From Jean Kaufman's essay on the 40th anniversary of the event captured above:
If you are of a certain age, you almost certainly remember Kim Phuc vividly, even though you may not know her name. She was the nine-year-old South Vietnamese girl who was burned by napalm on June 8, 1972, and whose image in a prize-winning photo taken by South Vietnamese AP photographer Nick Ut became an iconic and influential force that helped end the war.
I am of that certain age, and for anybody who wasn't there it's hard to imagine what an impact this photo had. When people today talk about the country turning against the war, they usually get around to that mythical Cronkite Moment that supposedly led LBJ to give up on the war. But for many people who were sick and tired of the war, this photo was the last straw. It came to symbolize the sins of war-mongering America.
But almost everything we came to believe about the photo was wrong. They say a picture never lies -- but people can certainly lie about pictures. The photo became a powerful influence on Americans' views in a way that made them almost shrug with indifference when Congress voted to cut off funding for the South Vietnamese in one of the most shameful chapters in our history. In reality, the naplam was dropped by the South Vietnamese that day, not by Americans, as they were defending a village against invasion by the North Vietnamese. The incident was a tragic case of friendly fir, which, unfortunately, can't always be avoided in war.
But at least the story has a happy ending:
Kim’s life finally improved after many years. The Vietnamese prime minister arranged for her to study in Cuba, where she met her husband-to-be. They traveled to Moscow for their honeymoon, and when their flight stopped in Canada on the way back to Cuba they seized the opportunity to defect. These days she travels frequently to speak to the public, and she has now accepted the photo as a “powerful gift” in her life.
