Nguyễn Ngọc Loan

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 11 December 1930Template:Spaced ndash14 July 1998) was a South Vietnamese general and chief of the South Vietnamese National Police.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Loan gained international attention when he summarily executed a handcuffed prisoner of war named Nguyễn Văn Lém on February 1, 1968, in Saigon, Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.<ref name=ABC>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Nguyễn Văn Lém was a Viet Cong (VC) member.<ref name=ABC/> South Vietnamese Vice President Nguyễn Cao Kỳ stated that Lém was "a very high ranking" political official, but had not been a member of the Viet Cong military.<ref name="nytimes.com">Template:Cite news</ref> The event was witnessed and recorded by Võ Sửu, a cameraman for NBC, and Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer. The photo and film became two famous images in contemporary American journalism.

Despite the determination of the Immigration and Naturalization Service that Loan committed war crimes, owing to which he was liable for deportation back to Vietnam, the then US President, Jimmy Carter, intervened personally to halt the deportation proceedings.

Early life

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was born 11 December 1930<ref>Thiếu tướng Nguyễn Ngọc Loan Template:In lang Template:Webarchive</ref> to a middle-class family in Huế and was one of eleven children. He studied pharmacy and graduated near the top of his class at Huế University<ref name="nytimes.com"/> before joining the Vietnamese National Army in 1951. He soon studied at an officer training school, where he befriended classmate Nguyễn Cao Kỳ.<ref name=WaPo>Template:Cite news</ref> Loan received pilot training in Morocco before returning to Vietnam in 1955, serving with the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) for the next decade.<ref name=Moise>Template:Cite book</ref>

Loan received additional training in the United States at some time during this period, enabling him to speak English fluently by the time he became prominent during the late 1960s. Loan's career followed Ky's, and when Ky became commander of the RVNAF, Loan served as chief of staff.<ref name=Robbins>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp During the February 1965 Operation Flaming Dart airstrikes targeting North Vietnam Loan flew as Ky's wingman.<ref name=Moise/>

Career

In June 1965, when Ky became premier of South Vietnam, he promoted Loan to colonel and appointed him director of the Military Security Service. This was followed within a few months by an appointment to director of the Central Intelligence Organization, giving Loan simultaneous control of both military intelligence and security. He was further made director general of the Republic of Vietnam National Police in April 1966.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Having these positions enabled Loan to wield immense power, and he supervised the suppression of the early 1966 uprising of Ky's rival General Nguyễn Chánh Thi and dissident Buddhists.<ref name=WaPo/> When Ky agreed to become vice president for President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu in 1967, the former relied on the assistance Loan provided for him in order to retain power.<ref name=Moise/>

Loan was a staunch South Vietnamese nationalist, refusing to give Americans special treatment in his jurisdiction. For example, in December 1966 he rejected the arrest of Saigon mayor Van Van Cua by American military police and insisted that only South Vietnamese authorities could arrest and detain South Vietnamese citizens. He also insisted that U.S. civilians, including journalists, were subject to South Vietnamese jurisdiction while in Saigon. Loan's uncompromising stand caused him to be regarded as a troublemaker by the Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. Loan was also skeptical of the U.S. CIA-backed Phoenix Program to attack and neutralize the clandestine VC infrastructure.<ref name=Robbins/>Template:Rp

Loan's men were also involved with the arrest of two VC operatives on 15 August 1967 who had been engaged with attempting peace negotiations with U.S. officials without the participation of the South Vietnamese in an initiative code-named Buttercup. His opposition to such surreptitious dealing, and his opposition to releasing one of the communist negotiators, reportedly angered the Americans, and forced them to keep both him and the South Vietnamese better informed of diplomatic dealings involving their country.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=Robbins/>Template:Rp

Loan was an accomplished pilot—he commanded an airstrike on VC forces at Bù Đốp in 1967, soon before he was promoted to permanent brigadier general rank. The Americans were displeased at his promotion, and Loan submitted his resignation soon thereafter. The South Vietnamese cabinet subsequently rejected Loan's resignation.<ref name=Robbins/>Template:Rp

Execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém

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File:Saigon Execution.jpg

The Saigon Execution photograph of Loan summarily executing Nguyễn Văn Lém.

Nguyễn Văn Lém (also known as Bảy Lốp)<ref name=":4">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> was a Vietcong captain.<ref name=ABC/> On 1 February 1968, during the Tet Offensive, he was captured in a building in the Cho Lon quarter of Saigon, near the Ấn Quang pagoda.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":1" /> Lém wore civilian clothing at the time of his capture.<ref name=":4" /> Handcuffed, he was brought to Loan, who then summarily executed him on the street using his sidearm, a .38 Special Smith & Wesson Bodyguard Model 49 revolver.<ref>Buckley, Tom. "Portrait of an Aging Despot", Harper's magazine, April 1972, page 69</ref><ref name=":6">Template:Cite book</ref> A reporter for The New York Times later wrote that this likely violated the Geneva Conventions.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

A story emerged during the 1980s that Lém had just murdered a police major, a subordinate and close friend of General Loan, and the major's whole family. The photographer Eddie Adams believed and repeated this story. "It turns out that the Viet Cong lieutenant who was killed in the picture had murdered a police major--one of General Loan's best friends--his whole family, wife, kids, the same guy. So these are things we didn't know at the time."<ref>Eddie Adams oral history in Kim Willenson, Ed., The Bad War (1987), pp. 186-187.</ref> "I didn't have a picture of that Viet Cong blowing away the family."<ref>Al Santoli, ed., To Bear Any Burden (1985).</ref> In 2008, a new version appeared, in which Lém had murdered the family of Lieutenant Colonel Nguyễn Tuấn, who was not a subordinate of General Loan but an officer of the armored forces of the ARVN.<ref>Bai An Tran, "After 40 Years of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War - Half of the Truth Deciphered," VietCatholic News, February 7, 2008, http://www.vietcatholic.net/News/Html/52113.htm read 1/27/2018.</ref> Max Hastings, writing in 2018, said that some of the allegations made against Lém were true. Only one of Lt. Col. Tuan's children, Huan Nguyen, survived the attack and later became the first Vietnamese American promoted to rear admiral in the United States Navy. Hastings also wrote that American historian Edwin Moise "is convinced that the entire story of Lém murdering the Tuân family is a post-war invention." Hastings concluded that "the truth will never be known."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The execution was captured as a photo by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and on video by NBC News television cameraman Võ Sửu.<ref name=NYT>Template:Cite news</ref> After the execution, Loan told Adams: "They killed many of our people and many of yours."<ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref> Võ Sửu reported that after the shooting Loan went to a reporter and said ''These guys kill a lot of our people, and I think Buddha will forgive me.''<ref name=NYT/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Interviewed by Oriana Fallaci in May 1968 for her book Nothing, and So be it, he stated that he was aware of the indignation he caused and that he understood Fallaci's opinion when she regarded him as a cold-blooded killer. He said that he killed Lém because he felt enraged that the VC were wearing civilian clothes.<ref name="Fallaci">Template:Cite book</ref> Speaking to Fallaci, he said: "He wasn't wearing a uniform and I can't respect a man who shoots without wearing a uniform. Because it's too easy: you kill and you're not recognized. I respect a North Vietnamese because he's dressed as a soldier, like myself, and so he takes the same risks as I do. But a Vietcong in civilian clothes - I was filled with rage."<ref name=Fallaci/> Loan has also recounted, "If you hesitate, if you didn't do your duty, the men won't follow you".<ref name="nytimes.com"/>

The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, allegedly increasing anti-war sentiment.<ref name=":1" /> Eddie Adams' photo won him the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Adams later stated he regretted he was unable to get a picture "of that Viet Cong [Lém] blowing away the [Tuan] family".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Subsequent career

A few months after the execution picture was taken, Loan was wounded seriously near Saigon by machine gun fire to his right leg. Again, his picture was published by the world press, this time as Australian war correspondent Pat Burgess carried him back to his lines.<ref name=":4"/>

On 8 June 1968 President Thiệu replaced Loan as Director of National Police with Trần Văn Hai.<ref name=Robbins/>Template:Rp In late June he went to Australia for medical treatment, returning to Vietnam later that year. In May 1969 he and his family flew to the US where he received medical treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and remained in Alexandria, Virginia until December 1969 when they returned to Vietnam. Soon after his arrival in the US Adams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his photo and this brought attention to Loan. Senator Stephen M. Young denounced Loan in the Senate calling him a "brutal murderer".<ref name=Robbins/>Template:Rp

In August 1970 he was appointed to a Defense Ministry job that involved long-range planning but lacked actual power.<ref name=Moise/> Loan helped construct hospitals for war wounded and was a frequent visitor to children's hospitals and orphanages. His leg wound continued to trouble him and it was amputated in September 1974.<ref name=Robbins/>Template:Rp

Later life

In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Loan approached the US Embassy for evacuation, but was refused, and he and his family escaped aboard an RVNAF airplane and eventually reached the US.<ref name=Robbins/>Template:Rp There he moved to Dale City, Virginia.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He then opened a restaurant named "Les Trois Continents" in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Burke, Virginia at Rolling Valley Mall.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The restaurant served pizza, hamburgers, and Vietnamese cuisine, but was described as more of a pizzeria.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":9">Template:Cite news</ref> Loan also worked as a secretary in a Washington company at this time. When interviewed, Loan stated "All we want to do is to forget and to be left alone".<ref name=":9"/>

Adams later apologized in person to Loan and his family for the damage his photograph did to his reputation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

House of Representatives member Elizabeth Holtzman forwarded a list of Vietnamese officials who may have committed war crimes (including Loan) to Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). House of Representatives member Harold S. Sawyer later requested the Library of Congress investigate Loan.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":8"/> In 1978, the INS contended that Loan had committed a war crime, following a report by the Library of Congress which concluded that the summary execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém had been illegal by Vietnamese law,<ref name=":8">Template:Cite news</ref> in an attempt to revoke his permanent resident status to ensure that he could not become a United States citizen.<ref name=":0" /> They approached Adams to testify against Loan, but Adams instead testified in his favor and Loan was allowed to stay.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The deportation was halted by the intervention of United States President Jimmy Carter, who stated that "such historical revisionism was folly".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Loan visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and praised it.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1991, Loan closed his restaurant and retired after a decrease of business caused by increased publicity about his past.<ref name=NYT/> Adams recalled that on his last visit to the pizza parlor soon before it closed, he had seen written on a toilet wall, "We know who you are, you fucker".<ref name=NYT/><ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Adams, in the documentary An Unlikely Weapon (2009), directed by Susan Morgan Cooper</ref>

Death

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan died of cancer on 14 July 1998,<ref name="nytimes.com"/> aged 67, in Burke, Virginia.<ref name=NYT/> After his death, Adams praised him: "The guy was a hero. America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him."<ref name="adams">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Eddie Adams wrote a eulogy to Loan in Time:

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Personal life

Loan was married to Chinh Mai, with whom he raised five children.<ref name=NYT/>

External links

• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Template:Cite news Collection of photos of the Lém execution.
• The exact location of this event happened on the west section of "Lý Thái Tổ" street, right in the center of this satellite map, and looking East as shown in the execution picture.