Who took ‘Napalm Girl’? World Press Photo ‘suspends’ attribution of historic Vietnam War image

Appearing in the world’s newspapers in 1972, “The Terror of War” — better known as "Napalm Girl" — became a symbol of opposition to the Vietnam War. (Nick Ut/AP via CNN Newsource)

World Press Photo has cast fresh doubt over the authorship of “The Terror of War,” a picture better known as “Napalm Girl,” amid growing debate about one of the 20th century’s defining images.

The organization, which named the image “Photo of the Year” in 1973, announced Friday that it has “suspended” its longstanding attribution to retired Associated Press (AP) photographer Nick Ut. An accompanying report said the “visual and technical” evidence “leans toward” an emerging theory that a Vietnamese freelance photographer, Nguyen Thanh Nghe, took the photo.

It is the latest twist in a controversy sparked by “The Stringer,” a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January claiming Nghe, not Ut, captured the iconic photo of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam War. Nghe was one of more than a dozen people stationed at a highway checkpoint outside the village of Trang Bang on June 8, 1972, as 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc and other villagers were mistaken for the enemy and bombarded by the South Vietnamese air force. (A year later, Ut won the Pulitzer Prize for the picture.)

The film contains allegations that Nghe sold his photo to the AP before editors intervened to credit Ut, who was the agency’s staff photographer in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) at the time. CNN could not independently assess the claims because the film’s producer, the VII Foundation, did not respond to multiple requests for a copy of the documentary, which has not yet been publicly released.

Ut has since repeatedly dismissed allegations that he did not take the photo. A statement released on the Vietnamese American photographer’s behalf by his attorney, Jim Hornstein, called World Press Photo’s decision to suspend attribution “deplorable and unprofessional.” The statement added that Nghe’s claim is “unsupported by a scintilla of corroborating evidence or eyewitness.”

Earlier this month, the AP published a 96-page report on the matter. The investigation — which was based on eyewitness interviews, examination of cameras, a 3D model of the scene and surviving photo negatives — found “no definitive evidence” to justify changing the attribution. While the agency acknowledged that the passage of time and absence of key evidence made it “impossible to fully prove” whether Ut took the photo, crediting Nghe would “require several leaps of faith.”

But World Press Photo took a different stance, with executive director Joumana El Zein Khoury writing on the organization’s website that the “level of doubt is too significant to maintain the existing attribution.”

“At the same time, lacking conclusive evidence pointing definitively to another photographer, we cannot reassign authorship either,” she continued, adding: “The suspension will remain in place unless further evidence can clearly confirm or refute the original authorship.”

Citing the AP investigation and the documentary, which included visual analysis by Paris-based research group Index, World Press Photo said there are “substantial and credible reasons” to doubt the existing attribution. The organization’s report centers on several “unresolved issues,” including the camera used to take the photo and analyses of Ut’s position relative to the image’s vantage point.

A reconstruction of the scene by Index, based on a “geo-based timeline,” suggested that Ut would have needed to have “taken the photo, run 60 metres (197 feet), and returned calmly, all within a brief window of time,” World Press Photo said. The organization described that scenario as “highly unlikely” though “not impossible.”

The AP, meanwhile, has disputed the 60-metre figure, saying that Ut’s purported position on the highway — which is based on “shaky,” low-resolution footage filmed by a TV cameraman — could have been as little as 32.8 metres away from where the image was captured, and that the photographer “could have been in the position to have taken the shot.”

World Press Photo also pointed to ongoing questions over equipment. The AP has previously said it is “likely” the photo was taken using a Pentax camera, which Nghe is known to have used. Ut, however, had frequently said he carried cameras by Leica and Nikon. When questioned for the AP’s investigation, Ut told the agency he also used Pentax cameras. The photo agency said it subsequently found negatives in its archives, shot by Ut in Vietnam, with “the characteristics of a Pentax camera.”

World Press Photo also noted the possibility that another person altogether — Vietnamese military photographer Huynh Cong Phuc, who sometimes sold images to news agencies — took the photo. The AP’s investigation noted that he, like Ut and Nghe, “could have been in the position to have taken the shot.”

Earlier this month, Ut welcomed the findings of the AP’s latest report, saying in a statement that it “showed what has always been known, that the credit for my photo … is correct.” He added: “This whole thing has been very difficult for me and has caused great pain.”

Appearing in the world’s newspapers the day after it was taken, “The Terror of War” became a symbol of opposition to the Vietnam War. In the decades since, Ut has campaigned for peace alongside the photo’s subject, now known as Kim Phuc Phan Thi, who survived her injuries and was granted political asylum by Canada in 1992.

Speaking to CNN to mark the image’s 50th anniversary in 2022, the photographer recounted his version of events, saying: “I saw Kim running and she (screamed in Vietnamese) ‘Too hot! Too hot!’

“When I took the photo of her, I saw that her body was burned so badly, and I wanted to help her right away. I put all my camera gear down on the highway and put water on her body.”

Ut said he put the injured children in his van and drove them for 30 minutes to a nearby hospital. “When I went back to my office, the (dark room technician) and everyone who saw the picture told me right away it was very powerful, and that the photo would win a Pulitzer,” he added.

By Oscar Holland, CNN