Photographer who captured Viet Cong execution dead at 71 (Eddie Adams)

[Khephra]

NEW YORK -- Eddie Adams, a photojournalist whose half-century of work included countless magazine covers and striking pictorial essays but was defined by a single frame _ an Associated Press photo of a communist guerrilla being executed in a Saigon street during the Vietnam War _ died early Sunday. He was 71.

Adams died at his Manhattan home from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, said his assistant, Jessica Stuart. Diagnosed last May with what doctors called a rapid strain of the incurable neurological disorder, he quickly lost his speech and had become increasingly invalided.

snip............

Along with 13 wars, he covered international politics, fashion and show business. His portraits included U.S. presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush and such world figures as Pope John Paul II, Deng Xiao Ping, Anwar Sadat, Fidel Castro, Mikhail Gorbachev, Indira Gandhi and the Shah of Iran.

In addition to a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for the Saigon execution picture, Adams's more than 500 honors included a 1978 Robert Capa Award and three George Polk Memorial Awards for war coverage.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--obit-adams0919sep19,0,6928561.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

[Rose Siding]

1. Hard to imagine who is behind this camera (photo)

[leftchick]

3. Was this execution caught on film as well?

I was only ten at the time but I seem to remember seeing it on TV.

[brentspeak]

5. Yes, and it's featured in the movie "Head"

starring the Monkees.

[struggle4progress]

11. The film footage is included in the documentary "Heads and Minds." eom

[leftchick]

12. did they put it on the nightly news back then?

I am sorry but my memory is very fuzzy. I seem to recall seeing it as a child on the nightly news. I can not imagine that happening today!

[struggle4progress]

22. I can't say with absolute certainty. But I doubt it. The film footage ..

.. is so grisly that I think it would have violated general standards of good taste for TV which (if I remember correctly) was always subject to careful scrutiny by network censors.

[struggle4progress]

33. Perhaps you're right. An NBC crew apparently filmed it. eom

[acmavm]

4. That picture has been burned into my memory since it first appeared

during the Viet Nam debacle. I have always wondered what the photographer was thinking at the time he snapped that execution.

[still_one]

7. It really brought the war home

That and a screaming girl running down the street drenched in napalm

[foo_bar]

19. this guy:

[tooncesj0nes]

2. general loan

..lived 3 blocks from us in Burke va. I used to eat in his restaurant in the Rolling Valley Mall in the early 80's....the 'joke' among the locals that knew his history... was that you better not complain about the food....

[Vitruvius]

6. Executing VC POWs did not help our POWs.

Of course, Gen'l Loan didn't care -- HE ran no risk of capture.

Just like Bu$h & Co. condoned if not instigated Abu Ghraib, for which any future POWs of ours in Iraq may well pay the price -- as a number of American civilians taken hostage already have... But Bu$h & co. are utterly safe -- so why should they care...

[Jim__]

8. His picture made it clear, we were not fighting for freedom and ...

... democracy in Vietnam.

You think the pictures from Abu Ghraib would have made that clear about Iraq. Yet, somehow, the message doesn't seem to have gotten through yet.

[truthisfreedom]

9. "embedded"

in bed with.

[Radius]

10. Wishes he never took the picture...

Because the guy with a .38 slug in the head was a murderer and had just killed his troops.

General Loan died a year and a month ago. He left a wife and five kids. Most of the obituaries were, like the photograph that ruined his life, two dimensional and unforgiving. Adams sent flowers with a card that read, "I'm sorry. There are tears in my eyes."

Adams wrote in Time magazine, "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do 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 soldiers?'"

Not saying it is right but there is much more behind the picture than was in the MSM.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

13. Hey there radius, I didn't think it was okay by the so-called rules of war

to summarily execute prisoners even if they had been soldiers who had killed soldiers on your side.

How is it that the guy being shot is a "murderer" but the B-52 pilot annihilating hundreds or thousands from the sky in "Operation Linebacker" is not? Would that pilot deserve to be shot in the head if shot down and caught by a N. Vietnamese commander?

[Radius]

15. No Uniform...I didn't advocate just posted more info on the photo(NT)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

24. So soldiers can summarily shoot in the street people they capture,

who have killed S. Vietnamese or U.S. soldiers, without any kind of proceeding?

[struggle4progress]

14. Amazing! You copy directly from the wingnut "National Review" ..

.. without attribution, merely shuffling paragraphs some. While I don't trust NR much as a source,I think that if you're going to use somebody else's words, you might at least give credit.

But perhaps plagiarism becomes a minor issue, once one decides extrajudicial execution is OK ...

Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
NRO Editor
“There Are Tears in My Eyes.”
August 26, 1999 7:20 p.m.

<snip> Except Eddie Adams wishes he never took the picture. <snip>

Adams wrote in Time magazine, "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do 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 soldiers?'" <snip>

General Loan died a year and a month ago. He left a wife and five kids. Most of the obituaries were, like the photograph that ruined his life, two dimensional and unforgiving. Adams sent flowers with a card that read, "I'm sorry. There are tears in my eyes." <snip>

http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldbergprint082699.html

[Radius]

16. I read it and forgot the link (thanks)

They cited other sources like Life and NPR. So salon and mother jones are not usable sources of information? I forgot the link, my fault, but the information is true.

Had a sociology prof. tell me the story years ago.

[struggle4progress]

17. No, the NR story doesn't cite "Life." Also, the justification ...

... has changed over the years: when I discussed this photo in the 1980's, conservatives routinely told me the General was seeking revenge for the murder of his wife and children.

I'm amazed that (simply by forgetting the link) you manage to change the order of the paragraphs, omit title and author, etc.

[Radius]

18. My mistake TIME not LIFE

Adams wrote in Time magazine, "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do 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 soldiers?'"

I did not say this was justafied, legal, or anything else. But 90% of people have any idea about the context of the picture.

You do see the difference don't you?

[struggle4progress]

21. More direct quotes from NRO without attribution. eom

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

26. Certain types of thread have a way of bringing out certain types of posts,

and posters. Like any thread relating to Vietnam. A most interesting phenomenon.

[joshcryer]

29. I don't think it's wrong to put it in to context.

It doesn't absolve anyone of their actions, but it does make you think about the situation a bit.

[Radius]

30. Context clues..We are discussing the article(NT)

[supernova]

20. Wow, I remember having this image seared in my head

when it was on the evening news. I never knew who the photographer was.

Thanks for the info Kheph. Sounds like that photo did it's damage all around. :-(

[DubyaSux]

23. Unfortunatly...

...the rest of the story doesn't get that much attention.

Just before this picture was taken, the guy shot led a team of communist terrorists in a killing spree, killing the whole family of a South Vietnamese officer in the process - including his 80 year old mother, his wife and his small children.

The guy was a cold blooded Viet Cong killer who just got caught in a time of war. The actions of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan were wrong and not justifiable, but I think this picture painted him out to be a monster he never was. In fact, Eddie Admas apologized in person to General Loan and his family for the irretrievable damage it did to his honor.

This is another example of how war should be the very, very last resort and why. It is horrific. It makes good people do bad things.

But just because I'm against a war, I refuse to demonize the people over there fighting it while I anonymously type on an intrnet board in the comfort of my living room.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

27. Got a link or citation for these factoids? n/t

[Lucky Luciano]

28. hmmm...war is bad

"Just before this picture was taken, the guy shot led a team of communist terrorists in a killing spree, killing the whole family of a South Vietnamese officer in the process - including his 80 year old mother, his wife and his small children."

If this had happened to my family, rules of war or not, I would make Lucky Luciano seem like Big Bird when I got through with the guy that had killed my (or a close friend's) family.


SO war does make good people do bad things (not that I can say whether General Loan is good or bad really).

[struggle4progress]

31. Well, we now have several different versions of "the true story" ...

... floating around. I haven't seen anything yet that really qualifies any of these explanations as much except "urban legend."

[saigon68]

25. THE TRUE STORY

After the photo was seen around the world, the AP assigned Adams to hang out with General Loan. He discovered that Loan was a beloved hero in Vietnam, to his troops and the citizens. "He was fighting our war, not their war, our war, and every — all the blame is on this guy," Adams told NPR (in what may have been the most surprisingly courageous NPR interview I've ever heard). Adams learned that Loan fought for the construction of hospitals in South Vietnam and unlike the popular myths, demonstrated the fact that at least some South Vietnamese soldiers really did want to fight for their country and way of life.

Just moments before that photo had been taken, several of his men had been gunned down. One of his soldiers had been at home, along with the man's wife and children. The Vietcong had attacked during the holiday of Tet, which had been agreed upon as a time for a truce. As it turned out, many of the victims of the NC and North Vietnamese were defenseless. Some three thousand of them were discovered in a mass grave outside of Hue after the Americans reoccupied the area. The surprise invasion, turned out to be a military disaster for the Vietcong, but a huge strategic victory because of its effect on American resolve.

But at the time, all of this was irrelevant to people like Loan. It was an ugly, shocking assault. The execution of the prisoner was a reprisal. It was an ugly thing to be sure, but wars, civil wars especially, are profoundly ugly things.

http://www.atomiq.org/archives/000418.html

I believe this to be the true story.. Saigon during Tet was a mess-- I know I was there.

[struggle4progress]

32. This is just further excerpts from the same NR editorial.

The editorial makes assertions, but it's only source appears to be Adams himself, who seems to have had no information at the time of the photograph and who much later seems simply to have repeated the Loan's account.


Drawn by gunfire, Adams, who was working for Associated Press, and a film crew from US television network NBC, watched South Vietnamese soldiers bring a handcuffed Viet Cong captive to a street corner, where they assumed he would be interrogated.
Instead, South Vietnamese police chief Lieutenant-Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan strode up, wordlessly drew a pistol and shot the man in the head.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10826132%5E16947,00.html


Later, as indicated in the NR editorial, Adams became a friend of the general and heard the general's account of the execution.


Col Loan said the man he executed was a Vietcong captain responsible for murdering the family of his closest aide a few hours earlier.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3672060.stm


As far as I can tell, Loan himself is the sole source of the story that the execution was somehow "justified" and Adams later repeated this story because he had come to like Loan. But this repetition is so emotionally charged that it is suspect: "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" (Time, 27 July 1998); Adams has become so involved with his friend's account of the events that he can no longer distinguish between a lynching and the act of snapping a photo. Since Loan, of course, has his own reputation as a motive for telling the history in a way that justifies his own behavior, we should be cautious about accepting Loan's version without corroboration; but Adams' defense of Loan really does not provide such corroboration, because Adams is merely repeating Loan's story, with a flourish that says only "He became my friend and I believed him."