Gunnar Bergstrom’s Kampuchea, 1978

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Even as the horrors committed by the Communist Pol Pot regime in Cambodia seeped out into the wider world, the country and its government enjoyed widespread support in Sweden, especially among the ruling Social Democrats and its supporters. The prime minister Olof Palme issued a joint statement with Fidel Castro congratulating the Khmer Rouge, and its leader Pol Pot was frequently portrayed in the Swedish media as a Robin Hood. Government ministers vigorously denied allegations of Khmer Rouge atrocities as exaggerations.

By late 1977, the regime in Phnom Penh was seeking international validation. In November of that year, Burmese dictator Ne Win became the first head of state to visit Phnom Penh since the Khmer Rouge takeover in April 1975, swiftly followed by Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu. Starting in early 1978, small delegations of Communist-sympathizing westerners were invited to visit Cambodia, via a weekly flight from Beijing to Phnom Penh. Due to the favorable coverage in Sweden, Swedish media and diplomats were given special guided tours and in August 1978, four members of the Sweden–Kampuchea Friendship Association were invited to visit Cambodia. (a member of the delegation was married to a Khmer Rouge diplomat who was stationed in East Germany before being recalled to Cambodia. She asked if she could see her husband, but her request was denied. Unbeknownst to her, her husband had been already been executed a year prior).

Workers from a mobile unit construct a dam north of Phnom Penh

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Among the delegation was Gunnar Bergström, 27, an activist against the Vietnam war. Bergström was jubilant that Cambodia had liberated itself from the capitalist Americans and founded the friendship association and a magazine Kampuchea, with the aim of helping the Khmer Rouge spread its ideals. Bergström was allowed to take photos of the curated locations that the visitors were shown.

The delegation’s requests to meet “new people” (Cambodians who had been evacuated from the cities) were denied, but they did witness children building earthworks, melting down Coca-Cola bottles to make vials for injections, and laboring on boats and was granted an interview with Pol Pot and a subsequent banquet where they dined on oysters with Pol Pot and Foreign Minister Ieng Sary. After a two-week tour, the tour group returned to Europe to contradict accounts by the refugees of overwork, starvation, torture, and mass killings. Bergström dismissed htem as “Western propaganda” and that he saw “smiling peasants” and a society on its way to “an ideal society”.

Following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, Bergström and the other members of the Swedish delegation that visited Cambodia advocated for the ouster of Hanoi’s troops and restoration of Pol Pot. But Bergström would soon disavow the Khmer Rouge and acknowledge that he had been taken on a “propaganda tour.”

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some pollsEven if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:https://www.patreon.com/iconicphotos

1986 | Chernobyl

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What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all.

Thus notes the TV show Chernobyl (2019). What happened at Chernobyl 33 years earlier was a deadly combination of flawed designs, poorly trained staff, disregard for safety and culture of secrecy and bureacracy. The Soviet Union did reject many offers of assistance from foreign governments, but it did welcome Dr. Robert Gale, a bone-marrow transplant expert from Bel Air, California.

The first Western physician to be invited by the Soviet Union to help since World War II, Gale coordinated shipment of medical equipment and perform bone-marrow transplants on 13 patients, five of whom survived (including the firefighter on the magazine cover above).

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The Soviet Union barred the local doctors from speaking to the press, leaving only Gale and his American colleagues to become the faces of the medical response to the diaster. Soviet doctors would later note that some of the crucial transplant operations were before Gale and his team even arrived, but the doctor quickly became a hero in the Soviet Union. General Secretary Gorbachev personally thanked Gale and Pravda wrote hagiographic poems to him: “God is in Dr Gale, born the year of Hiroshima.” He was considered for a Lenin Prize and the Nobel.

For the Soviets, Gale, a colorful publicity seeking surgeon, became a source to manipulate the Western media. Gale was given access to various secured facilities and visit restricted areas (while being shadowed by the KGB), but was only fed information that the Soviets wanted to be released, which served to divert the media attention away from other stories that they wanted to conceal.

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Yet Gale managed to take some photos of the patients and the medical facilities, and sold his story to Life magazine. (He flew over Chernobyl in a helicopter as well, but the Soviets did not allow him to take photos). He also went on to write a few books on the disaster and generally made a career out of Chernobyl — appearances on Barbara Walters, Donahue and Larry King shows, features in Time, Life, Vanity Fair — leading the satirical Spy magazine to quip: “Before, Gale was just a smart, maverick UCLA bone-marrow-transplant specialist who had briefly been in trouble with the National Institutes of Health for allegedly using experimental treatments on patients without proper authority. Today he’s a best-selling author (of an account of Chernobyl), frequent lecturer ($5,000 per) and extremely visible doctor-about-the-planet.”

It also later came out in a Los Angeles Times investigation that Gale designed and helped carry out experimental treatments on at least three Soviet citizens with a genetically engineered drug that had never before been tried on human subjects, nor approved for human testing.

Caption in French: Inert, almost mummified, they hope like so many others irradiated people a miracle of science

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

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1978 | Jonestown

Peoples Temple Agricultural Project it was called.

In the ’60s, Jim Jones was a respected Pentecostal reverend, who preached a gospel of social justice and inclusion to  integrate churches, hospitals, restaurants and theaters and attract followers to his San Francisco-based congregation, the People’s Temple. By 1977, however, with a damning article about abuses within his church about to break, Jones and nearly a thousand of his followers fled into the jungles of Guyana, onto the land the Temple had previously purchased.

White, black, and Latino members of his religious movement wanted to found a utopia of racial harmony and equality rooted in communism, but Jones’ egomania and paranoia grew, as did his dependency on pills. Jones staged faith healings, consolidated his power within only a small circle of trusted faithful, and began referring to himself as God.

Life in Jonestown was harsh, with members subjected to strict discipline, isolation, and indoctrination. Family members and former members contacted authorities, prompting Congressman Leo Ryan to visit the place in November 1978 to investigate and bring out several members who expressed their desire to leave.

On November 18, as Ryan and his delegation attempted to leave, they were ambushed by armed members of the Peoples Temple, resulting in the deaths of Ryan and others. Back in Jonestown, Jim Jones ordered his followers to commit an act of “revolutionary suicide,” and drink cyanide-laced fruit punch (despite later associations with Kool-Aid, the actual drink used was a generic fruit-flavoured drink mix, not Kool-Aid). Over 300 children were made to drink it by their parents, poisoned syringes being emptied into infants’ mouths. Some were forcibly injected, and others tried to run for the surrounding jungle were by Jones’ armed guards. All told, 918 people died that day — the largest loss of civilian American lives pre-9/11.

Jones shot himself. The only living thing left in Jonestown after the suicides were two parrots.

(Book recommendation on Jonestown: Julia Scheeres’ A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown)

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David Hume Kennerly, one of the first photographers to arrive on the scene (and also photograph Jim Jones’s autopsied body on boardwalk) remembers:

Time Magazine’s New York bureau chief Don Neff and I were in Miami, working on a Colombia-related drug story for the magazine that day, and word hadn’t yet reached the outside world about what happened in Guyana. Sunday morning’s edition of the Miami Herald changed all of that…

Neff and I immediately decided to head down there. Having an American Express card proved valuable, we chartered a jet, put the charge on my card, and off we went…

As we winged toward the scene, the pilot said he would fly over Jonestown. We were still at a distance, but it appeared to me that there were scores of people alive and gathered around a big tin-roofed structure in the middle of what appeared to be a small village or compound. As we drew closer it turned out I was wrong.

I’ve seen a lot of shit in my life, more than two years in Vietnam covering the war guaranteed that, but nothing prepared me for the shock of what I witnessed that day.  The people who I thought were gathered around the pavilion were dead. They looked like colorfully dressed but lifeless dolls strewn along the ground, most of them facedown, many of them huddled together in groups.  There were hundreds of them.  I don’t wish that sight on anyone….

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Kennerly’s photo of giant vat filled with a purple liquid, where people lined up to fill their cups made the cover of Time magazine. Time also published the photo of the body of Jim Jones inside the magazine, but cropped and slightly darkened it from the original to make it appear more ready for general audience. (And on the cover, Time hid Jim Jones’ body under the masthead letter “E.” – his bloated stomach was visible — see the original photo used for cover here.)

[Notes: Other photos of the vat and the area did not feature Jim Jones’ body. Presumably, they were taken by other photographers arrived after Jone’s body was taken away by authorities. Kennerly’s photo of Jim Jones’ body, the cropped version of which appeared inside Time magazine: link]

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

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1976 | Thammasat, Bangkok

The military backed Senate this week blocked a popular progressive candidate from becoming Prime Minister in Thailand. We look back at a particularly troubled year in the Kingdom’s history.

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Despite its status as a mecca for tourists, Thailand always has an undercurrent of political turmoil, violence, and corruption. The country has always been run by a tight knitted group of bureaucrats, princes, generals, and businessmen, who were reactionary against any slight challenge to their power. As a result, there have been 18 coups and 18 constitutions since 1932 in Thailand, each one staged to thwart the progressive forces from coming to power.

In late 1973, a popular uprising led to the end of the military dictatorship of Field Marshall Thanom. The king invited the chancellor of Thammasat University, a leading jurist, to form an interim government. However, democracy did not take root, and three years later, when Thanom returned from his exile, further student led uprising broke out. Popular refrains still levied against students and activists — of them being communist and anti royalist — were uttered and extremely violent suppression began.

On the night of October 5th 1976, five thousand students were gathered overnight at Thammasat to protest the return of Thanom. At 5:30 AM, a bomb was fired into the Thammasat grounds and shootings began. By 7:30 AM, the campus gates are smashed open, and paramilitary groups and radicalized right-wing protestors stormed the campus. Many died from police gunshots; others were lynched by the crowd, stakes thrust through their dead bodies and women stripped naked with stakes thrust through their breast or sexual organs.

Neal Ulevich, who was covering the protests for AP remembered:

The students had surrendered — a few were able to flee. The paramilitaries made them lie down on the ground. At that point I decided it was nearly over, and to leave before someone demanded my film. I moved to the campus gate. I could see commotion there. I worked my way through it and took a few photos — one, of two policemen escorting a student off campus as he was sucker-punched in the face by a rightist.

Then I saw crowds milling about two trees in Sanam Luang. Among those in the chaos at the gate was an elderly German tourist with an 8mm movie camera, apparently from the Royal Hotel across Sanam Luang. I screamed at him to leave before he was killed. He seemed to be having a good time and ignored me. At the first of the trees, I saw the chair/hanged student. I stayed a moment to see if anyone was looking at me. Then I made a few frames and walked over to the other tree, where another student was hanged. I made a few frames. After that I walked toward the hotel and hailed a taxi. Both hanged students were dead by the time I saw them.

I returned to the AP bureau desperate to have the darkroom tech develop the film and get the first of the prints to PTT [Post and Telephone Office] for radio-photo transmission. I was quite sure all international communications would be shut down or censored within a few hours. At that time, we could not send images from the bureau. Photos had to be printed, captioned and filed like a telegram from PTT. At the bureau I gave Denis Gray a quick summary of what I had seen. He was astonished and began questioning me closely. I told him to hold off until my film was developed and printed. He could see the entire photo record at that point; it spoke louder than words, as photos often do. When the film was developed, I selected the chair image and another, captioned them and dispatched them by messenger to the PTT, hoping to beat any closure of communications. Then I went back to work printing more of my pictures and a few by Mangkorn from earlier in the day. When the messenger returned I asked him if the PTT employees had said anything to suggest censorship. He said no, they just commented on the amazing images. That day we sent — as I recall — about 17 images, 12 of mine and the rest by AP Thai photographers.

The follow-up included images of bodies being burned. All the images cleared before the communications switch was turned off. To put things in perspective, sending 17 images was nearly unheard of, for reasons of effort and cost. But this was clearly a story that deserved to have all available resources thrown at it. We sent those images to Tokyo AP, where they were automatically relayed to New York and London AP. In the evening we began to hear that police had raided Thai newspapers seizing film of the events. Foreign agencies were not visited.

The chaos was used to justify a military coup later that same day. The military would insist that the students fired first – something protesters have always denied. Official figures put the death toll at 46, with 167 wounded and more than 3,000 students arrested. Unoffiically, the death toll was over 100. Nobody was held accountable for the atrocity, and the country’s successive governments have shown that they are still highly sensitive to discussion of it.

The photo above it inspired several Thai theatre productions and movies; and has been used in countless satirical internet memes. The word kao-ee, or ‘chair’ itself became a macabre euphemism in Thailand, a warning about what can happen to those with anti-establishment thoughts. Years later, when Thammasat University Drama Club re-enacted the hanging above (with an effigy which alledgedly stood for the then crown prince, the current king) it was accused of lese majeste and even the newspaper The Bangkok Post which re-printed the re-enactment got embroiled in the controversy.

Ulevich won the Pulitzer and World Press Photo Award for the photo. He recalled the irony.

When I won the Pulitzer, the Bangkok papers noted it on page one. They were very proud that a photographer from Bangkok had won the Pulitzer. They didn’t show the pictures.

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

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1959 | Dalai Lama in Siliguri

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The relationship between Tibet and China was historically complex, and Tibet, high in the Himalayas, had enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy throughout its history — periods of closer ties to China punctuated by periods of greater independence – and the country had long maintained a unique cultural, religious, and political identity separate from the mainland China.

In the 19^th century, Tibet was considered a vassal state under the suzerainty of the Qing Dynasty, which then ruled China. The dynasty’s collapse and the political instability that followed provided Tibet to assert greater independence. The 13th Dalai Lama would declare Tibet’s independence in 1913 and expel Chinese officials from the region.

That independence was short-lived. In 1950, Communist China would launch an invasion, quickly overwhelming the poorly equipped Tibetan army. The 14th Dalai Lama, who had assumed power at the age of 15, was forced to negotiate and signed an agreement that acknowledged Chinese sovereignty over Tibet but guaranteed a degree of autonomy for the region.  This agreement would also prove to be short-lived, as the Communist officials gradually increased their control over Tibetan affairs and implemented policies that aimed to assimilate the country into China. Monasteries and temples were destroyed, religious observances suppressed, and the nomadic Tibetans forced into settlements, leading to widespread unrest.

In 1959, a major uprising against the Communist rule erupted in Lhasa, the capital, the Chinese government responded with a violent crackdown. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India.

Marilyn Silverstone was the only woman photojournalist to cover the lama’s arrival. She remembered hurrying to India’s far eastern Assam to cover the event:

When I got the confirming cable from Gamma Agency, I booked myself onto the plane they were chartering to take us journalists to Tezpur and back. At Tezpur it was a madhouse  —  for six days, we sweated and ran around in circles – no one knew anything, and we were sure the Indian government would just sprint HIM (Dalai Lama) past us. There was nobody who would or could, tell us anything.

Finally, on Friday, the plan was made known and we got our press cards. We piled into two buses and were driven to the Foothills camp of the Assam Rifles. There we found we were expected to stand way back from the scene. But at 07.45, the gate lifted open and THEY arrived. The stampede then began. It turned into a free-for-all, with all the Indian photographers practically smashed up against HIM so that no one could get a decent unimpeded shot.

After all the suspense, it was very exciting to see them arrive in the Jeeps. HIMSELF was absolutely sweet – smiled and laughed delightedly at the photographers and stood for them to take pictures, then moved on into the house. The big moment was for Heinrich Harrer [the Austrian Alpinist who had previously been the boy lama’s teacher in Lhasa and whose 1952 memoirs Seven Years in Tibet would later be turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt], who was brought by the Daily Mail. The Dalai Lama did a “double take” when he saw him, and later kept saying: “old friend, old friend”…

Off at the crack of dawn for Siliguri, where thousands of Tibetans from the hills waited with incense, banners, white scarves and a mournful Tibetan band, for the train to arrive. He came out in front of the station and mounted the usual podium – this time an enormously high one- and raised his hands in blessing, then came down and walked around it, re-entered the train which would probably carry him away from Tibet forever.’

It was on the station platform that Silverstone took the photo above, of the Dalai Lama being greeted by Robert J. Godet, an anthropologist and scholar on Tibetan culture (who was covering the lama’s arrival for Paris-Presse).

While awaiting on the station platform, Magnum photographer Brian Brake joked that he’d give Marilyn $500 if she would sneak into the train and get shots of the Dalai Lama. Silverstone, ‘in a split-second decision’, stepped aboard, with ‘no money, no passport, and no toothbrush – nothing but cameras and film’. A security officer saw Marilyn get on and chased her through the moving train, and caught her as she was trying to hide. After six hours of intense questioning, finally convinced Marilyn posed no threat, the police brought her back to Siliguri station and left her on the platform.

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Silverstone had been in India for mere months when she covered the events in Assam. She arrived on February 22, 1959 with a four-month assignment with The Lamp magazine — and then stayed in India for a further fourteen years. Years later, in 1977, she was ordained as a Tibetan nun, at the age of forty-eight, and later helped found a nunnery near Kathmandu— one of the first Tibetan Buddhist nunneries outside of Tibet.

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

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1963 | Ca Mau, Vietnam

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Historically, the news photography was predominantly the field of Western photographers. In this context, the Gwangju incident which I blogged about earlier was also notable. Magazines like National Geographic and Life, papers like New York Times, other news organizations like BBC sent their reports around the world.  

As such the ever widening war in Vietnam was mostly seen through the eyes of photographers like Robert Capa, Larry Burrows, and Daniel Camus who parachuted into the Indochina (literally in the case of Camus, who was air dropped into the garrison at Dien Bien Phu) even on the ground in Vietnam.

However, for some Vietnamese locals, the war was seen through the lens of guerrilla fighters who doubled as photographers. One such man was Tran Binh Khuol.

Aged 23, he joined the resistance to re-impose the French rule onto Indochina after the end of the Second World War, operating in Bac Lieu province in southern tip of Vietnam. He was arrested and exiled by the French authorities but escaped and returned to work for the propaganda department for the Viet Cong.

In between the French withdrawal and the escalation of the American war, Tran Binh Khuol worked at the press agency for the government (TTXVN, Vietnam News Agency), but soon he would be called again to the frontlines.

In 1963, he took his most memorable photos, that of North Vietnamese soldiers sinking in the mud carrying mortars that weighed up to 75 kilograms to attack a fort in Ca Mau. Ca Mau, though situated on the southern Mekong delta tip of South Vietnam, was a hotbed of Viet Cong activities in those days — and virtually the end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the supply route which ran from North Vietnam through parts of Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam.

His photos showed the stoic facial expressions of the soldiers, especially the wounded ones, who displayed courage and determination akin to the spirit shown at Dien Bien Phu, where equally heavy artillery was hand carried up the bamboo forests, ravines, and rocky climbs to surprise and encircle the French garrison. Some were half-naked, wearing only shorts, and all of them were covered in black mud.

In 2007, Tran Binh Khuol’s photos from Ca Mau campaign were honored with the State Prize, the Vietnamese state’s award for literary and artistic works of merit. Tran Binh Khuol himself however had perished years earlier in the jungles. Having retreated into U Minh forest as the US Army began carpet-bombing the area, he died there in late 1968.

1973 | Coup in Chile

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After three unsuccessful campaigns, Salvador Allende was finally elected in Chile in 1970 — the first Marxist president ever elected democratically anywhere in the world. His subsequent socialist reforms – which included nationalizing factories and agricultural estates, including mines belonging to Anaconda and Kennecott, US copper titans – put him quickly in the crosshairs of the United States.

The U.S. would intervene in Chile in many covert and overt ways to ensure that the Marxist government would fail — denying the country foreign credit, banning sales of spare parts and machinery. This led to the economy collapsing, the inflation skyrocketing and various strikes. The CIA was also backing middleclass business owners to disrupt the government’s plans – such as the October 1972 strike by trucking barons, which blocked the access to the capital Santiago.

By mid-1973, the situation was dire. Allende had survived a coup, and removed military officers from his government – an action that garnered him a censure from the parliament. Country was quickly heading into a constitutional crisis. Two military chiefs who opposed the military intervention in government had been removed (one by assassination, another via a road rage scandal) and the path was clear for the latter general’s successor, Augusto Pinochet, to stage a coup, with backing of the CIA.

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The photos in this post were taken on 11 September, the day of the coup. Allende was photographed, carrying a rifle, talking on the phone (allegedly) with Vice Admiral Patricio Carvajal Prado, one of the putschists (Carvajal would serve as Pinochet’s defense and foreign minister).  A few minutes later, at 9:10 am, Allende made his famous farewell speech on live radio, already speaking of himself in the past tense, of his love for Chile and of his deep faith in its future. 

Immediately afterwards, Allende went around La Moneda, the Presidential Palace, looking for good defense positions. As before, he was surrounded by his Group of Personal Friends (known by the Spanish acronym GAP, Grupo de Amigos Personales), informal armed guard trained and equipped by Cuba and maintained by the Socialist Party for Allende’s protection. Allende wore a metal combat helmet and carried a Soviet-made automatic rifle given to him by Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Those were the last photos ever taken of Allende.

Later in the day, an official announcement was sent out that he had committed suicide with the same rifle. His supporters, as well as his widow and daughters, claimed that he was executed by the generals.

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Who took the photos above had long been disputed, and even when they were taken. It was sometimes alleged that they were from the previous coup attempt, the one that failed.

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The photos surfaced four months after the coup, on the front page of The New York Times. The paper’s Latin American correspondent, Marvine Howe, was given the photograph by an intermediary who said the photographer must remain anonymous. When they won the World Press photo award in 1973, the New York Times accepted the award on the unknown photographer’s behalf (Dane Bath of New York Times below).

The Times wrote: “Allende’s body was found in an office, but none of the photographs just obtained shows that scene. A Government spokesman in Santiago said that photographs taken later of Dr. Allende’s body were “really not suitable for publication.”

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A few names had been proposed as the photographer, including one mysterious “Davide”. In February 2007, the Chilean newspaper La Nación revealed that the photographer was Luis Orlando Lagos Vásquez, aka “Chico” Lagos, at the time La Moneda’s official photographer.  The World Press photo attributes them to Lagos, as did Iconic Photos in our previous post.

Family of Leopoldo Vargas, another photographer working under Lagos in the official photographer team, claimed that Vargas took these photos.

Vargas recounted that in the photo above of the call between Allende and Prado, the President ended the call with “Do what you want, motherfuckers,” and told Vargas as he stormed out of the room: “Comrade, instead of carrying a camera, you should better carry a machine gun.” 

With both Lagos and Vargas dead now, it is uncertain if this mystery would be resolved.

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

https://www.patreon.com/iconicphotos

Berlin Airlift | Henry Ries

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“We must have a bad phone connection,” asked General Curtis LeMay, the cigar-chomping, gruff-talking head of Strategic Air Command. “It sounds like you are asking whether we have planes for carrying coal.”

It was June 1948, and on the other end of the call was General Lucius Clay, the military governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone in Germany. Clay confirmed, “Yes, that’s what I said. Coal.”

LeMay, later the inspiration for the pugnacious and unreasonable Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, answered gruffly after a long pause, “The Air Force can deliver anything.”

Thus began the Berlin Airlift — two days after the Soviets had imposed a blockade on the city which was in their occupied zone to force the Allied occupying powers out.

What Clay had in mind was unthinkable — supplying 2.25 million people with food and fuel by air indefinitely. Initially, it began haphazardly. A “cowboy” operation, unauthorized by the higher-ups (President Truman only later approved the mission). The U.S. Air Force, after all, was a military organization without much experience in running transport and cargo operations. Yet, under the command of Maj. Gen. William Tunner, it became a streamlined and coordinated effort and an incredible feat of logistics.

At the peak of the airlift, cargo planes landed at Tempelhof every four minutes around the clock, and the daily tonnage of food and supplies brought into Berlin by the planes exceeded the amount of material that had been brought in by trains before the blockade. It was a defining moment that won the hearts and minds of the occupied and defeated Germans.

During a landing at Tempelhof, a pilot named Gail Halvorsen befriended the starving children who played around the airfield. Halvorsen, who had personal reservations about the airlift, grew up poor during the Great Depression and empathized with the children. He handed the children two sticks of gum and told them to come back the next day when he planned to airdrop more sweets from his plane. He would wiggle the wings of his aircraft so they would know it was him, he told the children.

Thus began the story of a man remembered in Germany as Der Schokoladen Flieger, the Chocolate Flyer. Not only did he live up to his promise, but Halvorsen also asked other pilots to donate their candy rations, and he had his flight engineer rock the airplane during the drop. More and more children showed up to catch his airdrops, and letters arrived requesting special airdrops at other points in the city.

It was against the rules, but when an Associated Press story appeared under the headline “Lollipop Bomber Flies Over Berlin,” Halvorsen’s superiors realized the PR opportunity. Candy and handkerchief donations arrived from all over America following the AP story (candy was dropped using handkerchiefs as miniature parachutes), and Halvorsen was dubbed Uncle Wiggly Wings in the press. Now officially sanctioned as ‘Operation Little Vittles’, dozens of pilots dropped more than 21 tons of candy in 250,000 small parachutes across Berlin.

The Soviets would soon recognize the futility of the airlift, but the standoff would ultimately last fifteen months. President Truman would use the crisis to his advantage and win an upset reelection victory, while his Secretary of Defense would descend into madness in the midst of an escalating crisis. All in all, when the airlift ended, the United States, Britain, and France had flown 278,228 flights altogether to supply isolated West Berlin.

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Operation Little Vittles was immortalized in a photo which had become as iconic as the candy bombers themselves — and later featured on posters and commemorative stamps.

The photo was taken by Henry Ries, a Berlin-born Jew who fled Nazi Germany and migrated to the United States before the war. He first arrived in the United States in 1937 but was sent back due to improper immigration papers. However, he was able to emigrate the following year and began selling vacuum cleaners to make a living. In 1943, he joined the U.S. Army as an aerial photographer and worked first in the Pacific theater, then in Europe. After the war, Ries returned to Germany and used images of mundane life to contrast the darkness of war’s aftermath.

Another famous Ries photo, titled ‘Germany’s future swings in front of Germany’s past,’ depicted children at an amusement park ride in Lustgarten in the shadow of the bombed-out ruin of Königliches Schloss, the seat of the last German Kaiser.

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Ries’ photos put into images the thundering words of Berlin’s Lord Mayor Ernst Reuter, the symbol of the Free Berlin. On September 1948, Reuter gave a speech in front of the burned-out Reichstag building, facing a crowd of 300,000 where he appealed to the world not to abandon Berlin — a moment also captured by Ries (above).

Reuter pled, “Ihr Völker der Welt … Schaut auf diese Stadt und erkennt, dass ihr diese Stadt und dieses Volk nicht preisgeben dürft, nicht preisgeben könnt!” (People of this world… look upon this city and see that you should not, cannot abandon this city and this people).

Ries’ photos complemented these words and shone a light on the plight of the defeated Germans, and their struggling lives: a woman ironing while her family slept in the same room; hardened black market traders; emaciated women returning from markets and rummaging in the streets for fuel; citizens planting modest vegetable gardens in the Tiergarten; ethnic Germans expelled from Silesia (surrendered to Poland after the war) and released prisoners of war. In his photo of poor market on Wittenbergplatz in front of the completely destroyed Kaufhaus des Westens, emaciated women offer pitiful bundles of herbs for sale and a man repairs a tattered shoe. 

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

https://www.patreon.com/iconicphotos

Pope John Paul in Managua

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There was the weightiness of history to the moment above. Canossa perhaps or the memories of the papacies of the Renaissance and the Inquistion perhaps. A pope wagging finger at a kneeling man on the airport tarmac.

It was 1983 and Pope John Paul II was in Managua — on his first visit to Nicaragua. The kneeling priest was Ernesto Cardenal, who was then serving as the Minister of Culture in the country’s Sandinista government.

Although the Church played a major role in the fall of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, it was split on its successors, with Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo of Managua leading sharp critics of the Sandinistas, and younger liberation theology priests like Cardenal joining the Sandinistas’ Marxist-Leninist revolution. For years, there was an ongoing feud of words and sometimes physical intimidation between two factions of the church.

The pope wasn’t there for a reconciliation. Even before his visit, the pope had been publicly demanding that Father Cardenal and four other priests (including his brother Fernando Cardenal, then education minister) resign their government positions. The Sandinistas also refused the Vatican’s demand to replace them, but insisted that its invitation to the pope still stood.

The pope, as equally minted as the Sandinistas (both had come to power in that pivot year of 1979), was undaunted by this defiance. But as he walked down the receiving line at the airport, decorated with a banner that said “Welcome to Free Nicaragua – Thanks to God and the Revolution,” he was still taken aback to see the priests (the Vatican had specificed that none of the priest-ministers should appear in the welcoming party) and especially Cardenal. Unlike other priests in clerical garb, he had showed up wearing a collarless white shirt, slacks and his signature black beret over his thick white hair. When he knelt to kiss the papal ring, the pope withheld his hand and wagged his finger at him.

His subsequent scolding was not audible, but the moment was broadcast around the world and the photo above was on the frontpage of newspapers. It was later recounted that the pope told Father Cardenal, “You must regularize your position with the church. You must sort out your affairs with the church.”

It was to be a challenging visit for the pope.

Later that day Sandinista supporters heckled him at mass when he asked the citizenry to reject the “popular church” that is allied with the revolutionary government and to accept the absolute authority of the Vatican. The Sandinistas partisans who were strategically placed at the head of the crowd of about 350,000 began replied by chanting: “One church on the side of the poor!” and “We want peace!” The Pope countered combatively. “Silencio!” he commanded – and then twice more until the hecklers were cowed.  

At the end of the Mass, the Sandinistas played their anthem, after which the pope was driven back to the airport, where he was again greeted by the junta supremo Daniel Ortega (in glasses on the left in photo above), who reproached him for not praying for seventeen youths killed by the US-backed rebels, known as the Contras and defended the behavior of the Sandinistas during the Mass.

The pope left, insulted.

For the pope, brought up in Soviet Poland, Marxism was an existential evil. He returned to the Vatican in a combatively mood. On his next major trip, three motnhs after Nicaragua, he returned to Poland to denounce the government there as running “one great concentration camp”. He would also soon suspend Cardenal and other priests from the priesthood — the ban that would not be lifted until three decades later — and put the founding father of liberation theology, the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, under investigation by the Vatican’s guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“Christ led me to Marx,” Cardenal reflected in an interview in 1984. “I don’t think the pope understands Marxism. For me, the four gospels are all equally communist. I’m a Marxist who believes in God, follows Christ, and is a revolutionary for the sake of his kingdom.”

On his second trip to Nicaragua in 1996, the pope referred to the earlier visit: “I remember the celebration of 13 years ago; it took place in darkness, on a great dark night.” By then, the Sandinistas were gone. They had been subjected to the widespread violence from the Contras, and were finally thrown out in a general election in 1990, also marred by massive America interference. Cardenal left his government office in 1987, having fallen out with the junta’s head, Daniel Ortega, and when Ortega returned to power in 2007, he would condemn the government as a thieving monarchy.

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

https://www.patreon.com/iconicphotos

1944 | Vienne Execution

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After France was liberated from the Nazis in 1944, a wave of retributions swept through the country. Nazi collaborators and Gestapo informers were denounced; women suspected of having relationships with Germans were publicly humiliated by having their heads shaved; those engaged in the black market activities were labeled as “war profiteers” and trialed.

In the first fevered phase (remembered as épuration sauvage or wild purge, as opposed to later legal purges, épuration légale), one estimate noted that six thousand people were summarized executed for collaboration before the liberation of France, and four thousand thereafter. members and leaders of the milices. The US Army’s estimates were higher: eighty thousand, and one source even reported that the number executed was 105,000.

One such execution was well documented by Jean-Philippe Charbonnier in the village of Vienne, near Grenoble. Charbonnier spent a single roll of 35mm film to document the entire story of the public execution of a Nazi collaborator in front of a crowd of five thousand people. Each shot built up to the death by firing squad of a minor official who had possibly worked for the Gestapo with documentary and cinematic precision, beginning with the man being tied to a post, soldiers with rifles preparing for the task, then ultimately killing him.

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Charbonnier remembered the day and the legal and moral ambiguities of that day:

In October, 1944, in the small town of Vienne (Isere), France, a French collaborator named Nitard was sentenced to death.

He was no large-scale spy — just a man who had been working as a clerk in the German administration, probably for the Gestapo. But one must remember that in the early days of Liberation in France, as in any other country that had suffered four years’ occupation, feelings ran high against any collaborator, big or small. And then, of course the really dangerous collaborators were not easy to bring to justice so the small fry had to pay the price for their more fortunate partners-in-crime. More fuel to the fire had been the executions by the Germans of many great patriots both in Lyons and in Vienne.

The outcry was therefore so violent that, even though Nitard’s appeal to the Courts of Justice in Grenoble had been successful, the shooting was ordered to take place, so as not to disappoint the population of Vienne, I cannot help feeling.

So that everyone in the town should have a chance to watch the execution and share in the general revenge, it was scheduled to take place at noon. Five thousand people, children included, crowded into the square in front of the old military barracks. So intense was the excitement that one could almost smell it as one can before a bullfight or even a good football game, while in the barrack square the condemned man gulped back the traditional glass of rum and lit the traditional cigarette. He puffed at it a few times, then stubbed it out, thrust the butt into his pocket and went to face the firing-squad.

He passed through a hall where the twelve rifles, one with a blank cartridge, had been laid out ready, and walked out into the square to be met by a priest, the firing-squad, its commanding officer and the now strangely silent crowd.

This demonstration of public justice shocked me profoundly. No one deplored collaboration more than I but this punishment seemed to me to be out of all proportion to this man’s relatively small crime. My nerves were taut. This man who was about to die was so close. I don’t remember whether the crowd was silent now, or not. I only know that I set my Leica automatically, as in a dream … or rather, a nightmare. Subconscious reflexes turned my battered old Summar F2 lens to the closest possible range while I tried to fight off feelings of disgust.

Suddenly I felt very close to that man standing alone in the square. The cigarette butt. Injustice to humanity. And then the overwhelming feeling that the man was dead already, that he was like a duck with its head cut off that runs for minutes before finally falling dead. He was dead before he ever entered the “arena” — even after fifteen years I can’t stand using that word.

The “show” was reaching its climax but now the man was untied from the post. He was a traitor and traitors are not given the right to meet death facing the squad. The seconds ticked by as he was bound with his back to the rifles. And then they fired.

Nitard never saw me although I was at times no more than five feet away. The whole story took up just one 35mm roll, as you can see — the biggest, most compact story I ever covered and one I wish never to have to cover again.”

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

https://www.patreon.com/iconicphotos

Coronation of George V

Ahead of Charles III’s coronation this weekend, we look back at the first time cameras were allowed inside the Westminster Abbey

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George V’s coronation in 1911 had several ‘firsts’: the first to use the newly developed processional route through the Mall and Whitehall; the first to be followed by a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral; the first with the iconic balcony appearance by the king — and most importantly, the first to be photographed from inside the abbey.

The honor fell to Sir John Benjamin Stone, a former MP and amateur photographer, who was earlier also entrusted by George V to photograph intimate portraits, such as his late father Edward VII’s coffin in the royal vault.

Despite the king’s wishes, Stone wasn’t welcomed by everybody. The illustrated news magazines of London dismissed his blurry photos of ceremony as inferior to sketches produced by their eyewitness artists, and the formidable Randall Davison, then in the seventh year of a tenure that would make him the longest serving Archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation, insisted that the photographer and his camera be “in a position absolutely concealed”. As such, Stone’s photo of the king on the coronation chair (above) was almost blocked.

The royal couple both complained about the coronation. “The service in the Abbey was most beautiful, but it was a terrible ordeal,” wrote George V in his journal, while Queen Mary wrote to her aunt, “it was an awful ordeal for us both.”

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In the front row of the Royal Box behind the king, from left to right, were four of his six children (1. Princess Mary; 2. Prince Albert, the future George VI; 3. Prince Henry, the future Duke of Gloucester; 4. Prince George, the future Duke of Kent), his sister (5. the then Princess Royal, Duchess of Fife), and three of his aunts, all daughters of Queen Victoria (6. Princess Christian of Scheswig-Holstein; 7. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll; 8. Princess Henry of Battenberg). The young princes would fight on the way back to the palace: the 11-year-old Henry wrestling the 8-year-old George, nearly knocking Princess Mary’s coronet out of their carriage.

Sitting behind the king’s children were the Connaughts and the Albanys — the wives and daughters of the king’s uncles. From left to right, 1. The Duchess of Connaught; 2. The Duchess of Albany; 3. Princess Patricia (a daughter of Duke of Connaught); and 4. Princess Alexander of Teck (a daughter of Duke of Albany and married to the Queen’s brother).

On the king’s right, four men carrying swords of state were visible. They were, left to right, 1. Field Marshal Lord Kitchner of Khartoum, carrying the sword of temporal justice; 2. Duke of Beaufort, bearing curtana (also known as the Sword of Mercy); 3. Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar, former Commander-in-Chief of the Army, carrying the sword of spiritual justice; and bearing the unwieldy Sword of State, William Lygon, Lord Beauchamp (often thought to be the model for the character Lord Marchmain in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited).

Visible behind Beauchamp in his military dress was Captain Charles Cust, equerry to the king, who would be a confidante of three kings.

Between the king and the queen were the other officials who held ceremonial roles. From left to right, 1. the Viscount Churchill, one of the bearers of the king’s train; 2. the Bishop of Bath and Wells; 3. the Earl of Carrington; and 4. the Bishop of Durham. On the other side of the queen was the Bishop of Petersborough. Behind the queen were the bearers of her six-yard long train, led by Evelyn Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire and Mistress of the Robes — the senior lady in the Royal Household.

Lord Carrington, the future Marquess of Lincolnshire, bore St Edward’s Staff and held the role of Lord Great Chamberlain. The role rotates with every change of reign between three families: the others being the Cholmondeleys and the Willoughby de Eresbys (the Earls of Ancaster). For Charles III’s coronation, it will be turn of another Carrington.

Bishops of Durham and Bath and Wells acted as Bishops Assistant to the King — a role that existed since the coronation of Edgar in 973, and had been carried out by the holders of those two bishoprics since the coronation of Richard I in 1189.

(You can compare Stone’s photos to the almost identical coronation painting by John Henry Frederick Bacon. Bacon was placed hidden from view behind the tombs of Aymer de Valence and Aveline of Lancaster, directly facing the Royal Box, and he used artistic licence to produce a clear view of the king in profile and the queen facing the viewer).

Woodstock ’69

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The whole world was there. At least it appeared to be — and later would claim to be.

From August 15th to 17th 1969, the largest rock festival in American history was undergoing at Bethel, New York. The name ‘Woodstock’ would soon enter into cultural memory, but back then, it was simply the name of a nearby town where the promoters had originally planned the festival to be. The town (where Bob Dylan then lived) had denied them a permit.

The town was right to be apprehensive — it didn’t want any gathering larger than 5,000 people, and the organizers had expected ten times that time. Actually, a hundred times that number — half a million people — showed up (publicity partly drummed up by the news that Woodstock had banned the festival).

Among the attendees was Burk Uzzle, formerly a staff photographer at Life, then freelancing for Magnum. Several papers asked him to cover the festival, but Uzzle turned them down. The photographer who would turn 31 on the weekend of Woodstock didn’t want editors dictating to him, and instead decided to visit the festival as a freelancer with his family. He carried two Leicas — one with a normal lens, the other with a medium-wide lens, and as much film as he could stuff into his pockers — 15 rolls.

He had planned for a daytrip to the festival, but was stuck there: he was told that the highway had been shut down due to crowds (At least that was what Arlo Guthrie told the crowd, “the New York State Thruway is closed man.” In fact, the state police never closed it off. It was just jammed from traffic). It was a wet muddy weekend and the family stayed in a makeshift shelter they made by attaching a poncho to a barbed-wire fence. Uzzle realized that he was better off taking photos of the audience, rather than elbow through the crowds to take pictures of musicians performing — something all of his colleagues on assignment were trying to do.

On Sunday, Uzzle woke up at 4.30 a.m and walked around. The photo he took that morning of a hippie couple wrapped in a tight embrace would become an iconic picture not only of the festival but also of a generation. Uzzle remembered:

“It was a hard decade: assassinations, riots, Washington. My archive is full of really bad stuff. And then you get to Woodstock, and here are all the hippies that everyone thought were going to ruin the world, but these people decided to look after each other.”

The bedraggled and blanketed couple would come to symbolize the entire generation known for “beads, beads, blossoms and bells, blinding strobe lights and ear-shattering music, exotic clothing and erotic slogans,” in the words of Time magazine, which devoted a 1967 cover story to the hippies and the “flower power”. For historian Arnold Toynbee, they presented “a red warning light for the American way of life”.

Ironically Nick Ercoline and Bobbi Kelly, both 20, were not hippies. Bobbi was working at a bank and Nick had a construction job. Living near Bethel in Middletown, N.Y., they were aware of the Woodstock controversy — the permits, the tickets, the last minute change of venue — but only decided at the last minute to go. The couple had been dating for less than ten weeks. They would only stay for one night and never saw the stage because they were so far away (in contrast to Uzzle’s family, which arrived early and had prime spots).

Uzzle took a few frames in black and white before switching to color. He remembered:

I walk up and I know the curvature of the hill has to work with the curvature of the heads. And there’s the flag, it’s going to have to be there, and just enough of the people.”

Very slow shutter speed, almost dark, holding myself very still, maybe a 15th of a second, and I was lucky that it was still sharp. But I was not high! So I was able to make the composition and be in focus and take the picture. And then I turned around to find something else to shoot.”

Jefferson Airplane played on stage.

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The photo would be on 3-LP Woodstock album released the next year. A friend of Nick and Bobbi bought the album, and they recognized the orange and yellow butterfly. “Then we saw the blanket. Oh, my lord, that’s us!” The couple had picked it up from the street where other festival goers had abandoned their belongings.

Nick and Bobbi got married two years later and were still together until Bobbi’s death in 2023.

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The festival attracted famous names: Crosby, the Who, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin to name a few. Jimi Hendrix was the closing act (although many didn’t see it as it took on Monday morning) but Bob Dylan refused to turn up (the famously grumpy singer was living a reclusive life in Woodstock and didn’t want more people to turn up to his town; he pointedly traveled to U.K a few weeks later to headline for a festival there).

Although it took years for the organizers to profit from Woodstock, it marked the beginning of the commercialization of music on a large scale. The organizers, Woodstock Ventures Inc., was a coolly calculated operation which took care to meticulously and professionally document the festival in sound and film, ensuring a steady stream of income for the next decade with ongoing marketing (one of the editors on the Oscar-winning documentary Woodstock (1970) was young Martin Scorsese) and anniversary festivals, culmulating with the disastrous Woodstock ’99. In that context, the above picture was used (in both black and white and in color), and reproduced on millions of record covers.

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If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

https://www.patreon.com/iconicphotos

Currently there is a poll there re: A.I. photo generation: What sort of iconic photos / images from past eras you want to see? In which photographer’s style? Please go and comment. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/poll-iconic-by-i-80820823)