In 1968, American photographer Eddie Adams was in Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam, to document events related to the Vietnam War. There, he captured a photograph that would go down in history: an image of a man shooting a prisoner with his hands tied behind his back, right in the middle of the street.

The man being executed was Nguyễn Văn Lém, the leader of a Viet Cong unit accused of killing several policemen. The man pulling the trigger was General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan. Born into a wealthy Vietnamese family, Loan had studied in France in his youth. Upon returning to Vietnam, after joining the struggle against French occupation, he rose in rank and in 1966 became the head of police in the pro-American state of South Vietnam. During this period, he earned the notorious nickname “the Terror of Saigon” for his brutality and ruthlessness in suppressing, torturing, and executing communist and Buddhist opponents.

At the time, the South Vietnamese regime was not only engaged in combat with communist guerrillas but also carried out policies aimed at repressing Buddhist sects and monks. Loan, himself a Christian, was one of the main enforcers of this campaign. Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who traveled frequently to Vietnam during those years, met General Loan on several occasions. She described him as a merciless man, yet paradoxically refined, with a particular love for roses and the music of Chopin and Brahms.

The widespread publication of the photo of him executing the Viet Cong had a profound impact, both on Loan’s life and on the course of the war. The image became a symbol of the brutality of the South Vietnamese regime, significantly shaping American public opinion. Within South Vietnam itself, Loan’s political enemies seized on the photo to discredit him, arguing that a man who acted in such a way could not legitimately hold power.

In the final years of the war, Loan was wounded in the leg, which was later amputated, confining him to a hospital where, according to Fallaci, he spent his days kissing an image of Jesus and reading Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics. In 1975, he managed to flee to America, where he opened a restaurant in Virginia, serving dishes of shrimp and crab, even to Fallaci herself years later.

Curiously, Hồ Chí Minh, the communist leader of North Vietnam, had also worked as a cook in his youth: for a period, he was employed as a pastry chef in London.