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The execution of politics: how one photo of a Viet Cong prisoner shaped the war

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*Trigger warning: Violent image*

Written by Billy Morgan, for an assignment on ‘communicating, consuming, and commodifying evil and suffering’, in ANTH424

The horrendous act that we witness in this photo occurred at the height of the Vietnam war. The image depicts the moment on Feb 1, 1968, a Southern Vietnamese general casually executes a Vietnamese prisoner who was fighting for the Viet Cong.


The man behind the lens




I came across this particular image during my own personal exploration into global politics following World War II, in an online article about American politicians. I was shocked after reading into the caption, to find that in this image the man is already dead, with the bullet either still passing through his head, or having just passed through it.


But who was responsible for capturing this moment, and delivering it to me on that day?




The image was shot by Eddie Adams, an American photojournalist who just happened to be passing by when the victim was pulled aside to be executed. Adams snapped the photo, dropped off the cartridge to a local news office, and went for lunch. The casual continuation of Adams’ day following the incident showed the triviality of death to him at this point of the war; he is quoted saying “So what? It was a war… I had seen so many people die at that point in my life”.








​


I find this attitude towards this extremely violent situation quite striking. Even with an understanding that extensive exposure can lead to stoicism, it is intriguing to me that one can


build such indifference to extreme violence.




The American public had a different response –


reacting with shock and moral condemnation, to the extremity of the violence represented. The distribution of the image allowed the American public to become concerned about the USA’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and what it meant for the goals of America in the post-World War II political era.




In this way, it is an image that indirectly represents the lasting tension between the opposing political forces of communism and democracy.












Anti-war effort: the moral and strategic use of image 




The distribution of the picture occurred


around the time that a small group of academics in the USA were beginning to publicly question the goals and  morality of the Vietnam War.




The violence depicted sparked an uproar in the wider USA society, via the media. Astor explains the political and moral importance of the image well: “a police chief had fired a bullet, point blank, into the head of a handcuffed man, in likely violation of the Geneva Conventions. And the official was not a  Communist, but a member of South Vietnam’s government, the ally of the United States”.




The photo had a massive impact on the anti-war effort: “The picture went around the world. It was held up at demonstrations by members of the intensifying anti-war movement”​




Pulitzer Prize


Adam’s received a Pulitzer Prize for this photography. There are parallels between this, and the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Kevin Carter for his photograph of the vulture standing over a starving Sudanese child, during the 1993 famine. This later example is discussed by Kleinman & Kleinman (1996) as they wrestle with what it means to capture, commodify, and consume the suffering of others through visual media.


​


Like Carter before his eventual suicide, Adams also felt conflicted about the prize for the remainder of his life. In particular he lived with regret about the way his image was used as a








weapon against the shooter.






By capturing and conveying suffering through visual imagery, the photographer becomes a witness of death, but also a moral actor. Adams believed two people were killed in that instant, “the general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera”6.


Mobilising Support for Social Action


Kleinman and Kleinman5 emphasise that visual representations of evil can be used to promote social action. Indeed this image slowly became an icon for American activism, and to this day serves as a reminder of the atrocities that arise from political conflicts. This photo was a “classic instance of the use of moral sentiment to mobilize support for social action”. A fellow Vietnam War photographer, David Hume Kennerly, put it this way: “I don’t know that it ended the Vietnam War, but it sure as hell didn’t help the cause for the government – one thing I know for sure, anybody who’s ever seen that photo has never forgotten it”.6


The image was used to give a glimpse into the reality for those enduring such brutality, and conveyed a powerful intimacy and desperate message to the people of the USA. It is still considered in the USA to be the “Photo That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War”1.


Appropriating Suffering


This image meant that the death of the Viet Cong prisoner would not go unremembered. As Astor says, “this last instant of his life would be immortalized on the front pages of newspapers nationwide”1. However Kleinman & Kleinman5 also discuss how the suffering depicted in an image can be taken advantage of, particularly in the way that it is distributed and consumed. As is stated in their article, the use of an image to ‘right an inhumane situation’ can be inhumane in itself.


The image of suffering above was used by the American anti-war effort to serve a purpose; as a tool in the process of stopping the Vietnam War, but at what cost?  The image may have succeeded in saving many lives by cutting the war shorter, however, the insensitive use of the image was disastrous for some.


For the victim’s wife, Nguyen Thi Lop3, the image served a very different purpose than it’s anti-war role in the US. For her, the use of the image played the role of messenger: informing Nguyen of her husband’s death. In a clip years on, Nguyen is recorded saying in Vietnamese that “a friend of mine brought me the newspaper and then I found out what had happened to my husband”.


The reproduction of this image did not allow this widow the privacy or respect that she deserved. It shows lack of understanding, respect and permission required in the distribution of material. Furthermore we can argue that to share the intimate destruction of human life with such a level of triviality (as glancing past it in a newspaper) de-sensitizes, and reduces from the pain of the victim. Kleinman and Kleinman explain:


“Suffering ‘though at a distance,’ is routinely appropriated in American popular culture, which is a leading edge of global popular culture. The globalization of suffering is one of the more troubling signs of the cultural transformations of the current era: troubling because experience is being used as a commodity, and through this cultural representation of suffering, the experience is being remade, thinned out, and distorted”.5  


One effect of this, they argue, is the erasure and distortion of the importance of social experiences of suffering.  In this case, the image itself can not inherently convey the contextual political systems that produced it; its literal content is simply a violent act between two individuals. Yet re-contextualised as part of the anti-War effort, it did serve to highlight wider political contexts, such that the social response to the image led to not only condemnation of the violent act by that one soldier, but a change in public attitudes towards US involvement in Vietnam, and eventually a shift in political decisions by the US.


Conclusion


Visual depictions of suffering can be used to make us aware of the suffering experienced in other parts of the world. These visual depictions have the potential to be used as a tool to support social movements. However, the use of images does have its limitations and concerns, transforming the intimate suffering of real people into a tool. It is still up to debate whether this is an acceptable price for social change, and who gets to drive the production and circulation of such images, what they mean, and for what purpose.


References


    

  1.  Astor, M. (2018, February 1). A Photo That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/vietnam-execution-photo.html
    2. 

  2. Watson, A. M. (2015). PULITZER PRIZE PHOTOGRAPHY: SAIGON EXECUTION. Retrieved from http://www.newseum.org/2015/05/12/pulitzer-prize-photography-saigon-execution/
    3. 

  3. VIETNAM: VIETNAM WAR ANNIVERSARY: MEDIA (2). (2000).. Retrieved from http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/3061fe038ddb4dece288d433331d7b91
    4. 

  4. Adler, M. (2009). The Vietnam War, Through Eddie Adams’ Lens.All Things Considered. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2009/03/24/102112403/the-vietnam-war-through-eddie-adams-lens
    5. 

  5. Kleinman, A. (1996) ‘The Appeal of experience; the dismay of images: cultural appropriations of suffering in our times’, Daedalus. American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 125(1), pp. 1–23. Available at: https://ezproxy.otago.ac.nz/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027351.             ISSN: 00115266
    6. 

  6. Ruane, M. E. (2018, February 1). A grisly photo of a Saigon execution 50 years ago shocked the world and helped end the war. Washington Post. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/02/01/a-grisly-photo-of-a-saigon-execution-50-years-ago-shocked-the-world-and-helped-end-the-war/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5374c97d4477
    7. 

  7. Prescott, T. L. Appropriation and Representation. Image Journal, (97). Retrieved from https://imagejournal.org/article/appropriation-and-representation/
    8. 

  8. Mitchell, R. (2018, March 31). A ‘Pearl Harbor in politics’: LBJ’s stunning decision not to seek reelection. Retrieved April 26, 2019, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/03/31/a-pearl-harbor-in-politics-lbjs-stunning-decision-not-to-seek-reelection/?utm_term=.cdd2e6ec89aa
    9. 






	

	

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