Nguyễn Ngọc Loan

In this Vietnamese name, the surname is Nguyen. In accordance with Vietnamese custom, this person should be referred to by the given name, Loan.

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan
Born(1930-12-11)11 December 1930[1]
Huế, French Indochina
Died14 July 1998(1998-07-14) (aged 67)[2]
Burke, Virginia, United States
Allegiance South Vietnam
Service / branch Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF)
Republic of Vietnam National Police
Rank Major General
Battles / wars

Major General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (Vietnamese: [ŋʷǐənˀ ŋâwkp lʷāːn]; 11 December 1930 – 14 July 1998) was a South Vietnamese general and chief of the South Vietnamese National Police.[3]

Loan gained international attention when he summarily executed a handcuffed prisoner of war named Nguyễn Văn Lém on February 1, 1968, in Saigon, Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.[4][5] Nguyễn Văn Lém was a Viet Cong (VC) member.[4] South Vietnamese Vice President Nguyễn Cao Kỳ stated that Lém was ''a very high ranking'' political official, but had not been a member of the Viet Cong military.[2] The event was witnessed and recorded by Võ Sửu, a cameraman for NBC, and Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer. The photo and film became two famous images in contemporary American journalism.[citation needed]

Despite the determination of the Immigration and Naturalization Service that Loan committed war crimes, owing to which he was liable for deportation back to Vietnam, the then US President, Jimmy Carter, intervened personally to halt the deportation proceedings.[citation needed]

Early life

Loan was born in 1930 to a middle-class family in Huế and was one of eleven children. He studied pharmacy and graduated near the top of his class at Huế University[2] before joining the Vietnamese National Army in 1951. He soon studied at an officer training school, where he befriended classmate Nguyễn Cao Kỳ.[6] Loan received pilot training in Morocco before returning to Vietnam in 1955, serving with the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) for the next decade.[7]

He received additional training in the United States at some time during this period, enabling him to speak English fluently by the time he became prominent during the late 1960s. Loan's career followed Ky's, and when Ky became commander of the RVNAF, Loan served as chief of staff.[8]: 95  During the February 1965 Operation Flaming Dart airstrikes targeting North Vietnam Loan flew as Ky's wingman.[7]

Career

In June 1965, when Ky became premier of South Vietnam, he promoted Loan to colonel and appointed him director of the Military Security Service. This was followed within a few months by an appointment to director of the Central Intelligence Organization, giving Loan simultaneous control of both military intelligence and security. He was further made director general of the Republic of Vietnam National Police in April 1966.[9] Having these positions enabled Loan to wield immense power, and he supervised the suppression of the early 1966 uprising of Ky's rival General Nguyễn Chánh Thi and dissident Buddhists.[6] When Ky agreed to become vice president for President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu in 1967, the former relied on the assistance Loan provided for him in order to retain power.[7]

Loan was a staunch South Vietnamese nationalist, refusing to give Americans special treatment in his jurisdiction. For example, in December 1966 he rejected the arrest of Saigon mayor Van Van Cua by American military police and insisted that only South Vietnamese authorities could arrest and detain South Vietnamese citizens. He also insisted that U.S. civilians, including journalists, were subject to South Vietnamese jurisdiction while in Saigon. Loan's uncompromising stand caused him to be regarded as a troublemaker by the Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. Loan was also skeptical of the U.S. CIA-backed Phoenix Program to attack and neutralize the clandestine VC infrastructure.[8]: 100 

Loan's men were also involved with the arrest of two VC operatives on 15 August 1967 who had been engaged with attempting peace negotiations with U.S. officials without the participation of the South Vietnamese in an initiative code-named Buttercup. His opposition to such surreptitious dealing, and his opposition to releasing one of the communist negotiators, reportedly angered the Americans, and forced them to keep both him and the South Vietnamese better informed of diplomatic dealings involving their country.[10][11][8]: 101 

Loan was an accomplished pilot—he commanded an airstrike on VC forces at Bù Đốp in 1967, soon before he was promoted to permanent brigadier general rank. The Americans were displeased at his promotion, and Loan submitted his resignation soon thereafter. The South Vietnamese cabinet subsequently rejected Loan's resignation.[8]: 99 

Execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém

Main article: Saigon Execution
The famous image of Loan executing Nguyễn Văn Lém.

Nguyễn Văn Lém (also known as Bảy Lốp)[12][13] was a Vietcong captain.[4] On 1 February 1968, during the Tet Offensive, he was captured in a building in the Cho Lon quarter of Saigon, near the Ấn Quang pagoda.[14][15] Lém wore civilian clothing at the time of his capture.[12] Handcuffed, he was brought to Loan, who then summarily executed him on the street using his sidearm, a .38 Special Smith & Wesson Bodyguard Model 49 revolver.[16][14] A reporter for The New York Times later wrote that this likely violated the Geneva Conventions.[17]

A story emerged during the 1980s that Lém had just murdered a police major, a subordinate and close friend of General Loan, and the major's whole family. The photographer Eddie Adams believed and repeated this story. "It turns out that the Viet Cong lieutenant who was killed in the picture had murdered a police major--one of General Loan's best friends--his whole family, wife, kids, the same guy. So these are things we didn't know at the time."[18] "I didn't have a picture of that Viet Cong blowing away the family."[19] In 2008, a new version appeared, in which Lém had murdered the family of Lieutenant Colonel Nguyễn Tuấn, who was not a subordinate of General Loan but an officer of the armored forces of the ARVN.[20] Max Hastings, writing in 2018, said that some of the allegations made against Lém were true. Only one of Lt. Col. Tuan's children, Huan Nguyen, survived the attack and later became the first Vietnamese American promoted to rear admiral in the United States Navy. Hastings also wrote that American historian Edwin Moise "is convinced that the entire story of Lém murdering the Tuân family is a post-war invention." Hastings concluded that "the truth will never be known."[21]

The execution was captured as a photo by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and on video by NBC News television cameraman Võ Sửu.[22] After the execution, Loan told Adams: "They killed many of our people and many of yours."[15] Võ Sửu reported that after the shooting Loan went to a reporter and said ''These guys kill a lot of our people, and I think Buddha will forgive me.''[22][23]

Interviewed by Oriana Fallaci in May 1968 for her book Nothing, and So be it, he stated that he was aware of the indignation he caused and that he understood Fallaci's opinion when she regarded him as a cold-blooded killer. He said that he killed Lém because he felt enraged that the VC were wearing civilian clothes.[24] Speaking to Fallaci, he said: "He wasn't wearing a uniform and I can't respect a man who shoots without wearing a uniform. Because it's too easy: you kill and you're not recognized. I respect a North Vietnamese because he's dressed as a soldier, like myself, and so he takes the same risks as I do. But a Vietcong in civilian clothes - I was filled with rage."[24] Loan has also recounted, "If you hesitate, if you didn't do your duty, the men won't follow you".[2]

The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, allegedly increasing anti-war sentiment.[15] Eddie Adams' photo won him the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.[25] Adams later stated he regretted he was unable to get a picture "of that Viet Cong [Lém] blowing away the [Tuan] family".[26]

Subsequent career

A few months after the execution picture was taken, Loan was wounded seriously near Saigon by machine gun fire to his right leg. Again, his picture was published by the world press, this time as Australian war correspondent Pat Burgess carried him back to his lines.[12]

On 8 June 1968 President Thiệu replaced Loan as Director of National Police with Trần Văn Hai.[8]: 284  In late June he went to Australia for medical treatment, returning to Vietnam later that year. In May 1969 he and his family flew to the US where he received medical treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and remained in Alexandria, Virginia until December 1969 when they returned to Vietnam. Soon after his arrival in the US Adams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his photo and this brought attention to Loan. Senator Stephen M. Young denounced Loan in the Senate calling him a "brutal murderer".[8]: 285 

In August 1970 he was appointed to a Defense Ministry job that involved long-range planning but lacked actual power.[7] Loan helped construct hospitals for war wounded and was a frequent visitor to children's hospitals and orphanages. His leg wound continued to trouble him and it was amputated in September 1974.[8]: 285–6 

Later life

In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Loan approached the US Embassy for evacuation, but was refused, and he and his family escaped aboard an RVNAF airplane and eventually reached the US.[8]: 286  There he moved to Dale City, Virginia.[27] He then opened a restaurant named "Les Trois Continents" in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Burke, Virginia at Rolling Valley Mall.[28][29][30] The restaurant served pizza, hamburgers, and Vietnamese cuisine, but was described as more of a pizzeria.[31][32] Loan also worked as a secretary in a Washington company at this time. When interviewed, Loan stated "All we want to do is to forget and to be left alone".[32]

Adams later apologized in person to Loan and his family for the damage his photograph did to his reputation.[33]

House of Representatives member Elizabeth Holtzman forwarded a list of Vietnamese officials who may have committed war crimes (including Loan) to Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). House of Representatives member Harold S. Sawyer later requested the Library of Congress investigate Loan.[34][35] In 1978, the INS contended that Loan had committed a war crime, following a report by the Library of Congress which concluded that the summary execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém had been illegal by Vietnamese law,[35] in an attempt to revoke his permanent resident status to ensure that he could not become a United States citizen.[36] They approached Adams to testify against Loan, but Adams instead testified in his favor and Loan was allowed to stay.[37] The deportation was halted by the intervention of United States President Jimmy Carter, who stated that "such historical revisionism was folly".[38][39]

Loan visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and praised it.[40]

In 1991, Loan closed his restaurant and retired after a decrease of business caused by increased publicity about his past.[22] Adams recalled that on his last visit to the pizza parlor soon before it closed, he had seen written on a toilet wall, "We know who you are, you fucker".[22][36][41]

Death

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan died of cancer on 14 July 1998, aged 67, in Burke, Virginia.[22] After his death, 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."[42][43]

Eddie Adams wrote a eulogy to Loan 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?".[42][44]

Personal life

Loan was married to Chinh Mai, with whom he raised five children.[22]

References

  1. ^ Thiếu tướng Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (in Vietnamese) Archived 6 April 2005 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b c d Jr, Robert Mcg Thomas (16 July 1998). "Nguyen Ngoc Loan, 67, Dies; Executed Viet Cong Prisoner". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 18 May 2024.
  3. ^ "In an instant, Vietnam execution photo framed a view of war". The Associated Press. Retrieved 18 May 2024.
  4. ^ a b c "Stunning AP Images of Vietnam War from Stunning Images of Vietnam War". ABC News. Archived from the original on 5 July 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
  5. ^ "[Vietcong prisoner, Nguyễn Văn Lém, being executed by police chief General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan in Saigon]". The Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 5 July 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
  6. ^ a b Barnes, Bart (16 July 1998). "NGUYEN NGOC LOAN DIES AT 67". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 7 July 2018. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
  7. ^ a b c d Moise, Edwin E. (2005). The A to Z of the Vietnam War. Scarecrow Press. pp. 283–284. ISBN 9781461719038. Archived from the original on 22 December 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Robbins, James (2012). This time we win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive. Encounter Books. ISBN 9781594036385.
  9. ^ Tucker, Spencer C.; Anh, Ho Dieu (2011). The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd ed.). Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 829–830. ISBN 9781851099610. Archived from the original on 22 December 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
  10. ^ "383. Telegram From the Ambassador to Vietnam (Bunker) to the President's Special Assistant (Rostow), Secretary of State Rusk, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and Director of Central Intelligence Helms". Office of the Historian Department of State. 4 November 1967. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  11. ^ "429. Telegram From the Ambassador to Vietnam (Bunker) to the President's Special Assistant (Rostow), Secretary of State Rusk, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and Director of Central Intelligence Helms". Office of the Historian Department of State. 6 December 1967. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  12. ^ a b c Faas, Horst (October 2004). "The Saigon Execution". The Digital Journalist. Archived from the original on 29 April 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
  13. ^ "Iconic Vietnam War Photos to be Exhibited in Vietnam for First Time". Newsweek. 11 June 2015. Archived from the original on 5 July 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
  14. ^ a b Faber, John (1978). Great News Photos and the Stories Behind Them. New York: Dover Publications. p. 136. ISBN 9780486236674. Archived from the original on 26 June 2014. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
  15. ^ a b c "The Vietnam War, Through Eddie Adams' Lens". NPR.org. Archived from the original on 4 July 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
  16. ^ Buckley, Tom. "Portrait of an Aging Despot", Harper's magazine, April 1972, page 69
  17. ^ Astor, Maggie (1 February 2018). "A Photo That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 June 2022.
  18. ^ Eddie Adams oral history in Kim Willenson, Ed., The Bad War (1987), pp. 186-187.
  19. ^ Al Santoli, ed., To Bear Any Burden (1985).
  20. ^ Bai An Tran, "After 40 Years of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War - Half of the Truth Deciphered," VietCatholic News, February 7, 2008, http://www.vietcatholic.net/News/Html/52113.htm read 1/27/2018.
  21. ^ Hastings, Max (2018). Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975. Harper. p. 467. ISBN 9780062405661.
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  23. ^ EndPlay (31 January 2018). "AP BOOK EXCERPT: The Tet Offensive's first 36 hours". WSBTV. Archived from the original on 7 July 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
  24. ^ a b Fallaci, Oriana (1972). Nothing, and So be it. Doubleday. p. 285.
  25. ^ "Pulitzer Prize Winners". www.pulitzer.org. Archived from the original on 5 July 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  26. ^ Hastings, Max (2018). Vietnam. Collins. p. 403.
  27. ^ "Saigon's Killer Cop in U.S." (PDF). San Francisco Chronicle. 29 April 1976. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 July 2018. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  28. ^ Tiede, Tom (26 March 1998). "Ex-Viet cop: I want to live a quiet life". Ludington Daily News. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
  29. ^ Friedman, Andrew (2013). "Nguyen Ngoc Loan's Pizza Parlor". Covert Capital: Landscapes of Denial and the Making of U.S. Empire in the Suburbs of Northern Virginia. University of California Press. pp. 196–219. ISBN 9780520956681. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
  30. ^ "Followup". Chicago Tribune. 29 November 1976. p. 16. Archived from the original on 20 September 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  31. ^ Cohen, Richard (7 November 1978). "From Saigon to Burke, There is No Way Out". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 10 July 2018. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  32. ^ a b "Famous Vietnam Photograph Figure Running Restaurant BURKE, Va. (AP)". The Kane Republican. 29 April 1976. Archived from the original on 10 July 2018. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  33. ^ "1968: The year in pictures". CNN. Archived from the original on 22 May 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
  34. ^ Buckley, Tom (June 1979). "The Villain of Vietnam - Esquire Classic". Esquire. Archived from the original on 22 December 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
  35. ^ a b Christopher Dickey (3 November 1978). "U.S. Acts to Deport Saigon Official Who Killed Bound Prisoner in 1968". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 3 July 2018. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  36. ^ a b White, Linda (17 July 1998). "A life taken out of context in a split second". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on 6 July 2018. Retrieved 5 June 2018.
  37. ^ "Eddie Adams' iconic Vietnam War photo: What happened next". BBC News. 29 January 2018.
  38. ^ "Carter bids to halt Viet general's deportation". The Miami News. 6 December 1978. p. 9C. Archived from the original on 14 September 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  39. ^ "Viet executioner won't be deported". Detroit Free Press. New York Times Service. 2 December 1978. p. 2A. Archived from the original on 14 September 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  40. ^ "Vietnam:Where Are They Now?". Washington Post. 19 April 1985. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 10 July 2018. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  41. ^ Adams, in the documentary An Unlikely Weapon (2009), directed by Susan Morgan Cooper
  42. ^ a b Adams, Eddie (27 July 1998). "Eulogy: General Nguyen Ngoc Loan". Time. Archived from the original on 30 October 2008. Retrieved 23 November 2008.
  43. ^ "General In Famed Viet Photo Dead". Archived from the original on 7 July 2018. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
  44. ^ Adams, Eddie (24 June 2001). "Eulogy". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Archived from the original on 2 June 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2018.