The famous “napalm girl” photograph of June 1972 undeniably ranks among the most profound and disturbing images of the Vietnam War. Its power, though, is often overstated.
The photograph, taken by Nick Ut of the Associated Press, and showed Vietnamese children terror-stricken by a misdirected napalm attack on their village by the South Vietnamese Air Force. At the center of image was a 9-year-old girl named Kim Phuc, shown screaming and naked as she fled. The photograph, formally titled “The Terror of War,” won a Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
In the years since then, a tendency has developed to attribute to the image effects that are far more powerful and decisive than it projected at the time.
For example, the Guardian newspaper in London asserted in a review the other day of an exhibit in France of the imagery of war that Ut's photo “galvani[z]ed” American “public opinion and expedited the end of the Vietnam war.” Neither claim is accurate.
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