ARTS

UT gets archive of famed photos by Eddie Adams

Adams' widow donates his collection to Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, September 19, 2009

The archive of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eddie Adams has been donated to the University of Texas' Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, UT President William Powers Jr. announced Friday.

Valued between $7 million and $8 million, the archive contains hundreds of thousands of Adams' photographs, including "Saigon Execution," his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1968 photo of a South Vietnamese general executing a Viet Cong prisoner. "Saigon Execution" is widely considered one of the most influential images to come out of the Vietnam War.

The photographer's widow, Alyssa Adams, donated the archive to UT. She retains the copyrights to the images.

In a career spanning nearly five decades, Adams worked for The Associated Press, Time magazine and Parade magazine. He covered multiple wars. He died in 2004 at age 71.

"This is a profoundly significant addition to our photojournalism archive," said Don Carleton, Briscoe Center director. "His images had the power to shape history."

Adams' archive joins those of other noted photojournalists that UT has acquired such as Russell Lee, David Hume Kennerly, Dirck Halstead and Wally McNamee.

Alyssa Adams said she chose to donate her husband's archive to the Briscoe Center because of its strengths in photojournalism. "I was really impressed with the list of photojournalists that they had in their collection," she said. "It's important that Eddie's legacy be preserved by an educational institution, one that collects photojournalism for teaching and research."

Among the materials in the archive are the photographs Adams shot during his career as well as slides, negatives and Adams' notes and diaries. In addition to his extensive coverage of the Vietnam War, Adams did in-depth reporting on homelessness and poverty. In the late 1970s, his "Boat of No Smiles" photo essay on the Vietnamese boat people was published in several American newspapers and directed public sympathy toward the refugees as they tried to flee at the end of the war. After the photos were presented to Congress by the State Department, they helped influence U.S. authorities in the decision to admit the refugees to this country.

Adams also took striking, intimate portraits of celebrities and politicians such as former President Ronald Reagan, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, activist Malcolm X and actors Clint Eastwood and Jerry Lewis.

From 1980 until Adams' death, Parade magazine featured more than 350 of his photos on its cover.

"I always tell photographers that you never know who is looking at your pictures or how your pictures are going to affect other people's lives," Adams once said. "I wasn't out to save the world. I was out to get a story."

It was Adams' "Saigon Execution" image that would have the most lasting effect — on Adams and the public. It helped turn the tide of public opinion against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. And it led to the vilification of the executioner, Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan. As South Vietnam's national police chief during the Tet Offensive, Loan was responsible for keeping Viet Cong guerrillas out of Saigon.

"I think two people's lives were destroyed that day — the victim's and the general's," Adams

says in the 2008 documentary "An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story." "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera."

Years after the war, Adams apologized to the general in person after finding him in Virginia, where he had immigrated and opened a pizza shop.

The continuing story of the Saigon photograph became the subject of "An Unlikely Weapon," directed by Susan Cooper and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. The Briscoe Center will screen the film on Oct. 28.

An exhibit of 28 photographs from Adams' archives, including "Saigon Execution," is on view now through Jan. 16 at the Briscoe Center.

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699