Execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém


Nguyễn Văn Lém, often referred to as Bảy Lốp, was a member of the Viet Cong. He was summarily executed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War, when Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces launched a massive surprise attack.
He was brought to Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan who then executed him. 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.

Background

Nguyễn Văn Lém was a Viet Cong officer or Captain and was known by the code name "Bảy Lốp". His wife, Nguyen Thi Lop, explains that his code name consisted of "Bảy" for seventh son, and "Lốp" from her own name.

Execution

Lém was captured near the Ấn Quang Pagoda on 1 February 1968, during the Tet Offensive. He was brought to Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, Chief of the Republic of Vietnam National Police at 252 Ngô Gia Tự Street, District 10 near the modern-day Chùa Trấn Quốc temple. Loan summarily executed Lém using his sidearm, a.38 Special Smith & Wesson Bodyguard revolver. Loan is reported to have said afterwards: "If you hesitate, if you didn't do your duty, the men won't follow you." Lém was 36 years old at the time of his death.
Max Hastings, writing in 2018, noted that Lém was in civilian clothes and was alleged to have just cut the throats of South Vietnamese Lt. Col. Nguyen Tuan, his wife, their six children and the officer’s 80-year-old mother.
In 1978, a report by the United States Library of Congress concluded that the summary execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém had been illegal under Vietnamese law.

Famous picture

Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and NBC News television cameraman Vo Suu witnessed the event. Adams later recalled that he believed Loan was going to "threaten or terrorise" Lém, and took out his camera to record the event. The photo he subsequently took showed the microsecond the bullet entered Lém's head.
The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, galvanizing the anti-war movement. Adams' photo of the event became one of the most famous and influential images of the war, winning him the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.
The photo would also come to haunt Adams: "I was getting money for showing one man killing another. Two lives were destroyed, and I was getting paid for it. I was a hero." He elaborated on this in a later piece of writing: "Two people died in that photograph. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera."
Ben Wright, associate director for communications at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, said about the photo: "There's something in the nature of a still image that deeply affects the viewer and stays with them. The film footage of the shooting, while ghastly, doesn't evoke the same feelings of urgency and stark tragedy."

Aftermath

Lem's wife, Lop, learned about her husband's death when she was given a newspaper with the photo on the front page.
In 1975, Nguyễn Ngọc Loan fled South Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon, eventually emigrating to the United States. Pressure from the U. S. Congress resulted in an investigation by the Library of Congress. In 1978, the Immigration and Naturalization Service contended that Loan had committed a war crime. They attempted to deport him, but United States President Jimmy Carter personally intervened to stop the proceedings, stating that "such historical revisionism was folly." Loan died on 14 July 1998 in Burke, Virginia, at age 67.
The sole survivor of Lem's killing of Lt. Col. Tuan's family is Huan Nguyen, who in 2019 became the highest ranking Vietnamese-born officer in the U.S. military.