Ronald L. Haeberle (born circa 1940) is a former

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

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best known for the photographs he took of the

My Lai Massacre My or MY may refer to: Arts and entertainment * My (radio station), a Malaysian radio station * Little My, a fictional character in the Moomins universe * ''My'' (album), by Edyta Górniak * ''My'' (EP), by Cho Mi-yeon Business * Market ...

on March 16, 1968. The monochrome photographs he took were made using an Army camera and were either subject to censorship or did not depict any South Vietnamese casualties when published in an Army newspaper. On the other hand, Haeberle took color photographs with his own camera while on duty the same day, which he kept and later sold to the media. The then-Sgt. Haeberle, having returned to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio after an honorable discharge, offered them to ''

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''; the newspaper published some of them on November 20, 1969. Haeberle soon after sold the photos to ''

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'' magazine, which were published in the December 5, 1969 issue. One of the photos in particular became iconic of the massacre, in large part because of its use in the '' And babies'' poster, which was distributed around the world used in protest marches where it was televised and reproduced in newspapers. Lieutenant General Peers' contrary statement to the press in 1970 notwithstanding, in 2009, Haeberle admitted that he destroyed a number of photographs he took during the

. Unlike the photographs of the dead bodies, the destroyed photographs depicted Americans in the process of murdering South Vietnamese civilians. My Lai massacre

Background

According to Camilla Griggers, professor of Visual Communication and Linguistics at

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The Army photographer, Ronald Haeberle, assigned to Charlie Company on March 16, 1968 had two cameras. One was an Army standard; one was his personal camera. The film on the Army-owned camera, i.e., the official camera of the State, showed standard operations that is "authorized" and "official" operations including interrogating villagers and burning "insurgent" huts. What the film on the personal camera showed, however, was different. When turned over to the
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and
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by the photographer, those "unofficial" photographs provided the grounds for a
court martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...
. Haeberle's personal images (owned by himself and not the US Government) showed hundreds of villagers who had been killed by U.S. troops. More significantly, they showed that the dead were primarily women and children, including infants.

As is evident from comments made in a 1969 telephone conversation between

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and Secretary of Defense

Melvin Laird Melvin Robert Laird Jr. (September 1, 1922 – November 16, 2016) was an American politician, writer and statesman. He was a U.S. congressman from Wisconsin from 1953 to 1969 before serving as Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973 under Presi ...

, revealed recently by the National Security Archive, the photos of the war crime were too shocking for senior officials to stage an effective

cover-up A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrongdoing, error, incompetence, or other embarrassing information. Research has distinguished personal cover-ups (covering up one's own misdeeds) from relational co ...

. Secretary of Defense Laird is heard to say, ''"There are so many kids just lying there; these pictures are authentic."'' Haeberle later testified that he personally saw about 30 different U.S. soldiers kill about 100 civilians. According to the investigation, Haeberle previously "withheld and suppressed from proper authorities the photographic evidence of atrocities he had obtained" despite "having a particular duty to report any knowledge of suspected or apparent war crimes". However Haeberle had claimed in his testimony that he did not turn in his photographic film of the atrocities to the brigade information office, because "if you take a photograph of a general smiling wrong in the photograph, you destroyed that photograph", therefore Haeberle felt his photographs would have been destroyed if he had turned them in as was standard practice.

Aftermath

During the summer of 2012, Ron Haeberle visited Vietnam and My Lai hamlet, where he met with Tran Van Duc, a survivor of the My Lai massacre.King, Tim
Reunion at Site of My Lai Massacre: Survivor Duc Tran Van and Photographer Ron Haeberl.
Salem-News.com, July 14, 2012.

References

External links

Plain Dealer exclusive in 1969: My Lai massacre photos by Ronald Haeberle
from ''

''
Testimony of Ronald Haeberle, Witness for the Prosecution
from the website of the UMKC School of Law
Photo Gallery: Photographic Evidence of the Massacre at My Lai

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American Experience ''American Experience'' is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and people in American his ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haeberle, Ronald L. Year of birth uncertain Living people 20th-century American photographers United States Army personnel of the Vietnam War Mỹ Lai massacre United States Army soldiers 1940s births

Background

Aftermath

See also

References

External links