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Background information
"'Only the dead have seen the end of war' (from: George Santayana, 'Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies' (1922), often incorrectly attributed to Plato.
This book of photographs, 'War of Whispers' by John WILLHEIM tells the extraordinary story of what was later called 'the CIA's secret war'' conflict in Asian Laos in the 1960s/1970s. It was the CIA's largest covert operation to date. A guerrilla army of Hmong tribesmen fought against the Pathet Lao backed by the communist North Vietnamese. While the war in neighboring Vietnam was widely reported in the media, the Secret War was not. Any reporter who heard vague rumors of a secret war and approached it was turned away at gunpoint. There was a single exception. A newly minted CIA officer, John WILLHEIM, who was already an accomplished photographer, was selected to document the Secret War, without any restriction. His resulting photographs and films were top secret at the time. Only high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials, some U.S. Congressmen, and then-President Lyndon Johnson had access to the material. In the decades that followed, they remained almost entirely under lock and key.
Content
This book of photographs, 'War of Whispers' by John WILLHEIM does not attempt to glorify war. Quite the contrary. The striking images and informative text are now, fifty years later, testimony to an almost forgotten era. This is the only book of photographs ever published about the Secret War. Everyday images of people, villages and landscapes contrast brutally with the reality of war. His sympathies were clearly with the Hmong people who fought and ultimately lost this proxy war. They are persecuted to this day as 'America's forgotten warriors' by the communist government. Tens of thousands of Hmong fled to neighboring Thailand and later emigrated to the United States, France, and some even to Germany.
Additional information
Award-winning Dutch photo book designer Syrern (SYB) KUIPER has compiled the photographs, films as well as thoughts of John WILLHEIM into the compelling, almost cinematic documentary photo book 'War of Whispers.'" (© Hartmann projects, 2022)