WITNESSarchive

W–028 · Documentary photograph and sources

Execution in Saigon

Soldiers led a prisoner in a checked shirt along a Saigon street. His hands were tied behind his back. It was 1 February 1968, the second day of the Tet Offensive, and fighting continued across the city. Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and NBC cameraman Võ Sửu noticed the procession.

1. The shot

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan shoots the prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém. Saigon, 1 February 1968. Photograph by Eddie Adams / Associated Press.
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan shoots the prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém. Saigon, 1 February 1968. Photograph by Eddie Adams / Associated Press.
Provenance and sources for frame 1

Displayed file: 2000 × 1336 pixels. The source identifies this image as copyrighted. Full image record in Russian.

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The head of South Vietnam’s National Police, Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, approached the prisoner. Adams later recalled expecting an interrogation at gunpoint when the general raised his revolver. Loan shot the man in the head. His name was Nguyễn Văn Lém; South Vietnamese authorities considered him a Viet Cong officer. He was executed without trial.

Adams released the shutter at the instant of the shot. Võ Sửu kept filming, so the execution also survives as moving images. Associated Press distributed the photograph. It appeared on newspaper front pages and later on anti-war posters. It won World Press Photo of the Year for 1968 and earned Adams a Pulitzer Prize in 1969.

2. Before the execution

South Vietnamese soldiers escort Nguyễn Văn Lém. He wears a checked shirt and his hands are bound behind his back. Eddie Adams / Associated Press.
South Vietnamese soldiers escort Nguyễn Văn Lém. He wears a checked shirt and his hands are bound behind his back. Eddie Adams / Associated Press.
Provenance and sources for frame 2

Displayed file: 2000 × 1584 pixels. The source identifies this image as copyrighted. Full image record in Russian.

exhibitions.library.columbia.eduView image file

Adams later defended Loan, believing the general had been judged unfairly. He said Viet Cong fighters had recently killed Loan’s aide and his family, a fact viewers did not know. This was Adams’s explanation for the shooting. His account, as quoted by Associated Press, does not establish Lém’s involvement in those killings. Nor do the available archival records for the series connect the prisoner to them.

3. After the shot

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan stands at left with his revolver by his waist. At right, beyond a soldier in the foreground, lies Nguyễn Văn Lém’s body. Eddie Adams / Associated Press.
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan stands at left with his revolver by his waist. At right, beyond a soldier in the foreground, lies Nguyễn Văn Lém’s body. Eddie Adams / Associated Press.
Provenance and sources for frame 3

Displayed file: 2000 × 1570 pixels. The source identifies this image as copyrighted. Full image record in Russian.

exhibitions.library.columbia.eduView image file