RE: [Leica] Re: Nick Ut's Napalm girl

[Tim Atherton <tim@KairosPhoto.com>]

> > Nicky carried both Leica and Nikon cameras with him the day he made the
> > Kim Phuc (that' the girl's name, currently she lives in Canada
> and she and
> > Nikcy are close friends).
>
> She got tired of Cuba I take it?
>

Well, remember, the Americans lost - and as a result Vietnam was/is a
Communist country, North and South.... She was basically used as a
(grotesque) poster girl by the Vietnamese Government. She actually defected
to Canada in 1992 when the opportunity arose after a flight from Moscow to
Cuba stopped in Gander Newfoundland. She is a Canadian citizen.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/kimphuc/

"She says she forgives the people who bombed her village, and we believe
her. For years she was under the control of the Vietnamese government, who
interfered with her studies, and used her as their poster girl. She says
this was a bad result of that picture, but it made her understand freedom.
It made her determined to become her own person.

Thanks to high level political intervention, Kim was eventually allowed to
go to Cuba to continue her education. Still, her every move was monitored.
Then came her marriage to Toan, a North Vietnamese student, and a dramatic
defection in Gander, Newfoundland, in October, 1992, while returning to Cuba
from their honeymoon in Moscow. Kim says when the plane stopped to refuel,
she knew this was her chance. She says taking it was the scariest moment of
her adult life... "

That she doesn't hold a grudge against the people who dropped napalm on her
as a child is, to my mind, quite amazing

tim

- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html