Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (; 11 December 193014 July 1998) was a South Vietnamese general and chief of the South Vietnamese National Police.
Loan gained international attention when he summarily executed a handcuffed prisoner of war named Nguyễn Văn Lém on February 1, 1968, in Saigon, Vietnam during the Tet Offensive. Nguyễn Văn Lém was a Viet Cong (VC) member. The event was witnessed and recorded by Võ Sửu, a cameraman for NBC, and Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer. The photo and film became two famous images in contemporary American journalism.
Despite the determination of the Immigration and Naturalization Service that Loan committed war crimes, owing to which he was liable for deportation back to Vietnam, the then US President, Jimmy Carter, intervened personally to halt the deportation proceedings.
Early life
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was born 11 December 1930 to a middle-class family in Huế and was one of eleven children. He studied pharmacy and graduated near the top of his class at Huế University Loan received pilot training in Morocco before returning to Vietnam in 1955, serving with the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) for the next decade.
Loan received additional training in the United States at some time during this period, enabling him to speak English fluently by the time he became prominent during the late 1960s. Loan's career followed Ky's, and when Ky became commander of the RVNAF, Loan served as chief of staff. During the February 1965 Operation Flaming Dart airstrikes targeting North Vietnam Loan flew as Ky's wingman. Having these positions enabled Loan to wield immense power, and he supervised the suppression of the early 1966 uprising of Ky's rival General Nguyễn Chánh Thi and dissident Buddhists. was a Vietcong captain. A reporter for The New York Times later wrote that this likely violated the Geneva Conventions.
A story emerged during the 1980s that Lém had just murdered a police major, a subordinate and close friend of General Loan, and the major's whole family. The photographer Eddie Adams believed and repeated this story. "It turns out that the Viet Cong lieutenant who was killed in the picture had murdered a police major—one of General Loan's best friends—his whole family, wife, kids, the same guy. So these are things we didn't know at the time." "I didn't have a picture of that Viet Cong blowing away the family." In 2008, a new version appeared, in which Lém had murdered the family of Lieutenant Colonel Nguyễn Tuấn, who was not a subordinate of General Loan but an officer of the armored forces of the ARVN. Only one of Lt. Col. Tuan's children, Huan Nguyen, survived the attack and later became the first Vietnamese American promoted to rear admiral in the United States Navy. Hastings also wrote that American historian Edwin Moise "is convinced that the entire story of Lém murdering the Tuân family is a post-war invention". Hastings concluded that "the truth will never be known".
Interviewed by Oriana Fallaci in May 1968 for her book Nothing, and So be it, he stated that he was aware of the indignation he caused and that he understood Fallaci's opinion when she regarded him as a cold-blooded killer. He said that he killed Lém because he felt enraged that the VC were wearing civilian clothes. Speaking to Fallaci, he said: "He wasn't wearing a uniform and I can't respect a man who shoots without wearing a uniform. Because it's too easy: you kill and you're not recognized. I respect a North Vietnamese because he's dressed as a soldier, like myself, and so he takes the same risks as I do. But a Vietcong in civilian clothes – I was filled with rage." After the execution, Loan told Adams: "They killed many of our people and many of yours." Võ Sửu reported that after the shooting Loan went to a reporter and said "These guys kill a lot of our people, and I think Buddha will forgive me."
The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, allegedly increasing anti-war sentiment. Adams later stated he regretted he was unable to get a picture "of that Viet Cong [Lém] blowing away the [Tuan] family".
Subsequent career
A few months after the execution picture was taken, Loan was wounded seriously near Saigon by machine gun fire to his right leg. Again, his picture was published by the world press, this time as Australian war correspondent Pat Burgess carried him back to his lines. He then opened a restaurant named "Les Trois Continents" in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Burke, Virginia at Rolling Valley Mall. The restaurant served pizza, hamburgers, and Vietnamese cuisine, but was described as more of a pizzeria. Local critics were unimpressed with the quality of the food. Loan also worked as a secretary in a Washington company at this time. When interviewed, Loan stated "All we want to do is to forget and to be left alone".
House of Representatives member Elizabeth Holtzman forwarded a list of Vietnamese officials who may have committed war crimes (including Loan) to Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). House of Representatives member Harold S. Sawyer later requested the Library of Congress investigate Loan. in an attempt to revoke his permanent resident status to ensure that he could not become a United States citizen. The deportation was halted by the intervention of United States President Jimmy Carter, who stated that "such historical revisionism was folly".
Loan visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and praised it.
In 1991, Loan closed his restaurant and retired after a decrease of business caused by increased publicity about his past.
Death
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan died of cancer on 14 July 1998,
Adams wrote a eulogy to Loan in Time:
Personal life
Loan was married to Chinh Mai, with whom he raised five children.