Content note: Nine photographs show dead and wounded civilians, including children, with captions attributing the killings to Viet Cong forces. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Liberated by the Viet Cong
A landscape poster headed "Liberated by the Viet Cong" arranges nine black-and-white photographs of dead and wounded civilians, each with a short caption that attributes the harm to Viet Cong forces and gives a year between 1964 and 1968. A line at the foot says the pictures are "only a sample" of what South Vietnamese can expect if the United States fails to keep its commitment. The photographs have no credits, and the captions give no sources.
- Date
- 1968
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- National Student Committee for Victory in Vietnam (St. Louis, Missouri)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Movement
- Regime
- Johnson Administration
- Leader
- Lyndon B. Johnson
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front
- Event
- Vietnam War
- Techniques
- Fear appealCard stacking
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- U.S. publication without copyright notice; LoC: no known restrictions on publication
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Text on the object
- LIBERATED BY THE VIET CONG - A mortar and hand grenade attack by Viet Cong against defenseless women and children took a toll of 52 killed and 80 wounded. 1964. Three teen-age girls, members of a Revolutionary Development Team in Long Khanh Province, Vietnam, lie dead with their hands tied after being murdered by the Viet Cong in the hamlet of [illegible] April 16, 1967. Two of over 70 bodies exhumed from mass graves in the yard of Gia Hoi primary school show hands still tied as they were assassinated three weeks prior during the TET offensive to "liberate" the imperial city of Hue. Communists exploded a mine under a truckload of farm workers then shot at survivors with rifles killing 12 and wounding 28. Resident of Bien Phu Hoang [illegible] garroted by the Viet Cong at Chrysanthemum Bridge, 1966. Viet Cong forces [illegible] the Montagnard Village of Dak Son a charnel house. They refused to furnish the VC rice or [illegible]. The toll was 252 charred and [illegible] bodies - 70% women and children. Killed by Viet Cong terrorists, 1966. A whole family killed in their garden by VC fire and shelling in TET offensive at suburb of Saigon. This is only a sample of what many South Vietnamese can expect should the United States fail to fulfill our commitment to those valiant people. DISTRIBUTED BY: NATIONAL STUDENT COMMITTEE FOR VICTORY IN VIETNAM, 21[illegible] North Clay Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri 63122
Caption type is very small and the master is only 1024 px wide, so several words and some numerals are uncertain (the 52/80 figures, place names in the third, fifth and sixth captions, the ZIP code); [illegible] marks words that could not be read. The captions are listed in reading order top to bottom, left to right.
