Anyone who who lived through the Vietnam War period remembers the girl in the picture. The picture captures a terrible moment, while also raising a poignant question -- a question Jane Pauley sets out to answer in our Cover Story:. It's an image seared into our consciousness still -- the horrors of war visited upon an innocent child. Kim Phuc is now
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Angie Varona Struggles to Live a Normal Life Four Years Later
I t was a chilly day during the fall of when a crowd gathered outside the New York County Supreme Court in downtown Manhattan clamoring to get a look at the petite subject of what newspapers across the world deemed the trial of the century. At the center of it all: Gloria Vanderbilt, a year-old heiress with a short black bob and tan winter coat, surrounded by detectives who casually pushed aside the photographers straining to capture her image. Now here she was at the center of an irresistible morality play among the rich that pit mothers against daughters—and offered welcome schadenfreude for masses. It would be torturous experience for the young girl. And it would heavily influence the rest of her life. C enturies ago, when the Vanderbilt family came to America, they were anything but rich. In , the first Vanderbilt ancestor to arrive in America, Dutchman Jan Aertson, immigrated as an indentured servant, so poor he traded years of his life for a trip to what was then New Amsterdam.
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The well-known photo, by AP photographer Nick Ut , shows her at nine years of age running naked on a road after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack. The New York Times editors were at first hesitant to consider the photo for publication because of the nudity, but eventually approved it. A cropped version of the photo—with the press photographers to the right removed—was featured on the front page of The New York Times the next day. A number of the early operations were performed by Finnish plastic surgeon Aarne Rintala. Audio tapes of President Richard Nixon , in conversation with his chief of staff, H. Haldeman in , reveal that Nixon mused, "I'm wondering if that was fixed", after seeing the photograph. The picture for me and unquestionably for many others could not have been more real. The photo was as authentic as the Vietnam War itself. The horror of the Vietnam War recorded by me did not have to be fixed.
The year-old said her likeness has shown up on porn sites, humor sites and reddit. There are also numerous unauthorized Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and YouTube channels, all claiming to be Varona -- one Facebook fan page has more than 41, likes. A recent Google search of "Angie Varona" turned up , original search items, including 63, photos tagged with her name.