| Nguyễn Ngọc Loan | |
|---|---|
| December 11, 1930 - July 14, 1998 (aged 67) | |
 General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan |
|
| Nickname | Nguyen Ngoc Loan |
| Place of birth | Huế, French Indochina (now Vietnam) |
| Place of death | Burke, Virginia |
| Allegiance |  - Republic of Vietnam |
| Service/branch | Army of the Republic of Vietnam |
| Rank | Brigadier General, ARVN |
| Battles/wars | Tet Offensive |
General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (December 11, 1930[1]–July 14, 1998) was the Republic of Vietnam's Chief of National Police. Loan gained international infamy when he executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém, a Viet Cong soldier, on February 1, 1968 in front of Vo Suu, an NBC cameraman, and Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer. The photo (captioned "General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon") and film would become two of the most famous images in journalism and started to change the American public's views on the Vietnam War.[2]
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Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was a former Brigadier General of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. A few months after the execution picture was taken, Loan was seriously wounded by machine gun fire that led to the amputation of his leg. Again his picture hit the world press, this time as Australian war correspondent, Pat Burgess, carried him back to his lines.[3]
In 1975, during the Fall of Saigon, Loan left South Vietnam. He moved to the United States, and opened a pizza restaurant at Rolling Valley Mall, in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Burke, Virginia. In 1991, Loan was forced into retirement when his identity was publicly disclosed. Photographer Eddie Adams recalled that on his last visit to the pizza shop, he had seen written on a restroom wall, "We know who you are, fucker".[4]
Loan was married to Chinh Mai, with whom he had five children. He died of cancer on July 14, 1998 in Burke, Virginia.
General Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executing a Viet Cong Prisoner in Saigon is a photograph taken by Eddie Adams on February 1, 1968. It shows South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Viet Cong officer in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. The event was also captured by NBC News film cameras, but Adams' photograph remains the defining image.
There is also some dispute as to the identity of the man who is being executed in the photograph. It has been claimed that he was either Nguyễn Văn Lém or Le Cong Na, a similar looking man who was also a member of the Viet Cong and died during the Tet Offensive. The families of both men claimed that the Viet Cong officer in the photo looks very similar to their relative. Neither family could say for sure.
Some South Vietnamese sources said that Lém commanded a Viet Cong assassination platoon, which on that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers or, in their stead, the police officers' families. Photographer Adams confirmed the South Vietnamese account, although he was only present for the execution. Lém's widow confirmed that her husband was a member of the Viet Cong and she did not see him after the Tet Offensive began. Shortly after the execution, a South Vietnamese official who had not been present said that Lém was only a political operative.
Some critics claim that Loan's action violated the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners of war. The rights of POW status were accorded to Viet Cong members only if they were seized during military operations. Lém had neither been wearing a uniform nor fighting enemy soldiers in the alleged commission of war crimes.
The photo won Adams the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, though he was later said to have regretted the impact it had. The image became an anti-war icon. Concerning General Nguyễn and his famous photograph, Eddie Adams later wrote in Time:
| “ | 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?[5] | ” |
Adams later apologized in person to General Loan and his family for the damage it did to his reputation. When General Loan died of cancer in his new home of Virginia, Adams praised him: "The guy was a hero. America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him.[6]
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