in war, as Lem was, is required under the laws of war to fight in a clearly recognizable uniform. Lem was waging war in ordinary clothing, for the purposes of not being recognized as a combatant. Under the laws of war, such a combatant has no rights under the Geneva Convention or any other protocol. They can be summarily shot if the captor so chooses. And so they chose.
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:21 am
Susan Sontag’s book, Regarding The Pain Of Others maintains that this photo was staged. The prisoner was led out to the street where a group of journalists were waiting. What I found hard to stomach was the war crimes museum in Ho Chi Minh.