On Eddie Adams

© Eddie Adams

I take the opportunity to write on a picture not only because it has become iconic, but also for historical reasons, as it was published 33 years ago today. As Susan Sontag conveys: ‘To catch a death actually happening and embalm it for all time is something only cameras can do’ (Sontag 2003:59). This is exactly the case for Eddie Adams’ picture above. Working for the Associated Press, Adams captured General Loan shooting at point blank a Vietcong suspect in the street. The Vietcong is captured at the ‘decisive moment’, the moment in which the bullet has entered his head and General Loan has just pulled the trigger.

The photo is considered one of the most iconic the Vietnam War generated (along with Nick Ut’s ‘Children Fleeing an American Napalm Strike’ four years later), not to say in the history of photography. We are faced with a calm General Loan, sleeves pulled up, one arm being parallel to his body, while the other is extended holding a gun a few inches from the victim’s head. The victim has both hands behind his back, most probably tied. The bullet has just entered his head; his right eye is closed, whilst when you see his left one you think he is looking straight in the camera, to us.

But what is the meaning of this picture? Apart from the emotions it creates how did it become one of the most recognizable pictures in history? It is said that ‘the stream of images revealing the death, injury and sorrows of the people of Vietnam was a major factor in the public’s eventual repugnance of that war’ and this picture was no exception, but rather one of the images that imposed that feeling (Price 1996:89). 

The picture was taken after the Tet Offensive, a psychological defeat for the American Army, and was published in New York Times on 2^nd February 1968 (Taylor 1998: 161). These two facts might not be of significant importance for today's reader-viewer (unless you are a historian or interested in this picture's history). Nevertheless, since its first publication it has been reprinted innumerable times in books, newspapers and magazines. Today, the image exists in myriad reprints and a stream of distribution and we do not even need to see it any more in order to understand which picture one is referring to. It has been imprinted in our collective consciousness. A very brief description of it will be enough for one to understand that it is this particular picture someone is talking about and there is no other it could be confused with (here I am referring to a 'Western' audience) .

For Lister and Wells the ‘context of viewing’ is of particular importance regarding images and pictures (Lister and Wells 2001:65). Of course now the picture has a different meaning than the one it used to have; in 1968 it was published in a daily newspaper, whereas today you can find it virtually in any medium. This ‘recycling’ of the image has made us very familiar with it and is now considered as ‘exemplary of its genre and era’ and therefore ‘many viewers are likely to have in some way sought out the circumstances of viewing, whether borrowing or buying a book, or visiting an exhibition’ (ibid).

But, perhaps and exceptionally for this image here, what is of most importance is not how we feel, read and consume this image, but rather what Eddie Adams has said about his photo and in this unorthodox way I wish to finish this essay. 

‘I won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for a photograph of one man shooting another. Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and GENERAL NGUYEN NGOC LOAN. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, "What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?" General Loan was what you would call a real warrior, admired by his troops. I'm not saying what he did was right, but you have to put yourself in his position. The photograph also doesn't say that the general devoted much of his time trying to get hospitals built in Vietnam for war casualties. This picture really messed up his life. He never blamed me. He told me if I hadn't taken the picture, someone else would have, but I've felt bad for him and his family for a long time. I had kept in contact with him; the last time we spoke was about six months ago, when he was very ill. I sent flowers when I heard that he had died and wrote, "I'm sorry. There are tears in my eyes’’.’