It was a war no one was supposed to know about.
Intent on destroying supply lines vital to communist forces during the Vietnam War, U.S.-backed paramilitaries dropped some 2 million tons of bombs along the Vietnam-Laos border between 1964 and 1973.
Kept hidden from the public eye, the assault made Laos — the lush, mountainous home of the Hmong people — the most bombed nation in history. But one photographer was there. And, this month wraps up the first, and so far only, public exhibit of his images.
“John Willheim: Secret War Photographer” is on display at The Fresno Art Museum through the end of June. The exhibit of 23 images shows the reality of the war zone that should have never been. Equipped with Nikon cameras using color and black-and-white film, Willheim captured moments of Hmong families leaving their villages, and of Hmong soldiers going through training drills before boarding helicopters that would carry them into battle.
Willheim was already an established photographer when he was recruited by the CIA to enter the region and document the war. Though now unclassified, the images for decades were seen only by top U.S. intelligence officials and the president. Willheim, who lives in Southern California, chose to debut his works in Fresno because of its large community of Hmong people, who had U.S.-backing to fight the communists.
In “War of Whispers,” a book containing 175 of his images, Willheim writes: “Mine are the only professional images of the Secret War. Most unseen for fifty years. One young man’s visual impressions of its changing face. A selective portrait, a moment in time. About to vanish into history. I was the last witness and this is my legacy.”
By 1975, the U.S. war in Vietnam was lost, he wrote, “and with the same sudden abandonment of our allies, and all our promises. Silent villages of Hmong widows, turned into graveyards.”
In an email to Fresnoland, Willheim said creation of the book was inspired by the Hmong community. “It was the particular support of several Hmong-American admirers over the years suggesting I do a photobook,” he said.
Images from the ground as well as from helicopters flying over the landscape document the war and its impact, such as the remains of villages abandoned due to airstrikes, women and their children traveling by foot to find safe haven, and moments of General Vang Pao commanding Hmong soldiers during battle.
Willheim worked through difficult conditions and harsh weather to preserve such moments and the reality of lives reshaped by the war to honor those who were affected and ensure the events would not be lost to history.
Creating the images was a technically difficult assignment with “intense light, dust, mud rain, getting in and out of helicopters with no protective cases,” Willheim wrote in a statement posted as part of the exhibit. But, he said, “my Nikons never once failed in thousands of exposures.”
At the close of the exhibit on June 30, the images will be returned to Willheim. “I would welcome them being exhibited elsewhere,” Willheim said in his message to Fresnoland. “But for now no concrete plans.”
