Philip Jones Griffiths, for a record five years the President of Magnum Photos, created in Vietnam, Inc. a record of the war there of almost Biblical proportions. No one who has seen it will forget its haunting images. In Agent Orange he has added a postscript that is equally memorable. In 1960 the United States war machine concluded that an efficient deterrent to the enemy troops and civilians would be the devastation of the crops and forestry that afforded them both succour and cover for their operations. Initial descriptions of the scheme included "Food Denial Program", later adapted to "depriving cover for enemy troops". They gave the idea the name "Operation Hades", but were advised that "Operation Ranch Hand" was a more suitable cognomen for PR purposes. The US had developed herbicides for the task. The most infamous became known as Agent Orange after the coloured stripe on the canisters used to distribute it. The planes that carried the canisters had 'only we can prevent forests!' as a logo on their fuselages. They were right. It was very effective. Unfortunately the herbicide also contained Dioxin, probably the world's deadliest poison. In Agent Orange Philip Jones Griffiths has photographed the children and grandchildren of the farmers whose faces were lifted to the gentle rain of the poison cloud. Some maintain that the connection between the maimed subjects of Griffiths' photographs and the exposure to Agent Orange is not scientifically established. However, the compensation payments made by the herbicide manufactures to those Americans sprayed in Viet Nam refute this assertion. Historians will find it sufficient to say that there will always be collateral damage, that useful PR phrase, in war and that Philip Jones Griffiths should understand the consequences of martial endeavours. He most certainly does. He has catalogued here a pitiless series of photographs, and there can be no doubt that they should and will be recognised.
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Born in the Welsh town of Rhuddlan in 1936, Philip Jones Griffiths studied pharmacy in Liverpool and practiced in London, while photographing part-time for the Manchester Guardian. In 1961, he became a full-time freelancer for the London Observer. Griffiths covered the Algerian War in 1962, and then was based in Central Africa before moving to Asia. He photographed the Viet Nam War beginning in 1966, publishing Vietnam, Inc. in 1971. Time Magazine called Vietnam, Inc. 'the best work of photo-reportage of war ever published' and The New Statesman added, 'Of all the hundreds of books about [the War,] this is the truest, the most important, the most upsetting'.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Philip Jones Griffiths has lived his entire life with an awareness of disease. Born and brought up in Rhuddlan, Wales, where his mother was the district nurse, he explained in an interview for the Royal Photographic Society Journal that one of the barometers determining middle class status in his village was an absence of Tuberculosis. Prior to picking up the camera professionally he trained and worked as a pharmacist, giving it up in 1961 when he was offered a contract to photograph for The Observer. He arrived in Vietnam in the summer of 1966: determined to cover the story in much greater depth than had been possible on his previous assignments. Agent Orange, published 37 years after he first set foot in Vietnam, is a testament of his fidelity to that original sentiment. Vietnam Inc, his original response to the conflict, republished last year by Phaidon and long considered the finest piece of reporting to have come out of Vietnam, is credited with beginning the change of public opinion in the USA that eventually brought the war to an end.
Agent Orange was one of a number of herbicides tested by US forces in Vietnam: its purpose being to deny food and shelter to the Viet Cong by de-foliating vast areas of the country’s landscape. The Vietnam PR machine made much at the time of the product’s alleged safety. But an accidental by-product constituent of the herbicide was the highly toxic chemical Dioxin which has caused disease in adults, and deformity in the children both of those on the ground beneath the herbicide mist, and those who administered it from above. Jones-Griffiths, who has continued to visit Vietnam on numerous occasions since the American withdrawal, points out that millions were effected by the toxic chemicals. More darkly he evidences that the manufacturers of the chemicals were aware, at the time of its manufacture, of the toxicity of their products: it was however to be dropped on “the enemy” and therefore considered of little consequence. The fall-out contamination amongst US veterans had not been predicted and in the United States has lead to a compensation programme for those who have since developed a number of diseases. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Vietnamese, have in the main been left to their own devices.
Jones-Griffiths however, past President of Magnum and long time campaigner for the people of South East Asia, remains determined that the truth will be seen to out. Evidencing, as it does in unsparing detail, the aftermath of spraying a populated, agricultural landscape with dioxin contaminated compounds, this is a far from easy book to look at. But at a time when the issue of weapons of mass destruction so regularly graces the front pages of the Western media it is perhaps even more crucial that it be examined.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By S. Baker
Format:Hardcover
Once again Phillip Jones Griffiths stops you in your tracks with haunting and thought provoking images that strike at your heart and mind. The finest war/reportage photographer of his time, possibly all time. A very powerful book that drives home the horror and often pointlessness of war and its effect on innocent civilians.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Treating Ignorance - Philip Jones Griffith outlines Vietnam's "Collateral Damage"
23 May 2012
By mmarshall
Format:Hardcover
Today in the West, there seems to very little awareness of the traumas resulting from the Vietnam war, even in the country itself the truth remains hidden to tourists. Having travelled to Vietnam and Cambodia myself, I remained inexcusably ignorant throughout my trip. After recently watching a documentary exploring the renewed relationships between US veterans and the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange, I was horrified to realise how little I knew and became determined to find out more and found the work of Philip Jones Griffiths.
'Agent Orange "Collateral Damage" in Viet Nam' is emotively informative and hauntingly frank. The shocking black and white photographs interspersed with white on black text contrast with the misleadingly cheerful name of the US Military's most infamous herbicide used during the conflict and pertain to the sadness of the situations of those depicted. The compassion felt by Griffiths towards the children and their families is evident - the subject of each photograph is named and their disabilities outlined, often along with excerpts from their daily life. He has produced not just a documentation of the hideousness of war and its aftermath, but also of his determination to humanise the victims and remind readers of the "childhood denied" to these innocents. When reading the book, one wonders how the effects of Agent Orange can ever be denied - perhaps no one before has had the same courage to talk with such bluntness, which is forcibly backed-up by over four decades of experience with the victims and their ailments.
As Gloria Emerson wrote on reading this book, "It is almost unbearable, but to turn away and not see the photographs is to compound the crime". Griffiths has ensured that there is now no excuse to be as ignorant as I used to be, and whilst the subject is of course chilling, he still manages to uplift you with beautifully captured images and tales of the love and affection of every family he visited. Ten out of ten on all counts - this book is essential reading for all.
'Agent Orange "Collateral Damage" in Viet Nam' is emotively informative and hauntingly frank. The shocking black and white photographs interspersed with white on black text contrast with the misleadingly cheerful name of the US Military's most infamous herbicide used during the conflict and pertain to the sadness of the situations of those depicted. The compassion felt by Griffiths towards the children and their families is evident - the subject of each photograph is named and their disabilities outlined, often along with excerpts from their daily life. He has produced not just a documentation of the hideousness of war and its aftermath, but also of his determination to humanise the victims and remind readers of the "childhood denied" to these innocents. When reading the book, one wonders how the effects of Agent Orange can ever be denied - perhaps no one before has had the same courage to talk with such bluntness, which is forcibly backed-up by over four decades of experience with the victims and their ailments.
As Gloria Emerson wrote on reading this book, "It is almost unbearable, but to turn away and not see the photographs is to compound the crime". Griffiths has ensured that there is now no excuse to be as ignorant as I used to be, and whilst the subject is of course chilling, he still manages to uplift you with beautifully captured images and tales of the love and affection of every family he visited. Ten out of ten on all counts - this book is essential reading for all.
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