Battle of Saigon (1968) - Adams Photograph

Adams Photograph

The fighting in Saigon produced one of the Vietnam War's most famous images, photographer Eddie Adams' Pulitzer Prize-winning image of the summary execution of a Viet Cong prisoner on February 1, 1968.

Nguyen Van Lem was captured by South Vietnamese national police, who identified him as the captain of a Viet Cong assassination and revenge platoon, and accused him of murdering the families of police officers. He was brought before Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the chief of the national police, who briefly questioned him. General Nguyen then drew his sidearm and shot the prisoner. Nguyen's motives may have been personal; he had been told by a subordinate that the suspect had killed a police major who was one of Nguyen's closest friends, and the major's family as well.

Present at the shooting were Adams and an NBC television news crew. The photograph appeared on front pages around the world and won eight other awards in addition to the Pulitzer. The NBC film was played on the Huntley-Brinkley Report and elsewhere, in some cases the silent film embellished with the sound effect of a gunshot. General Westmoreland later wrote, "The photograph and film shocked the world, an isolated incident of cruelty in a broadly cruel war, but a psychological blow against the South Vietnamese nonetheless".