What You Don't Know About This Photograph Has the Power To Change Opinions

[Ken Sp.]

Interesting read!

What You Don't Know About This Photograph Has the Power To Change Opinions | Fstoppers

https://fstoppers.com/historical/what-yo...ons-125776

[DP]

I use this image in my classes to explain how you can use photography to sway opinion. Bay Lop was in civilian clothes and, under the Geneva Conventions, was subject to summary execution as a spy. The general was perfectly within his rights to execute the prisoner.
Ugly? You bet. Horrible? No question. But this picture turned opinion against the Vietnam War literally overnight.

[Paul F.]

Early on the morning of the photograph, Bay Lop had led a unit of VC tanks to attack the Armor Camp in Go Vap. After taking control of the camp, Bay Lop arrested Lt.Col Tuan along with his family. In an effort to gain intelligence from Tuan, Bay Lop tortured, and eventually executed, Tuan. Bay Lop then went on to kill all the members of Tuan's family, to include his 80-year-old mother. Captain Bay Lop was then captured near a mass grave of 34 innocent civilian bodies, leaving little doubt to his involvement in the atrocity. Upon proudly admitting his participation in the horrific war crime, Bay Lop was brought in and promptly executed with the .38 side arm in front of AP photographer Eddie Adams.

The part that until the last dcade or so, was NEVER part of the caption for this photo....

[JoeH]

Within his rights to summarily execute him, yes. But that is an option that even 50 years ago was not accepted as a normal action. Quite likely he would have been executed after a trial anyways, it was the summary style of execution that brought the infamy.

[blooz]

True that the whole story about Bay Lop (and this is the first time I knew that his name was known) wasn't told, but it seems to me that it was clear he was a Viet Cong when the photo was published. It didn't change my opinion because I was against the war since 1961 or 62.

[Ombligo]

I too lead a classroom discussion around this image. It is the moment, frozen in time that allowed viewers to ponder their thoughts. There is film of the same scene that never carried the same weight. The photographer, Eddie Adams, openly stated in a interview that he wishes he had never taken the photo because it was so misunderstood.

The homage that a photo never lies is so far from truth that it in and of itself is a lie. Photography has always had the power to shape and change opinion. It does so with such frequency that today we no longer even recognize those lies for what they are.

The power of a photograph lies not in its absolute truth, the power of a photograph lies in its power to create an absolute truth.

[Kraniac]

JoeH wrote:
Within his rights to summarily execute him, yes. But that is an option that even 50 years ago was not accepted as a normal action. Quite likely he would have been executed after a trial anyways, it was the summary style of execution that brought the infamy.

Indeed but there was, no doubt, a heavy cultural force working there..maybe he knew in that moment that this man had just murdered a man's entire Family? Family everywhere is important, of course..but the power of Family in these Asian cultures is larger than life in many ways?

That picture always made me shudder.

[davester]

That is an important picture for sure, but I don't think that it misled the american public. The Vietnam war was presented to us on television in a highly sanitized way, so if anything we didn't think much about the gruesome violence that was happening every day out there, far from our television screens. Not to mention that body count data had been censored because it was too incendiary. The american public was shielded from the true awfulness of war by the Pentagon propaganda machine. This photo showed war for what it truly was, brutal, violent, and without due process. This photo woke up the american public to the fact that their tax dollars were going to a brutal, violent, unjust conflict, so the photographer did a great service to America. I'm sorry that the shooter was vilified, but I'm certainly not sorry that the photo was published. lIf not for that photo the war would probably continued far longer and countless more american and vietnamese lives would have been sacrificed.

[deckeda]

I did't know until about a month ago who was who in that photo, because up until then I hadn't seen it with the caption.

I'm puzzled why, given how powerful the image is, the story wasn't told at the time. It's not as if the U.S. couldn't have used the truth.

[davester]

The story was told at the time. As I indicated in my previous post, the reaction was more about how this showed what was really happening versus the sanitized propaganda that was being shown on TV every night.