This day in history: 01 February 1968

Photo by Eddie Adams

On this day in history, February, 1st 1968, Nguyễn Văn Lém was executed by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The execution was caught on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams and has become one of the most iconic images of the horror and hostility of war.

Nguyễn Văn Lém was a Viet Cong soldier who was caught during the Tet Offensive and brought before General Nguyễn Ngoc Loan. At the time, General Nguyễn was the Chief of the Republic of Viet Nam National Police. He simply pulled out his service sidearm and summarily executed the Viet Cong soldier in front of Eddie Adams and television cameraman Vo Suu.

In 1969, Eddie Adams won a Pulitzer Prize for this photograph.

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Vietnam War – The Impact of Media

I'm reading The Girl in the Picture at the moment which is the story of one of the most famous photographs of the Vietnam War:

I’m only right at the beginning but this is the first time I’ve read about events such as the Tet Offensive and the Hui Massacre.  I’ve become really interested in the role of the media during the Vietnam War and the ways in which the American public were manipulated and played by the media.  It makes me very aware of the current media coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan and the massive difference in the news as represented by the different news agencies. 

“To see is to believe but in whose context?” – Charlton Heston, Vietnam War: The Impact of Media

The following video narrated by Charlton Heston does have a strong anti-communist bias but I found it quite interesting in that it shows us one thing: we as the public can never know the truth because the media will take images and video footage and make it represent whatever it is they want us to believe.  Were the Americans wrong to go into Vietnam?  Were they guilty of war crimes, massacres and atrocities?  Or did the media completely forsake the American troops, condemning them when the troops and the South Vietnamese needed them most?  Well, I guess it depends which news channel you are watching.

Vietnam War - The Impact of Media

Narrated by Charlton Heston (56 mins)

For the record, my own view on the current war against terrorism is that American and British troops are being led like lambs to the slaughter in a war where there are no clearly identified targets or goals and therefore, no chance of ever succeeding.  Politicians should stop using young men ad women as their personal pawns and toy soldiers.

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Recommended reading: birthday books

I’m not your average girl, I can tell you.  These are the books I bought with the money I got for my birthday:

Rwanda

	Into the Quick of Life: The Rwandan Genocide - The Survivors Speak Author: Jean Hatzfeld I have read this book before but wanted to own my own copy of it. I discussed this book in detail here. This is a heartbreaking book where survivors of the 1994 genocide discuss their experiences and how they survived the attacks.
	A Time for Machetes: The Rwandan Genocide - The Killers Speak Author: Jean Hatzfeld The second book from the above author but his time from the killers' perspectives. This is going to be a hard book to read and is at the bottom of the pile at the moment.  That is not to say that I don’t want to read it, it is just that I am going to read the other books first.
	The Strategy Of Antelopes: Rwanda After the Genocide Author: Jean Hatzfeld This is the final book in the set and I have been waiting for some time for this book to finally be released. The author has gone back into Rwanda and interviewed both hutus and tutsis again to discuss whether reconiliation and forgiveness is possible.

Zimbabwe

Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story of a Freedom Fighter Who Became a Tyrant Author: Heidi Holland I saw this book in South Africa in April and I am glad to finally have my hands on it. The book has received good reviews on Amazon and is said to be a fair attempt to understand Mugabe. In the words of the author: "Discovering that Robert Mugabe is a real person making hideous decisions is not to let him off the hook but is to observe how and why he lost his way" (Dinner with Mugabe, page xiv).

Vietnam

The Girl in the Picture: The Remarkable Story of Vietnam's Most Famous Casualty Author: Denise Chong This book has also received good reviews at Amazon and I am hoping it will give me some beginners insight into the Vietnam war; this is a topic I have been interested in my whole life but know relatively little about. It is precisely for reasons like this that I started this blog.

Cambodia

Survival in the Killing Fields Author: Haing S. Ngor It appears that with the recent genocide trials starting in Cambodia, this book has been brought back into print again which is great news because I had been struggling to get a copy of it before. The Khmer Institute has done an in-depth analysis of the inaccuracies in another book I had reviewed on Cambodia, First They Killed My Father.  This book is on their list of recommended books to read and thus I am looking forward to reading it.

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