Nguyen Van Lem; He's just a plain vanilla V.C.

Note:  I have been neglecting my blog while I worked on other things.  I just noticed that I never posted this.

My last post focused on how the deeds of Nguyen Van Lem (aka: Bay Lop) - the man shot by General Loan on February 1st, 1968 during the Tet  offensive - have been exaggerated to the point of being ridiculous.  Yet they persist and are spread from one book to another and from one website to another.

So lets look at "former Judge BAI AN TRAN, Ph. D. Professor of the National Police Office Academy, Vietnam." full accounting of what Nguyen Van Lem had done right before General Loan shot him:

Now I suppose one could argue that Nguyen Van Lem may have been the one who killed the Lt. Col, and his six kids.  But that happened in Go Vap according to President Nguyen Van Thieu.  The execution took place at the An Quang Pagoda which was on the other side of town from Go Vap:

That's a long way to go from start of the attack at Go Vap to the An Quang Pagoda where he was caught.  And if my time line is correct, Nguyen Van Lem was shot by General Loan about 32 hours after the start of the Tet Offensive.

And what about the reason for killing Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan attributed to Nguyen Van Lem?

After communist troops took control of the base, Bay Lop arrested Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan with his family and forced him to show them how to drive tanks. When Lieutenant Colonel Tuan refused to cooperate, Bay Lop killed all members of his family including his 80-year-old other. There was only one survivor, a seriously injured 10-year-old boy.

Here is what the Combat Operations After Action Report (RCS: MACJ3-32)(K-1) has to say about what took place in Go Vap.

So now we know that Nguyen Van Lem could not have forced anyone to drive a tank since there were no tanks there.  Unless you don't want to believe the AAR - then you should probably stop reading because all I will be doing is supporting my thesis with data I believe has not been manipulated in order to better tell the Adams/Loan/Lem story.


The story of Nguyen Van Lem is just that, a story.  Propaganda designed to take the sting out of what was shown to the world in that photo and news footage of General Loan shooting him. 


Even Eddie Adams was was taken in by it:

Well, we found out later, it wasn't 'til about a couple days later, that we found out that the guy was a Viet Cong lieutenant, and he had  killed the policemen from the second  story of the building [i]n the area where we were, and they had grabbed him  immediately.  And he supposedly had  papers saying that he was a lieutenant in the Viet Cong. (1)

And 

And I didn't find this out much later, but the prisoner who was killed had himself killed a police major who was one of Loan's best friends, and knifed his entire family.  The wife, six kids...  the whole family.  When they captured this guy, I didn't know that.  I just happened to be there and took the picture. (2)

And with Adams unknowingly, or unwittingly, or reluctantly on board with it, the remaking of General Loan from a "villain" to a "godamn hero" was now on its way.


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Nguyen Van Lem; Could he be made more despicable?

Do a Google search using the terms; General Loan, Eddie Adams, Nguyen Van Lem and you will get a boat load of websites and blogs that seem to repeat the same three themes:

1. The media showed the photo and film without context.
2. General Loan had the right to execute the man under the Geneva Convention because he was "not in uniform."
3. Nguyen Van Lem (Bay Lop) was responsible for killing scores of people before he was shot by General Loan.

Each site parrots the same basic wording and contention of the next.  So bad info, incorrect info, misleading info, biased info, and just plain ridicules info is passed on as fact.

The purpose of these posts on Eddie Adams, General Loan, and Nguyen Van Lemon is to put factual - supported - information out there, cite it correctly, and then as objectively as I can, paint a picture of the as-true-as-possible context.  We owe it to the future to get this past described correctly - unless you think its okay to believe something that is false at best, propaganda at worst.

I wrote in a previous post about all the different ways Nguyen Van Lem (aka: Bay Lop) has been described - including how General Loan misidentified the man he shot even up till 1979 (Buckley, Esquire, June 5, 1979):

So what I want to look at this time, is how Nguyen Van Lem (aka: Bay Lop) was made out to be so gosh-darn evil whereby a bullet to his brain was not just justified, but warranted.

Now if you read my post on why I believe he was shot, you would conclude that if I am correct in my analysis, who he was or what he did played not a part in the pulling of the trigger by General Loan.  So why this need to emphasize just how downright nasty Nguyen Van Lem's deeds that day were?

It all comes back to context.  Not the real context in play that day, but the need to have what transpired that day fit into a neat little box whereby we can say General Loan - who was on our side - did not do anything wrong that day, therefore we can support him.  He can't be a "villian," he needs to be a "goddamn hero."

But he did do something unequivocally wrong that day.  He summarily executed a bound man.  That fact is undeniable.  Why he did it or who he did it to does not negate that fact.  And instead of understanding it for what it is, understanding the dynamics in play that day, understanding the situation at hand, understanding General Loan's background and motivations, we instead try to justify them simply as right/wrong so we can choose a side - hawk/dove, good guys/bad guys, won the war/lost the war.

And because you can't justify what General Loan did with any factual mandate (Bible allows it, war allows it, Geneva convention allows it), it has to become justified using the fine art of storytelling.  So the truth has been intermixed with a false series of explanations and dialog.  All brought forth as a way to say "he ain't a bad guy, he's one of us...and we ain't bad guys!"

Now the purpose of my posts on this topic is not to condemn, vilify, elevate, absolve, or trivialize General Loan.  It is what it is, and as much as I hate that statement, well, it is what it is.  What's important to me is that factual information be presented in an effort to understand what took place that first day in February, 1968.  And by understanding, one can decide if General Loan should be condemned, vilified, elevated, absolved, trivialized, and, if possible, unequivocally forgiven.

The context that many of these hawkish/right leaning sites expound on is what has become diluted and tainted over these last forty years, and its genesis seems to have begun right after the photo and the film were shown to the world the next day.

So lets look at this oft quoted statement by "former Judge BAI AN TRAN, Ph. D. Professor of the National Police Office Academy, Vietnam."

Minutes before he was captured, Bay Lop had killed a RVN policeman's wife and all of his family members including his children. Around 4:30 A.M., Nguyen Van Lem led a sabotage unit along with Viet Cong tanks to attack the Armor Camp in Go Vap. After communist troops took control of the base, Bay Lop arrested Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan with his family and forced him to show them how to drive tanks. When Lieutenant Colonel Tuan refused to cooperate, Bay Lop killed all members of his family including his 80-year-old mother. There was only one survivor, a seriously injured 10-year-old boy. (1)

Now look at the speech given by President Nguyen Van Thieu before the Joint Session of the National Assembly (Senate & House) February 9, 1968 (Page 61 & 62)



Does that sound kind of familiar?

Now, compare that with what the New York Times quotes Eddie Adams as stating:

[M]r. Adams, who accepted Brig. Gen. Loan's contention that the man he shot had just murdered a friend of his, a South Vietnamese army colonel, as well as the colonel's wife and six children.

Doesn't that just seem a bit too coincidental?  Its such a fitting response to take the sting out of what everyone had just witnessed the good guys doing.  "Oh yeah...well he killed six kids!"

Now my point in all of this is not to exonerate or condemn the man on the left or the man on the right in that famous picture. It is simply to have that photo judged truthfully.  It's impact cannot be denied but the stories of the how and why has lead people to a false dichotomy.  In other words, if you are going to call General Loan a "hero" or a "despot" or a "villain" or judge his actions as acceptable or him personally as "morally unfit" you should do so based on as accurate a description of the persons involved - as well as what took place and the possible motivation/thinking/actions of the participants - as can reasonably be supported.  

That's the only context that is necessary.  Anything else is just propaganda.

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What was said after General Loan killed Nguyen Van Lem?

In my Feb 4, 2011 post titled "What did General Nguyen Ngoc Loan really say on February 1, 1968?" I listed a number of iterations on what has been reported by reputable sources regarding General Loan's comments to the reporters who watch the execution.

It boils down to one of these two:

"They killed many Americans and many of our people"

"Many Americans have been killed these last few days and many of my best Vietnamese friends.  Now do you understand?  Buddha will understand."

I am going to contend that it is the first one, based on the following:

It appears in the New York Times on Feb 2,  1968:

It appears in the Washing Post on Feb 2, 1968:

It is quoted in Editor & Publisher on Feb 10, 1968:

It then changes to the "Buddha will understand" version on Feb 23, 1968:

And a similar version appears in Life on March 1, 1968:

Which is then quoted in Bailey and Lichty's oft quoted Journal Article:

Bailey and Lichty contend that Howard Tuckner, the NBC newsman there with Eddie Adams, provided a "stand-upper" that had Loan's statement but it was rejected as anticlimactic:

Because there is no record of the original stand-upper, it appears that when Tuckner (see footnote 5) recounted what was said several months later, the revised "Buddha will understand" version was what he remembered as said.

I contend that the "Buddha" version was used by General Loan sometime between February 10th and the 23rd.

The original version; "They killed many Americans and many of our people," sounds more matter of fact, while the second version; "Many Americans have been killed these last few days and many of my best Vietnamese friends.  Now do you understand?  Buddha will understand." sounds almost like he is asking for forgiveness.

Additionally, the use of the phrase "these last few days" does not work with the time line of events:

1st lunar month 1968 starts on Jan 30th, a Tuesday.(1)

General Ky invites Loan over "on the night it happens" and is chided by Ky; "You carry a revolver in my house on the first day of the new year."  You know it's bad luck." (*)

Loan "only stays a few minutes" and spends the time riding around the city until about 2:00 a.m. which would be the 31st, a Wednesday. (*)

 Shortly before 3AM the radio station is attacked.  Loan responds.  "We take it back and the man right next to me is shot dead and falls on top of me." (*)  The attack lasted 6 hours. (2)

The time would be about 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday.  The rest of the time is not accounted for.

By Thursday morning the fighting was fierce all over the city. (**)

Loan finds himself that morning in Cholon, the Chinese quarter of Saigon, where the Viet Cong had set up a headquarters in the Buddhist An Quang Pagoda. (**)

Loan shoots Lem on Thursday, February 1st, at the Pagoda.

The photo is wired to New York and is received at 8:16 a.m on Thursday.  This would be about 8:16 or 9:16  p.m. on Thursday in Saigon. (**)

"It was sent out to newspapers around the country--about 11 hours after the shooting." (**)

That would put the shooting at around 9 or 10 in the morning on February 1st.

Total time from start of the Tet offense and Loan's involvement to the shooting, about 30 to 32 hours.

 So that's how I support that on February 1st, 1968 when General Loan shot Nguyen Van Lem, he told Eddie Adams, Howard Tuckner, and the cameraman:

"They killed many Americans and many of our people"

The "Buddha" version is too contrite for Loan to have said at that moment.  It was most likely offered a few days later as a way to defuse the wrath that had been unleashed from the viewing of the photo.

In a way the Buddha remark reminds me of what Jesus said to the crowd that wanted to stone the woman for adultery (John 7:53-8:11):

They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.  Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?  Jesus said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.  He said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?  She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.  

* = as reported in Harper's April  1972 article "Portrait of an Aging Despot." 

** = as reported in Journalism Quarterly, 1972, Bailey & Lichty "Rough Justice on a Saigon Street: A Gatekeeper Study of NBC's Tet Execution Film."

Added May 6, 2012


The New York Times article on Loan's death - July 16, 1998 - has the NBC cameraman Vo Suu saying “These guys kill a lot of our people, and I think Buddha will forgive me.”



Next Post: Nguyen Van Lem; Could he be made more despicable?

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The man on the left had to shoot the man on the right

In Eddie Adams' iconic and infamous photo of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan's assassination of Nguyen Van Lem (aka: Bay Lop) and the NBC film capturing the whole event, one thing shines bright; we know very little about what really happened that day other than the man on the left shot the man on the right.

In my last post I questioned whether a reason was necessary to view the photo and film correctly.  As you can see, there are a lot of reasons given, some plausible, others far fetched.

What one should come away with is this; for such an iconic - event changing - photo, why is a truthful rendition of what took place and what was said so hard to come by?

The answer, me thinks, is what context is all about.  Like I've said, I have spent the last couple of weeks researching this topic.  I have a few more documents on the way that might help better understand it, but I think I have a pretty good take on what took place and how we got to this point of convoluted truth and tall tales.

I have the benefit now of 43 years since the event took place.  I have access to the Internet - which helps and hurts, a great library system where quick access to archival data is relatively easy to obtain, plus I have something Eddie Adams, Dave Culbert, Tom Buckley, Peter Rollins, George Bailey & Lawrence Lichty, Howard Tuckner, and the New York Times didn't have when they wrote on this topic; declassified military and CIA briefings and memos.

There is a bigger story to all of this than what has been offered in the books, journals and blogs dealing with Adams and Loan.  A bigger story that still is incomplete.

So with that in mind, I will offer a thesis on the possible reason for shooting the man on the right, who - consensus seems to conclude - was named "Nguyen Van Lem (aka: Bay Lop).

The reason he was shot, I contend, was simply because he was the man on the right that day - at that time.

What he did that day, who he was, what he was connected to, his name...none of that mattered except for the fact that he was caught and he was wearing civilian attire.

It is my contention that General Nguyen Ngoc Loan - the Chief of Police of the South Vietnamese National Police - in Saigon that day responding to the incursion that started the night before, had given the order that there would be no prisoners for men or woman who were caught and not in the khaki uniform of the Viet Cong.

There is good reason to suspect this:

First, it is consistent with US orders to General Westmoreland:

"attrite, by year’s end, VC/PAVN forces at a rate at least as high as their capability to put men into the field." (1)

Second, Loan told Buckley about "a month or so after the killing" (as reported in Harper's April  1972 article "Portrait of an Aging Despot" page 72):

"I respect the Vietcong in uniform.  They are fighting men like me.  People know when they are wounded I take care of them.  I see they get to to the hospital.  But when they are not in uniform, they are criminals and the rule of war is death."

And thirdly, Loan tells Buckley (as reported in Esquire, June 5, 1979 "The Villain of Vietnam" Page 64):

Vice President Ky "had broadcast a warning that persons in civilian clothes found with arms would be subject to summary execution."  (Buckley had not heard about this order till then)

So based on these three points - documented - The man on the right was to be killed that day for wearing civilian clothes and carrying a weapon.  Whether he was guilty or not did not play into it.  There was a war going on all around him.  The time it would take to process the prisoner and transport him to jail was most likely not worth the small chance that the man was indeed innocent -  a wrong place at the wrong time kind of thing.

And fourthly, it's how Loan clearly and bluntly stated his position on this type of matter:

"What do you want us to do?  Put him in jail for two or three years and let him go back to the enemy?" (as reported in Harper's April  1972 article "Portrait of an Aging Despot" page 72)

For Loan, it is my contention, he drew a fine line between a soldier and a terrorist.  Soldiers followed orders, they had an on-off switch.  But these sappers...these terrorists...these communists...they had no such switch.

So on that first day of February, 1968, the man on the left was positioned perfectly to shot the man on the right.  It was probably supposed to be done in the building where they found Lem, but the guy in charge lost his nerve.  So they brought him out to Loan, NBC, and Eddie Adams.

And the rest is a distorted bit of history surrounding a very clear and telling photograph and film,


Next post: What was said after General Loan killed Nguyen Van Lem?


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The problems of the how's and why's

Note: I have done a lot more research on this topic since I started the particular post.  So I am going to continue with the theme I originally started with.

I have been doing a bunch of research on General Nguyen Ngoc Loan's assassination of Nguyen Van Lem (aka: Bay Lop) which was caught on film by NBC and still by Eddie Adams.  I am trying to answer a couple of questions that have made themselves apparent during this quest.

1. What did General Loan say to the reporters?  Which version is closest to the actual statement?
2. What did General Loan know about the man he was going to execute?  Was Lem guilty of everything you read about him?

I am also trying to put into context Eddie Adams' statements regarding the photo he took and the path it lead both him and General Loan down.  Although I had seen the photo before, I knew nothing about what took place February 1st,  1968.  It's not like I'm some teenager bored in history class.  I missed the Vietnam war by three years.  I should know more, but I don't.  So this has been a history lesson that I have enjoyed, although it deals with a pretty gruesome topic and a very costly war in terms of humanity.

What I have found in this short time is that I like Eddie Adams.  What I have also found is that we, as a society that has used his photo to add to our own individual and collective narrative, have misused it to suit our own needs.  In addition, by not fully understanding - accepting really - the context, we have made it into something that sounds good but has no legs to stand on to support that description of what it really shows.  Then, when we hear Adams talk about this very problem, we take his words out of context as well, all to satisfy some primal need to have our view of what it shows be the one everybody should accept.

But what should we see when we look at the photo or watch the NBC film?  What if - as historian David Culbert contends - all the photo and film showed us was the result and not the cause...the reason?  Without background or context, readers saw a merciless Loan and a defenseless Lop.(5)  What reason is needed to fully understand the photo?

We humans like to categorize things, put them into nice little cubbies like our shoes and lunch boxes.  But this photo presents a different that makes categorizing very difficult.  If you are to be intellectually honest, you realize that it is extremely difficult to give General Loan's actions an unqualified "it was okay" or "it was wrong."  Those two cubbies don't work for this without a bit of morality wrestling.

Is there never a case where executing a man on the spot would be warranted?  And, if it's okay to execute a bound man without a trial because he's a terrorist, then its okay for our enemy to make the same designation.  And if war changes everything making this act acceptable in those conditions, then the Bataan death march and the massacre at Goliad would be acceptable as well.

You see, it gets complicated.  So somewhere between never and always there is point where we shift from one side to the other.  But does that shift make it acceptable or does that shift make it only understandable?  Does knowing the reason why the man on the right side of the photo was shot change our perception of the man on the left?  What reason to you have to be told to make this acceptable?

What if the reason the man in the photo was shot was because:

Minutes before he was captured, Bay Lop had killed a RVN policeman's wife and all of his family members including his children. Around 4:30 A.M., Nguyen Van Lem led a sabotage unit along with Viet Cong tanks to attack the Armor Camp in Go Vap. After communist troops took control of the base, Bay Lop arrested Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan with his family and forced him to show them how to drive tanks. When Lieutenant Colonel Tuan refused to cooperate, Bay Lop killed all members of his family including his 80-year-old mother. There was only one survivor, a seriously injured 10-year-old boy. (1)

Or would it matter if the reason was:

Nguyen Van Lem was captured near a mass grave with 34 innocent civilian bodies. Lem admitted that he was proud to carry out his unit leader's order to kill these people. Lem was in his shorts and shirt. His arms were tied from the back. The pistol was still in his possession. General Loan executed Nguyen Van Lem on the spot. (1)

Or what if the reason hit close to home for General Loan?

Lem commanded a Viet Cong assassination and revenge platoon, which on that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers' families; Lem was captured near the site of a ditch holding as many as thirty-four bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives, some of whom were the families of General Loan's deputy and close friend. (2)

 [He] had killed some Saigon civilians, many of them relatives of police in the capital." (5)

[I]t was at this point that Loan summarily executed, in the presence of a wire service photographer, a VC captured after killing the entire family of one of Loan' s senior officers. (9)

The prisoner was identified, accuraetly probably, as the commander of a Vietcong sapper unit.  He was said to have had a revolver in his possession when he was captured and to have killed a policeman. (From Harper's April 1972 Tom Buckley "Portrait of an Aging Despot")

 Or what if Eddie Adams, the photographer, gave the reason as:

Well, we found out later, it wasn't 'til about a couple days later, that we found out that the guy was a  Viet Cong lieutenant, and he had killed the policemen  from  the second story  of the building [i]n the area where we were, and they had grabbed  him  immediately.  And he supposedly had  papers saying that he was a lieutenant in the Viet Cong. (6)

[T]he victim had just murdered one of Loan's best friends and knifed to death his entire family.(7)

[T]he man he shot had just murdered a friend of his, a South Vietnamese army colonel, as well as the colonel's wife and six children. (8)

 Or what if he wasn't Viet Cong, but someone else of importance in your enemy?

The prisoner had not been in the Viet Cong military but was ''a very high ranking'' political official. (4)

Or what if you had to shoot him there on the spot to retain leadership in a time of war?

[I]t had not been the rash act it might have appeared to be but had been carried out because a deputy commander he had ordered to shoot had hesitated. ''I think, 'Then I must do it,' '' he recounted. ''If you hesitate, if you didn't do your duty, the men won't follow you.'' (4)

Or what if the reason was mistaken identity?

"They tell me he had a revolver, that he wonded one of my policemen, that he spit in the face of the men who captured him.  They say that they know this man.  He is not a namelss civilian, as the press says. He is Nguyen Tan Dat, alias Han Son." (3)

Or what if the reason - as Vice President Ky eluded - so what?

The foreign press made a lot of news about this death, but none of you wrote about the Viet Cong.  Why worry about one damned V.C. terrorist when they are killing thousands of Vietnamese officers, men, women, and children?" (6)

Or what if the reason was a difference in how a foreign culture looks at life?

[A] typically corrupt oriental official who obviously has neither concern  for human life nor respect for public opinion.(7)

Or what if the reason was simply that it was an act of war?

So, the fact that if you captured a man in that tense, urban civil  war  context and shot him, in that  highly  irregular, and  tense circumstances did not strike me as an act of wickedness--it's  an act, a very sad  act, but  it's an act of  war, in that context.  Now without knowing who the one was or what the police were up against at that particular time in the Battle of Saigon I can understand that it could be interpreted  by others, but  that was my judgement. (8)

Or what if it was the heat of the moment?

"I am not a politician." Loan said.  "I am not a cheif of police.  I am just a soldier.  When you see a man in civilian clothes with a revolver killing your people...when many of your people have already been killed, then what are you supposed to do? (From Harper's April 1972 Tom Buckley "Portrait of an Aging Despot")

Does the context matter here?  Does the reason change how we should perceive what the man on the left did to the man on the right?  Does it matter that Loan was a General?  The guy in charge that day? The man that had the power and ability to have sent him to jail for the courts to decide his fate?  The Saigon was being attacked since 2:00 am on Wednesday?  That there were snipers, and death all around?  All of these dynamics were in play that morning of February 1st, 1968.

And if you are intellectually honest, you will conclude that the reasons given for General Loan's actions that day have moved from fact to distortion, and in some cases, to tall tale.  We need a reason so we can put General Loan in a cubby and move on.  Hero or villain, good or evil, rightness or wrongness.

So what reason do you need to be told?

And although this action took place on a Thursday, what if General Loan had simply turned to Eddie Adams and the other reporters and said simply; "I don't like Mondays?"

And the lesson today is how to die

And then the bullhorn crackles

And the captain tackles

With the problems of the how's and why's

And he can see no reasons

'Cos there are no reasons

What reason do you need to die?

Next post: The man on the left had to shoot the man on the right