Career

The execution was captured on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams. The execution was explained at the time as being the consequence of Lém"s admitted guerrilla activity and war crimes, and otherwise due to a general "wartime mentality". On the second day of the Tet Offensive, amid fierce street fighting, Lém was captured and brought to Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, Chief of the Republic of Vietnam National Police.

Using his personal.38 revolver, General Loan summarily executed Lém in front of Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and National Broadcasting Company television cameraman Vo Suu.

South Vietnamese sources said that Lém commanded a Viet Congress death squad, which on that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers" families. Corroborating this, Lém was captured at the site of a mass grave that included the bodies of at least seven police family members.

Photographer Adams confirmed the South Vietnamese account, although he was only present for the execution. Shortly after the execution, a South Vietnamese official who had not been present said that Lém was only a political operative.

Achievements

• The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, galvanizing the anti-war movement. Adams won a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his photograph.

Politics

Lém"s widow confirmed that her husband was a member of the National Liberation Front and she did not see him after the Tet Offensive began. Military lawyers have not agreed whether Loan"s action violated the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners of war (Lém had not been wearing a proper uniform. Nor was he, it is alleged, fighting enemy soldiers at the time), where Prisoner Of War status was granted independently of the laws of war.

lieutenant was limited to National Liberation Front seized during military operations.