Adams, Eddie

UXL Encyclopedia of World Biography, (2003)

Eddie Adams

Eddie Adams (1933–2004) is best known for his Pulitzer prize–winning photograph of a South Vietnamese officer shooting a Vietcong prisoner during the Vietnam War. The accomplishment established Adams early in his career as one of the United States' foremost photojournalists, although he later earned accolades for his work in fashion photography and advertising. He contributed to several of the "Day in the Life" series of photography books, including the popular Day in the Life of America, and founded the Eddie Adams Workshop for aspiring photojournalists.

Eddie Adams

Photograph Credited with Changing Views on War

Adams was born to Edward and Adelaide Adams on June 12, 1933, in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. He developed his interest in photography while still a teenager, and served on the photography staff of his high school newspaper. He also worked as a wedding and portrait photographer. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, where he spent three years as a combat photographer during the Korean War. After leaving the Marines, Adams joined the staff of The Evening Bulletin in Philadelphia, where he worked from 1958 until 1962, at which time he became a photographer for the Associated Press (AP).

In 1965, Adams and his friend, United Press International (UPI) photographer Dirck Halstead, both decided they wanted to travel to Vietnam to photograph the war there, according to a reminiscence by Halstead on the Digital Journalist website. "Sometime in the middle of an alcoholic haze, we came up with the idea that we should go to Vietnam," Halstead recalled. "We agreed on a plan. I would go to UPI and tell them that Eddie had told me he was being assigned to the war, and he would do the same at AP, using me as the bait. It worked like a charm. A month later, Eddie and I were both on China Beach watching as the first waves of U.S. Marines came charging ashore." Adams remained in Vietnam for a year, often serving double–duty as a reporter.

He returned to Vietnam in 1967 and was near the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon on February 1, 1968, the Vietnamese New Year, when the Vietcong launched what came to be known as the Tet offensive. Adams recalled the events of that day to historian Susan D. Moeller, as recounted in an obituary in the London Independent : "NBC heard about a battle taking place in Cholon, the Chinese section of Saigon. Vietcong were inside a Buddhist temple, using that as a cover to shoot into the street and into the South Vietnamese soldiers and police. A small minor battle was going on. So the NBC crew came over and said, 'Anyone want to come?' and I said, 'Why not?' " It was during this battle that Adams snapped his legendary photograph of South Vietnamese Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting a Vietcong prisoner in the head in the middle of the street. The photograph was completely uncalculated, Adams told Moeller. Adams and the news crew saw Loan grab the soldier and kept their cameras trained on the pair. "As soon as he went for his pistol, I raised the camera thinking he was going to threaten him," Adams recalled. "I took a picture. That was the instant he shot him. I had no idea it was going to happen. He put the pistol back in his pocket and walked over to us and said, 'He killed many of my men and many of your people.' And walked away."

The photograph appeared in newspapers throughout the world, including on the front page of the New York Times , and the repercussions of the image's wide dissemination—both positive and negative—proved enormous. The photograph immediately established Adams as one of the world's top photojournalists and earned him the Pulitzer Prize for breaking–news photography in 1969. It is also largely credited with turning public opinion against U.S. involvement in the war. "Together with Nick Ut's 1972 image of a naked girl fleeing her napalmed village and Ronald L. Haeberle's color pictures documenting the 1968 My Lai massacre (which were first published in Life in 1969), Mr. Adams' photograph reinforced a widespread belief that the South Vietnamese and American military were doing more harm than good in trying to win the war against an indigenous insurgency and the North Vietnamese army that sponsored it," Andy Grundberg wrote in his New York Times obituary of Adams.

Adams has said he was most proud of another Vietnam–based project, a series of photographs of 48 Vietnamese refugees who sailed to Thailand on a 30–foot boat but were denied entrance to the country. The photographs were presented to the United State Congress by the State Department and are widely credited with influencing the United States' decision to shelter as many as 200,000 South Vietnamese refugees. "I would have rather won the Pulitzer for something like that. It did some good and nobody got hurt," Adams later remarked of the series, as quoted by Christopher Reed in an obituary that appeared in The Guardian .