And babies And babies ( December 26 , 1969 ) is an iconic anti - Vietnam War poster . It is a famous example of " propaganda art " from the Vietnam conflict that uses the now infamous color photograph of the My Lai Massacre taken by U . S . combat photographer Ronald L . Haeberle on March 16 , 1968 . It shows about a dozen dead and partly naked South Vietnamese women and children in contorted positions stacked together on a dirt road , killed by US forces . The picture is overlaid in semi - transparent blood - red lettering that asks along the top " Q . And babies ? " , and at the bottom answers " A . And babies . " The quote is from a Mike Wallace CBS News television interview with U . S . soldier Paul Meadlo who participated in the massacre . According to cultural historian M . Paul Holsinger , " And babies " was " easily the most successful poster to vent the outrage that so many felt about the conflict in Southeast Asia . " History . In 1969 the Art Workers Coalition ( AWC ) , a group of New York City artists who opposed the war , used Haeberle ' s shocking photograph of the My Lai Massacre , along with a disturbing quote from the Wallace / Meadlo television interview , to create a poster titled " And babies " . It was produced by AWC members Irving Petlin , Jon Hendricks and Fraser Dougherty along with Museum of Modern Art members Arthur Drexler and Elizabeth Shaw . The Museum of Modern Art ( MoMA ) had promised to fund and circulate the poster , but after seeing the 2 by 3 foot poster , pulled financing for the project at the last minute . MoMA ' s Board of Trustees included Nelson Rockefeller and William S . Paley ( head of CBS ) , who reportedly " hit the ceiling " on seeing the proofs of the poster . Both were " firm supporters " of the war effort and backed the Nixon administration . It is unclear if they pulled out for political reasons ( as pro - war supporters ) , or simply to avoid a scandal ( personally and / or for MoMA ) , but the official reason , stated in a press release , was that the poster was outside the " function " of the museum . Nevertheless , under the sole sponsorship of the AWC , 50 , 000 posters were printed by New York City ' s lithographers union . On December 26 , 1969 , a grassroots network of volunteer artists , students and peace activists began circulating it worldwide . Many newspapers and television shows re - printed images of the poster , consumer poster versions soon followed , and it was carried in protest marches around the world , all further increasing its viewership . In a further protest of MoMA ' s decision to pull out of the project , copies of the poster were carried by members of the AWC into the MoMA and unfurled in front of Picasso ' s painting " Guernica " — on loan to MoMA at the time , the painting depicts the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon innocent civilians . One member of the group was Tony Shafrazi who returned in 1974 to spray paint the " Guernica " with the words " KILL LIES ALL " in blood red paint , protesting about Richard Nixon ' s pardon of William Calley for the latter ' s actions during the My Lai massacre . Although the photograph was shot almost two years prior to the production of the poster , Haeberle had not released it until late 1969 . It was a color photograph taken on his personal camera which he did not turn over to the military , unlike the black and white photographs he took on a military camera . Haeberle sold the color photographs to " Life magazine " magazine where they were first seen nationally in the December 5 , 1969 , issue . When the poster came out a few weeks later , in late December 1969 , the image was still quite shocking and new to most viewers . The implied message of the poster was that in Vietnam , babies were enemy combatants " i . e . " , the war was immoral . The derision " baby killers " was often used by anti - war activists against U . S . soldiers , largely as a result of the My Lai Massacre . Although Vietnam soldiers had been called " baby killers " since at least 1966 , My Lai and the Haeberle photographs further solidified the stereotype of drug - addled soldiers who killed babies , according to cultural historian M . Paul Holsinger , " And babies " was " easily the most successful poster to vent the outrage that so many felt about the conflict in Southeast Asia . Copies are still frequently seen in retrospectives dealing with the popular culture of the Vietnam War era or in collections of art from the period . "