Photographs Do Lie

PHOTOJOURNALIST Eddie Adams died last Sunday at age 71, but his place in history is secure. Indeed, Adams made history with his famous picture of South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Taken in Saigon on February 1, 1968, the picture showed Gen. Loan’s point-blank execution of a Viet Cong captain named Bay Lop. The images were searing: Loan’s cold grimace; a snub-nosed .38 revolver held inches from Lop’s terrified face; the fiercely clenched teeth of an officer standing nearby.

It won a Pulitzer Prize for the Associated Press in 1969, and was one of the most influential still photos of the 20th century. But until the day he died, Eddie Adams regretted having taken it.