Ronald L. Haeberle

Ronald L. Haeberle (born c. 1941) is a former United States Army combat photographer best known for the photographs he took of the My Lai massacre on March 16, 1968. The photographs were definitive evidence of a massacre, making it impossible for the U.S. Army or government to ignore or cover up. On November 21, 1969, the day after the photographs were first published in Haeberle's hometown newspaper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Melvin Laird, the Secretary of Defense, discussed them with Henry Kissinger who was at the time National Security Advisor to President Richard Nixon. Laird was recorded as saying that while he would like "to sweep it under the rug," the photographs prevented it.

At the time of the massacre, Haeberle was a sergeant assigned as public information photographer to Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment. With him were three cameras: two Army issued black and white cameras for official photos and his own personal camera containing color slide film. It was the color photographs he took that day that provided evidence of the massacre and elevated the story of My Lai to world-wide prominence. A year after Haeberle returned to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio with an honorable discharge, he offered them to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, which published a number of them along with his personal account on November 20, 1969. He then sold the photos to LIFE magazine, which published them in the December 5, 1969, issue.

One of Haeberle's photos became an important symbol of the massacre, in large part because of its use in the And babies poster, which was distributed around the world, reproduced in newspapers, and used in protest marches. Even though there were many other massacres by U.S. forces during the war, this image and My Lai itself came to represent them all.