Le Minh Thai, Vietnam war photographer, dies aged 93

Le Minh Thai, a photojournalist who covered the Vietnam War for The Associated Press and Time Life, has died. He was 93. Thai died Oct. 10 at a nursing home in Encinitas, where he had been living for the past seven years, his daughter, Quynh Thai, told The Associated Press. The eldest son of a merchant family in Vietnam’s ancient port city of Hoi An, Thai went on to become a member of the Saigon press corps who first worked for The Associated Press in the 1950s and later for Time Life, covering his country’s civil war, his daughter said. He had strong contacts both in the government and the military brass of South Vietnam and was well-known for helping foreign journalists navigate their way through his homeland, the family said. The Vietnamese national was a favored photographer of the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, who in 1967 requested Thai for his official portrait. He covered the simmering tensions in Saigon as the war escalated, including demonstrations by Buddhist monks and students. In 1963, he helped Time magazine open a bureau in Saigon, his family said. Thai took a bullet in the side, which he carried with him until his death.

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