Why General Loan is not a "good guy"

Okay, so maybe I should have titled this: "Why General Loan should not be described as a "good guy""

Who am I to decide who is good and bad?  I mean that's been the point of these posts, hasn't it?  How should we look at someone, how should we classify an act, what factors are important in making a decision on how we should feel about something?

What started me down the Eddie Adams path was a completely baseless assertion from a General Brady and my response to it.  In the process of researching the Tet Offensive, I came across the Eddie Adams photograph and a whole bunch of "facts" regarding what took place and how the photo helped/hurt the Vietnam war effort.

If you read my blog (Woot! I have three readers now!) you will notice I have a problem with half-truths, lies, propaganda, and ignorance.  Opinion is one thing, misstating something because you failed to fully research it is another.  I hold a lot of contempt for people who should know (General Brady) and use their power/title (the "General") to further an ideology or perpetuate a false history using innuendo, bogus information, and outright lies.  Tet can be looked at objectively for what it was, it does not need to be rewritten using a made-up event and conversation with General Vo Nguyan Giap, the supreme communist commander during Tet.

The same goes for the Eddie Adams photo, Adams himself, General Loan, and Nguyen Van Lem.  The truth is the truth, regardless of where it leads or what it tells you about us, them, or humanity in general.

We have on record that Eddie Adams called General Loan a "good guy."  Now he may have been figuratively speaking, as in - good guy because he was on our side, but that's not what I hear when I listen to him say "good guy."

In my last post, I discussed what makes some one good or bad, and how which side of the fence you are on helps form your response.  I contend that it should not matter.  Bad is bad and good is good.  Which brings us back to General Loan and Adams' assertion that he was a good guy.

Hopefully I have been able to support why I believe Eddie Adams used that term to describe the man.  I don't think Adams was naive, I do think he was mislead by both General Loan and those that needed the incident to be downplayed.  That, and his guilt over the harm the photo caused General Loan (see post) lead to the designation of "good guy" he used.

So, looking at it objectively, was General Loan a "good guy?"

I contend that he was not.  I base this on a lot of background information, CIA reports, and observations from other journalists.  I'll show you what I mean, but first I want to print the one account that sealed it for me, an incident that takes General Loan from a "good guy" to not a very nice human being.

From Tom Buckley's: "Portrait of an Aging Despot", Harper's, April 1972 Page 72:

This was after the Tet incident in 1968.  Does that sound like someone worthy of the title "good guy?"

Oh, but wait...there is more.


Next Post: And it's one, two, three WHO are we fighting for?

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The "he was a good guy" perspective.

I think, of all the things I have read, heard, and seen regarding February 1st, 1968 when General Nguyen Ngoc Loan's shot Nguyen Van Lem point blank at An Quang Pagoda in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, the one that perplexes me the most is the statement by Eddie Adams about General Loan:

"He was a good guy.  He was fighting for America with Americans.  I think he was a goddamn hero."

I am not perplexed that he said it, for I think I understand Eddie Adams pretty well and I can accept the various issues in play that formulated it.  I don't even think it was inappropriate for him to say, however, the only man that could be accorded the appropriateness to make such a statement was Eddie Adams.

What perplexes me is how Eddie Adams allowed himself to make it.  It is not an objective statement borne out by facts, facts which he should have known or at least had questions about regarding General Loan.  It is easy to understand Eddie Adam's guilt over what happened to General Loan after the photo was taken.  One need only read these quotes to see why the aftermath the photo wrought weighed so heavy on his mind.

"Photographs, you know, they're half-truths ... that's only one side...." Adams said. "He was fighting our war, not their war, our war, and ... all the blame is on this guy." (NPR)

"He was very sick, you know, he had cancer for a while," Adams said. "And I talked to him on the phone and I wanted to try to do something, explaining everything and how the photograph destroyed his life and he just wanted to try to forget it. He said, 'Let it go.' And I just didn't want him to go out this way." (NPR)

"He never blamed me for the picture. he used a cleche that we here all the time.  Eddie, you were doing your job, and I was doing mine.  I guess the picture...I'm told it did good things...but I don't want to hurt people either...I really dont..  It really bothers me.  thats not my intention in other words, being a photographer, thats not what I want to do." (Newseum) 

Nevertheless, Eddie Adams was amiss in stating that General Loan was a "good guy."  He wasn't wrong to say it, per say, because that's how he saw it.  He was wrong to hang the title of "good guy" on General Loan, because he was not a good guy, and not simply because of what he did in that photo.

First of all, is one a "good guy" because he is on our side?  If so, that would make those involved in the My Lai Massacre good guys. Were the Japanese good guys for what they did in Nanking China?  Or because they were are enemy at the time, they must be seen as "bad guys."  Or, are they only bad guys to the Chinese and neutral to us? Assuming "goodness" is a result of what side of the fence you are on, nothing can be viewed as fundamentally bad.

Does one's side play anything of importance in determining what acts are morally bad or debased; corrupt; perverted?  Two members of the House of Representatives, Harold Sawyer of Michigan and Elizabeth Holtzman of Brooklyn worked feverishly to have General Loan deported for what they called his "moral turpitude."

What they contended was that General Loan's actions that day was "conduct that shocks the public conscience." Now we can split hairs on how the law views moral turpitude, but that places a definition as what is important and not the actions of General Loan on February 1st, 1968.  In this case, can my conscious be shocked without having to claim moral turpitude?  Or, does that fact that I find this shocking make moral turpitude the only logical conclusion for General Loan's actions?

Regardless of my conclusion, what side of the fence I am on should play no part in how I derive the outcome leading to that conclusion.  If it does, then "shocking" is in the eye of the beholder.  It is subjective.  It's based on external and environmental factors....well. come to think of it, it is!

There was a documentary on TV a while back (I can't recall the name or station) which showed identical twins watching the same movie but not together.  It looked at how each twin reacted to different disturbing scenes.  As expected, they both showed similar reactions.  Except when one of the twins was a nurse and the other was not.  Scenes of an operation elicited no reaction from the nurse, but uneasiness for her sister.

What does that have to do with General Loan?  Does perception play a part in how an act should be perceived?  Was the film of the operation in and of itself something that should be seen as distasteful and bring about a feeling of revulsion.  Or was it simply another act that should be viewed as nothing more sickening than any other acts that came before it?  In this case, can we condemn one twin's non-reaction as depraved or a perversion? Should the other twin be more deserving of the title caring and sensitive...more humane?

"But an operation performed by a doctor and nurse is not the same thing as firing a bullet into the head of a bound man at point-blank range" you might be thinking.  Or is it?  In both cases the need to perform an act in a way that many of us would find distasteful at having to watch is present for both.  I can't bear the thought of slicing into a man's stomach no more than I can see myself pointing a revolver and releasing a bullet into another man's brain.  Should I condemn the doctor and nurse for doing that thing I would never allow myself to do?

Well, that's a no-brainier (no pun intended) because the doctor is just doing his job.  He desires the stomach no harm and the means should justify the end.  But what about General Loan?  Wasn't he just doing his job that day?  Didn't the means justify the end he hoped to bring about as well?

"I respect the Vietcong in uniform.  They are fighting men like me.  People know when they are wonded 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." (1)

"What do you want us to do?  Put him in jail for two or three years and let him go back to the enemy?" (2)

So maybe perception does play into it.  Maybe which side of the fence you are on will allow you to see the same thing differently than how the person on the other side views it.  But that brings was right back to square one.  If perception dictates "goodness" then there is no fundamental idea of what is "bad." And more to the point, what is bad enough to be classified as "morally bad or debased; corrupt; perverted."

When Eddie Adams called General Loan a "good guy" he obviously based that classification on a lot of factors other than one lone event captured on film.  Those factors, however, significantly biased his opinion of General Loan, making the statement of "good guy" inappropriate.  Without his connection to the man, the photograph, and the aftermath, would Adams have made that same statement?  I think not.  If Adams looked at General Loan under a "veil of ignorance" he would have seen him for what he was.

So maybe it's not that I am perplexed that he made this statement.  What perplexes me is the many dynamics in play that formed the words Adams said to describe General Loan.  It's not as simple as folks think it is.  It's not about good and evil, black and white, patriot or enemy.  Of all the things said by Eddie Adams, this was the most untenable statement of them all, all things considered.

Without his guilt over what the photo unleashed, and with full knowledge of the kind of man General Loan was, I am pretty sure Adams would not have called him a "good guy."  He would have seen General Loan as no different than any other person in a war situation; neither a hero nor a villain; simply just another victim of the circumstances they found themselves in.

Of course I am speculating here.  But from my side of the fence, that's how I see it.

(1) As reported in Harper's April  1972 article "Portrait of an Aging Despot" page 72:
(2) As reported in Harper's April  1972 article "Portrait of an Aging Despot" page 72


Next Post" Why General Loan is not a "good guy"


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But a photograph is absolute.

Note: I have been neglecting my blog.  I noticed that this was never posted.

My head hurts.  We had a snow day today and work was canceled.  So I spent the whole day looking up anything I could find on Eddie Adams, General Loan, Vo Suu, Howard Tuckner, and Nguyễn Văn Lém.

Believe it or not, there is a not a lot of information out there.  There's a lot of crap too, especially crap that does nothing but reprint what somebody else has said - word for word.  Can't understand that one, I mean, why bother?

There is also a lot of crap designed to present information as factual but in no way shape or form is it real.  For example, the Wikipedia page on Nguyễn Văn Lém, the guy General Loan shot has the following blurb

Though military lawyers have yet to definitively decide whether Loan's action violated the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners of war (Lém had not been wearing a uniform; nor was he, it is alleged, fighting enemy soldiers at the time), where POW status was granted independently of the laws of war; it was limited to Viet Cong seized during military operations.

This one sentence - in a very professional sounding paragraph - is attributed to Major General George S. Prugh (1975). "Prisoners of War and War Crimes". Law at War: Vietnam 1964-1973. Vietnam Studies. United States Army Center of Military History. Retrieved 2006-10-24.

Well I went to the link listed.  This statement was not there.  I even went to the actual document referenced...nothing.  So where did the Wikipedia author(s) get that bit of information?  Do a search for it and you will find it used a lot, but no where will you find it referenced in any academic or governmental websites.  I even searched the Texas Tech University's Vietnam database.  Nothing of the sort was said by General Prugh that I can find.

Which begs the question: why go to all the trouble to write a very scholarly sounding paragraph, attach a real person's name to it, and then link not one, but two different documents, from the guy, as where this information came from?

It's a hoax.  And yet again a hoax that uses someone's real name to perpetuate a myth needed for approval.  I think I know why it is used in this case, and it goes back to Eddie Adams statement:

Words and pictures have a continuing struggle for primacy. In my mind, a person can write the best story in the world; but a photograph is absolute.

His photo showing General Loan shooting Nguyễn Văn Lém (aka: Captain Bảy Lốp) was absolute.  I wrote about this a few posts back.  There is a difficulty rectifying what you see with what you feel; with what you believe; and with what you hold sacrosanct. If he is a good guy then he can't be doing a bad thing.  So either you make him a bad guy or you make the thing he did a good thing.  Those that can't accept that he was wrong to do shoot him in that manner, work to find ways to justify General Loan's behavior.

One of those ways is to argue over the "right" to carry out the assassination because Lém and Loan were not under the Geneva convention.  Hence the argument over Lem's POW status.  They also bring up the fact that Saigon was under Marshall Law and shoot to kill was warranted.  It goes on and on.

Even the simple "well he got what he deserves" justification falls short because we are a nation of laws, and what Loan did was against any law.  Period.  It cannot be justified if you believe that our behavior is either morally based or we are a "nation of laws, not of men.”  Nothing, short of a belief in anarchy or misanthropic leanings, would allow for behavior such as this.

What is needed, in my opinion, is to stop trying to justify it and start trying to understand it.  It is not about good and bad, saints and devils, or heroes and villains.  It is about how easily humanity can be pushed aside and the constant vigilance need to ensure that it does not.

As another humanitarian put it: Beware the thief in the night.


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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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