Eddie Adams (photographer)

Edward Thomas Adams was born on June 12, 1933, in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.{{Cite news|url=https://www.yahoo.com/news/photos/photogragher-eddie-adams-1390523178-slideshow/|title=Photographer Eddie Adams|access-date=July 7, 2018|language=en-US}}

Adams joined the United States Marine Corps in 1951, during the Korean War as a combat photographer. One of his assignments was to photograph the entire Demilitarized Zone from end to end immediately following the war. This took him more than a month to complete.{{Citation needed|date = February 2013}}

{{main|Saigon Execution}}

File:Saigon Execution.jpg

It was while covering the Vietnam War for the Associated Press that he took his best-known photograph—that of police chief General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, summarily executing Nguyễn Văn Lém, a Vietcong prisoner of war. This occurred on a Saigon street on February 1, 1968,{{cite news |title=Eddie Adams' iconic Vietnam War photo: What happened next |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42864421 |access-date=30 January 2021 |work=BBC News |date=29 January 2018}}{{cite news |last1=Astor |first1=Maggie |title=A Photo That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War (Published 2018) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/vietnam-execution-photo.html |access-date=30 January 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=1 February 2018}} during the early part of the Tet Offensive.

Adams won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography{{cite news|last=Winslow|first=Donald R.|title=The Pulitzer Eddie Adams Didn't Want|date=April 19, 2011|work=The New York Times|url=http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/the-pulitzer-eddie-adams-didnt-want/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0}} and a World Press Photo award{{cite news|access-date=July 5, 2018|title=1968 Eddie Adams SN1|url=https://www.worldpressphoto.org/collection/photo/1968/spot-news/eddie-adams|newspaper=World Press Photo}} for the photograph. Writer and critic David D. Perlmutter states that "no film footage did as much damage as AP photographer Eddie Adams's 35mm shot taken on a Saigon street ... When people talk or write about [the Tet Offensive] at least a sentence is devoted (often with an illustration) to the Eddie Adams picture".{{cite book|last=Perlmutter|first=David D.|title=Visions of War: Picturing Warfare from the Stone Age to the Cyber Age|url=https://archive.org/details/visionsofwarpict00perl |url-access=registration|access-date=January 31, 2018|date=November 29, 1999|publisher=St. Martin's Press|isbn=9780312200459|pages=[https://archive.org/details/visionsofwarpict00perl/page/205 205]–207}}

Anticipating the effect of Adams's photograph, an attempt at balance was sought by editors at The New York Times. In his memoirs, John G. Morris recalls that assistant managing editor Theodore M. Bernstein "determined that the brutality manifested by America's ally be put into perspective, agreed to run the Adams picture large, but offset with a picture of a child slain by Vietcong, which conveniently came through from AP at about the same time."{{cite book|last=Morris|first=John Godfrey|title=Get the Picture: A Personal History of Photojournalism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QzM2EjoCWGcC|access-date=January 31, 2018|date=June 15, 2002|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=9780226539140}} Adams' picture, however, retained a more lasting infamy. Max Hastings, writing in 2018, accused Lém of murdering Colonel Nguyen Tuân, his wife, six children, and 80-year-old mother; he also wrote that American historian Ed Moise "is convinced that the entire story of Lém murdering the Tuân family is a post-war invention" and that "The truth will never be known".{{cite book|last=Hastings|first=Max|title=Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975|publisher=Harper|year=2018|isbn=9780062405661|page=467}}

In Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), Susan Sontag was disturbed by what she saw as Loan's staging of the execution in the street for journalists' photographs. She wrote that "he would not have carried out the summary execution there had they [journalists] not been available to witness it" and positioned himself in profile view with the prisoner facing the cameras.{{cite book | first=Susan | last=Sontag | title=Regarding the Pain of Others | url=https://archive.org/details/regardingpainofo00sont_0 | url-access=registration | location=New York | publisher=Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux | year=2003 | page=[https://archive.org/details/regardingpainofo00sont_0/page/53 53]| isbn=9780374248581 }} However, Donald Winslow of The New York Times quoted Adams as having described the image as a "reflex picture" and "wasn't certain of what he'd photographed until the film was developed". Furthermore, Winslow noted that Adams "wanted me to understand that 'Saigon Execution' was not his most important picture and that he did not want his obituary to begin, 'Eddie Adams, the photographer best known for his iconic Vietnam photograph "Saigon Execution{{"'"}}.

Adams would later lament the effect of the photo.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/vietnam-execution-photo.html|title=A Photo That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War|newspaper=The New York Times |date=February 2018 |access-date=July 6, 2018|language=en|last1=Astor |first1=Maggie }} On Loan and his photograph, Adams wrote in Time in 1998:

{{blockquote|Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapons in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. ... What the photograph didn't say was, "What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American people?". ... This picture really messed up his life. He never blamed me. He told me if I hadn't taken the picture, someone else would have, but I've felt bad for him and his family for a long time. ... I sent flowers when I heard that he had died and wrote, "I'm sorry. There are tears in my eyes."{{cite news|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,139659,00.html|title=Eulogy: General Nguyen Ngoc Loan|first=Eddie|last=Adams|newspaper=Time|date=July 27, 1998|access-date=May 11, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928072235/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,139659,00.html#ixzz2Tnso3aM5|archive-date=September 28, 2013|url-status=bot: unknown}}}}

Loan later relocated to the United States, and in 1978, there was an unsuccessful attempt to rescind his permanent residence status (green card). Adams advocated for Loan when the U.S. government sought to deport him based on the photograph, and apologized in person to Loan and his family for the irreparable damage it did to his honor while he was alive.{{Citation needed|date=July 2018}} When Loan died, Adams praised him as a "hero" of a "just cause".[http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs024/imagesHistoric.html#06.jpg Image Canon – Historic Images] On the television show War Stories with Oliver North Adams referred to Loan as "a goddamned hero!"{{cite news|title=An American Hero: Eddie Adams |date=January 30, 2009 |url=http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/war-stories/2009/01/30/american-hero-eddie-adams |publisher=Fox News |access-date=January 31, 2018}}

He once said, "I would have rather been known more for the series of photographs I shot of 48 Vietnamese refugees who managed to sail to Thailand in a 30-foot boat, only to be towed back to the open seas by Thai marines." The photographs, and accompanying reports, helped persuade then President Jimmy Carter to grant asylum to the nearly 200,000 Vietnamese boat people.{{cite web|url=http://www.ethongluan.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2306:m-u-than-1968-nguy-n-ng-c-loan-va-eddie-adams-vo-danh-t-ng-h-p&catid=66:binh-lu-n-th-i-s&Itemid=301|title=Nguyễn Ngọc Loan và Eddie Adams|author=Vô Danh tổng hợp|publisher=Thông Luận|date=November 30, 2011|access-date=May 11, 2013}} He won the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club in 1977 for this series of photographs in his photo-essay, "Boat of No Smiles" (published by AP).[http://www.opcofamerica.org/opc_awards/archive/byaward/award_capa.php The OPC's Robert Capa Gold Medal] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071105202454/http://www.opcofamerica.org/opc_awards/archive/byaward/award_capa.php |date=November 5, 2007 }} Adams remarked, "It did some good and nobody got hurt".{{cite web |last = Eddie Adams|title = Interview for PBS| website=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/speaktruthtopower/hr_eddie.htm|access-date = June 1, 2007}}

On October 22, 2009, Swann Galleries auctioned a print of Adams' photo of Loan and Lém. Printed during the 1980s, it had been a gift to Adams's son. It sold for $43,200."[https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/photoblog/2010/01/the_price_of_a_picture.html The Price of a Picture]", Phill Coomes, BBC News, January 18, 2010. Accessed July 31, 2017

The sole survivor of Lém's alleged killing of Tuan's family was Huan Nguyen; aged nine at the time, he was shot twice during the attack that killed his family and stayed with his mother for two hours as she bled to death. In 2019, he became the highest ranking Vietnamese American officer in the U.S. military when he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the United States Navy.{{Cite news |title=Huan Nguyen becomes first Vietnamese U.S. Navy Rear Admiral |url=https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Media/News/SavedNewsModule/Article/1986946/huan-nguyen-becomes-first-vietnamese-us-navy-rear-admiral/|date=2019-10-10|access-date=2020-06-12|work=Naval Sea Systems Command}}{{cite web|url=https://www.military.com/history/navys-first-vietnamese-admiral-saw-his-family-killed-infamous-viet-cong-guerrilla.html|title=The Navy's First Vietnamese Admiral Saw His Family Killed by an Infamous Viet Cong Guerrilla|date=July 19, 2022 |publisher=Military.com|accessdate=23 September 2022}}

Adams started a photojournalism workshop, The Eddie Adams Workshop (also known as the Barnstorm) in 1988.{{cite magazine|url=https://time.com/3791997/fostering-the-next-generation-the-eddie-adams-workshop-at-25-years/|title=Fostering the Next Generation: The Eddie Adams Workshop at 25 Years|last1=Adams|first1=Alyssa|magazine=Time|access-date=July 5, 2018}}{{cite news|url=https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/barnstorming-for-25-years/|title=Barnstorming for 25 Years|last1=Estrin|first1=James|newspaper=Lens Blog|date=May 16, 2012 |access-date=July 5, 2018}} It reached its thirtieth year in 2017.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2017/10/06/lessons-through-the-lens-and-life-9-photographers-share-their-best-memories-of-the-eddie-adams-workshop/|title=Perspective|last1=Laurent|first1=Olivier|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=July 5, 2018}}{{cite news|url=https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/paying-it-forward-at-the-eddie-adams-workshop/|title=Paying It Forward at the Eddie Adams Workshop|last1=Estrin|first1=James|newspaper=Lens Blog|date=October 4, 2017 |access-date=July 5, 2018}}

Along with the Pulitzer, Adams received more than 500 awards,{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2017/apr/10/eddie-adam-photojournalism-saigon-execution-pictures|title=The photojournalism of Eddie Adams – in pictures|date=April 1, 2017|work=The Guardian|access-date=July 5, 2018|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}} including the George Polk Award for News Photography in 1968, 1977 and 1978,{{cite web |url=http://www.liu.edu/Polk/Articles/Past-Winners |title=Past Winners of the George Polk Awards |access-date=July 7, 2015 |publisher=Long Island University}} World Press Photo awards on 14 occasions,{{cite news|access-date=July 5, 2018|title=Eddie Adams|url=https://www.worldpressphoto.org/people/eddie-adams|newspaper=World Press Photo}} and numerous awards from the National Press Photographers Association, Sigma Delta Chi, Overseas Press Club, and many other organizations.{{Cite web|url=https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/03104/cah-03104.html|title=A Guide to the Eddie Adams Photographic Archive, ca. 1950–2004|website=Texas Archival Resources Online|publisher=University of Texas|language=en|access-date=January 30, 2018}}

Adams was first married to Ann Fedorchak, with whom he had one son and two daughters. After the couple divorced, he married Alyssa Adkins in 1989; they had one son.{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/eddie-adams-550558.html|title=Eddie Adams|work=The Independent|date=23 October 2011|access-date=30 January 2021}}

On September 19, 2004, Adams died in New York City at age 71 from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).{{Cite news|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/photographer-eddie-adams-dies/|title=Photographer Eddie Adams Dies|access-date=July 7, 2018|language=en}}

In 2009, his widow donated his photographic archive to the University of Texas at Austin.{{Cite news|url=https://nppa.org/news/606|title=Eddie Adams' Archive Donated To University Of Texas Briscoe Center|date=September 1, 2009|work=NPPA|access-date=July 6, 2018|language=en|archive-date=December 3, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181203183440/https://nppa.org/news/606|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.cah.utexas.edu/collections/photojournalists/adams.php|title=Eddie Adams – Photojournalism – Strengths – Collections|last=History|first=Dolph Briscoe Center for American|date=August 4, 2014|website=www.cah.utexas.edu|language=en|access-date=July 6, 2018|archive-date=March 30, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330173149/https://www.cah.utexas.edu/collections/photojournalists/adams.php|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.cah.utexas.edu/news/press_release.php?press=press_eddie_adams|title=Eddie Adams|last=Austin|first=Dolph Briscoe Center for the American History – UT|date=September 2, 2009|website=www.cah.utexas.edu|language=en|access-date=July 6, 2018|archive-date=March 30, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330173148/https://www.cah.utexas.edu/news/press_release.php?press=press_eddie_adams|url-status=dead}}

• Eddie Adams: Vietnam. New York City: Umbrage, 2008. Written and edited by Alyssa Adams. {{ISBN|978-1884167966}}.
• Eddie Adams: Bigger than the Frame. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2017. By Eddie Adams. {{ISBN|978-1-4773-1185-1}}. With a foreword by Don Carleton, a preface by Alyssa Adams, and an essay by Anne Wilkes Tucker.

• An Unlikely Weapon (2009) – documentary feature directed by Susan Morgan Cooper and Tarik Burnett and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland.[http://www.anunlikelyweapon.net/ An Unlikely Weapon] (official site)

{{Portal bar|Biography}}

{{Reflist |30em}}

;Citations

{{Refbegin}}

• {{cite book

|last = Brady

|first = James

|title = The Scariest Place in the World – A Marine Returns to North Korea

|publisher = Thomas Dunne Books

|year = 2005

|location = New York City

|isbn = 978-0-312-33243-3}}

{{Refend}}

• {{YouTube|cf5pJXr3gWQ|Interview with Eddie Adams about 'The execution', his Pulitzer photograph}}
• [https://www.pbs.org/speaktruthtopower/hr_eddie.htm Interview for PBS]
• [https://www.stltoday.com/news/feb-a-grisly-moment-from-the-vietnam-war/collection_32755a22-bfc6-52a5-a81f-4b1644974b12.html#1 Feb. 1, 1968: A grisly moment from the Vietnam War -St. Louis Dispatch]
• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3672428.stm Eddie Adams Photographs]
• [http://www.eddieadamsworkshop.com Eddie Adams Workshop] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070707062208/http://www.eddieadamsworkshop.com/ |date=July 7, 2007 }}
• [http://www.cah.utexas.edu/collections/photojournalists/intro.php Dolph Briscoe Center for American History – Photojournalism]
• {{LCAuth|n00089693|Eddie Adams|4|}}

{{Vietnam War correspondents|stae=collapsed}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Eddie}}

Category:1933 births

Category:2004 deaths

Category:20th-century United States Marines

Category:20th-century American journalists

Category:20th-century American photographers

Category:Deaths from motor neuron disease in New York (state)

Category:United States Marine Corps personnel of the Korean War

Category:American photojournalists

Category:American war correspondents of the Vietnam War

Category:Photography in Korea

Category:Pulitzer Prize for Photography winners

Category:People from Bogota, New Jersey

Category:People from New Kensington, Pennsylvania

Category:Associated Press photographers

Category:Journalists from Pennsylvania

Category:Military personnel from Pennsylvania

Category:Photographers from Pennsylvania

Category:American male journalists