Best Photos of the Week
Paju, South Korea
Soldiers dismantle loudspeakers that were set up for propaganda broadcasts near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. South Korea silenced its battery of giant loudspeakers that blast messages at the North’s soldiers on the border, in a conciliatory gesture after the historic inter-Korea summit.
Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/AFP/Getty Images
I would like to see photos taken of the Korean War, Prisoner of War exchange, in September 1953, “Operation Big Switch”. I know there were thousands of photos taken, (I was there), but for some reason they have disappeared. Even the National Archives in College Park, MD, which has a few, cannot explain where all the others went. The late Al Chang, a US Army photographer, told me he himself took several hundred photos of returning US POW’s, plus hundreds of photos taken by the dozens of other photographers, military and civilian, who were there also. Is the US government holding something back from us? With all the scandals coming to light lately, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn they confiscated these photos also, for some obscure reason that only they know.