The 1968 Saigon Execution Photo Doesn't Tell The Whole Truth | The Complete Story

The picture of Nguyen Ngoc Loan’s execution is one of the defining photographs of the entire war. It supposedly demonstrated the sheer cruelty of the South Vietnamese government and that South Vietnam was not a people worth fighting for. It went global during its time, gaining severe support for the anti-war movement.

However, while pictures are worth 1000 words, this story happens to be worth 2000. The truth of the story is that Bay Lop, the Viet Cong guerrilla that was executed happened to have murdered an entire family. This included an off-duty officer, his wife, 5 of his kids, and his aging mother. This completely flips the narrative of a cruel murdering general into a friend seeking vengeance for his friend’s family.

Unfortunately, when the public is only shown a picture, they instinctively think they know everything about a story. This is just bad journalism - the whole story should have been reported. But that’s the thing about war… until all sources from both sides of the conflict are analyzed as a whole, usually 50 years later, the whole story is revealed when nobody cares about it anymore.

~ SIGNIFICANT SOURCES:

Hastings, Max. Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975. London: William Collins, 2018.

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History: The First Complete Account of Vietnam at War. New York: Viking Press, 1983.

Adams, Eddit. “Eulogy: GENERAL NGUYEN NGOC LOAN,” Time, July 27, 1998.

“Huan Nguyen becomes first Vietnamese U.S. Navy Rear Admiral,” Naval Sea Systems Command Office of Corporate Communication, October 10, 2019.

South Vietnamese Community.