Eddie Adams: Photojournalist won Pulitzer for Vietnam execution picture

Dallas Morning News ^ | 9-20-2004 | AP

[sonofatpatcher2]

Eddie Adams: Photojournalist won Pulitzer for Vietnam execution picture

08:34 PM CDT on Sunday, September 19, 2004 - Associated Press

NEW YORK – Eddie Adams, a photojournalist whose half-century of arresting work was defined by a single frame – a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photo of a communist guerrilla being executed in a Saigon street during the Vietnam War – died Sunday. He was 71.

[Adam's] ...fame resulted from a single photo taken Feb. 1, 1968, the second day of the communists' Tet Offensive, in the embattled streets of Cholon, Saigon's Chinese quarter.

Drawn by gunfire, Mr. Adams and an NBC film crew watched South Vietnamese soldiers bring a handcuffed Viet Cong captive to a street corner, where they assumed he would be interrogated. Instead, South Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, strode up, wordlessly drew a pistol and shot the man in the head.

Mr. Adams caught the instant of death in a photo that made front pages around the world.

In later years, Mr. Adams found himself so defined – and haunted – by the picture that he would not display it at his studio. He also felt it unfairly maligned Mr. Loan, who lived in Virginia after the war and died in 1998.

"Sometimes a picture can be misleading because it does not tell the whole story," Mr. Adams said in an interview for a 1972 AP photo book. "I don't say what he did was right, but he was fighting a war and he was up against some pretty bad people."

Full Obit Here

[sonofatpatcher2]

I did not know until reading his obit that Adams had the feeling he expressed: "Sometimes a picture can be misleading because it does not tell the whole story. I don't say what he did was right, but he was fighting a war and he was up against some pretty bad people."

Still, his photo was used by the MSM to help the anti-war crowd. The photo has, I hope, come back to haunt one of the leading anti-war leaders, John F. Kerry, as shown below:

Justifiable Homicide:

Coldblooded Murder:

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[FreedomPoster]

Effective handling of insurgents documented.

[joesnuffy]

Like many of the Vietnam era journalists ...they went out protected by American troops and then turned on them...

They never went out with VC or NVA troops and turned on them though...wonder why?

It's also too bad Mr Adams didn't travel with the band of VC that went around Saigon and Cholon during TET 68 and photographed them murdering the wives and children of Saigon's policemen who were out fighting VC at the time...

The VC executed had just been caught after killing the family of one such policeman...
The city was also under marshal law...

The head of Saigon security had every right to execute that child murdering VC.....
This was justice during a crisis...

It would have been similar had after 09-11 Muslims began killing the families of 09-11 rescuers
EMTs Paramedics Firemen and Police...

Had the USA been locked down and under marshal law....any Muslims caught killing families of rescuers and police could have legally been executed by those in charge...

The VC got what he deserved...and the officer who shot him..was a hero...some people don't have the stomach to do what is necessary or right...too bad Adams got this pic...because the commies back home like Cronkite used it to sell the Vietnamese and Vietnam vets down the River....where Kerry was ready to shoot them as they tried to swim to shore...

imo

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: "Effective handling of insurgents documented."

Yes, and that documentaion was not done with MS Word...

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[sonofatpatcher2]

joe, you ain't alone in that opinion...

However, certain people think differently:

[madison46]

That guy, my understanding, the one gettig shot, had just killed that police cheif's family. Anyone?

[jwpjr]

re: "Mr. Loan, who lived in Virginia after the war and died in 1998. "

Help me out here, fellow Freepers! This picture was posted here in the last couple of weeks, I thought associated with the death of the general who was shown doing the shooting. The article today says the general died in 1998. Does anyone else recall seeing the photo and some of the discussion of the picture/incident? I searched but could not find anything about it. I recall the article last time had some quotes from people who were the general's neighbors and it talked about him having a business. Thanks! It's not a big deal, but I would like to know that I am not losing my sanity!

[FreedomPoster]

No anachronisms with B&W film, no doubt about it.

Nice cartoon.

[oh8eleven]

Nguyen Van Lem was captured, his hands bound, he was brought in front of the journalists. Loan pulled out his revolver and immediately executed the prisoner. Loan later insisted that this was justified because the prisoner had been the captain of a terrorist squad that had killed the family of one of his deputy commanders.

During the U.S. withdrawal, Loan left Vietnam in 1975. He moved to Virginia and opened a pizza restaurant, which he gave up after his past had been disclosed to the public in 1991. He died of cancer in 1998 in Washington.

[FreedomPoster]

I don't know of the individual details of that case, but in general, the V.C. were killing any civilians even remotely associated with the RVN government or the U.S. There were mass graves found in Hue after it was taken back, for instance, with several thousand killed by the V.C.

That guy was getting what he deserved.

[tdadams]

There are few photos that are almost universally known, and this is one of them.

[Lorraine]

Mr. Loan died in 1998. When I was young and living in Virginia, I worked in an ice cream parlor directly across the small mall from Mr. Loan's pizza restaurant. I came to know he and his family quite well. I had no idea who he was until one day television news crews showed up and started filming and questioning him. I was so shocked when I found out that he was the one in the infamous picture. They ended up having to close the restaurant. I have thought of it often, but never knew the circumstances of why he shot the man until now.

[LadyDoc]

the guy who was executed killed an entire family in cold blood for merely being a south Vietnamese government official.

The guy killing him knew the family.

the photo was widely printed to show how terrible the south vietnamese were...no body showed the bodies of those killed by the "freedom fighters"...

[newzjunkey]

Maybe for people closer to 40 and up...

[tdadams]

I don't think it's that generational. This is an enduring photo and it's probably seen by most people by the time they're in high school.

[fortheDeclaration]

actually the comparsion is not a good one.
That VC was a terrorist.
He was not in uniform
He deserved to be shot on the spot
We should be doing the same with the current terrorists
We did this in WW2
The men that Kerry 'shot'were his own troops

[fortheDeclaration]

"In later years, Mr. Adams found himself so defined – and haunted – by the picture that he would not display it at his studio. He also felt it unfairly maligned Mr. Loan, who lived in Virginia after the war and died in 1998.
"Sometimes a picture can be misleading because it does not tell the whole story," Mr. Adams said in an interview for a 1972 AP photo book. "I don't say what he did was right, but he was fighting a war and he was up against some pretty bad people."

Sounds like a decent man.
RIP

[Aquinasfan]

The VC executed had just been caught after killing the family of one such policeman...

...with a machete.

This certainly was wartime justice. Unfortunately, few people know the true story thanks to the MSM.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Yeah, I posted the thread about General Loan's death several weeks ago and your recollection seems to be on target...

[jwpjr]

Whew! What a relief! I thought I was starting to check out mentally. It really makes me wonder how much of what moves on the news wires is accurate.