South Vietnamese police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan pulled a snub-nosed revolver from

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Execution Captured: Image Fuels Vietnam War Protests

South Vietnamese police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan pulled a snub-nosed revolver from his holster and shot captured Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem in the temple on a Saigon street. Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams captured the exact moment of impact. The photograph became the single most powerful anti-war image of the Vietnam era, winning the Pulitzer Prize and appearing on front pages worldwide. What the image did not show was context: Lem had just been caught at a mass grave containing the bodies of South Vietnamese police officers and their families. Loan was executing a man who had personally killed civilians. Adams later expressed regret that his photograph destroyed Loan's life, saying 'The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.' Loan fled to the US after Saigon fell, opened a pizza restaurant in Virginia, and died in 1998.

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February 1, 1968

58 years ago

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Execution Captured: Image Fuels Vietnam War Protests

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