Photo Op1995

The last thirty years of American history have produced a compelling range of images: Vietnam and the student protests, Robert Kennedy's assassination and Richard Nixon's election, the trauma of Watergate and the recovery under Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, the fragile beginnings of peace in the Middle East and the crumbling of the Soviet Union. David Hume Kennerly's astonishing photographs of these and many other events that shaped our times are among the images forever imprinted in our memories. Kennerly was always there with his camera - on the battlefield, at ringside, or behind closed doors in the Oval Office. This eyewitness collection presents over 250 of his most dramatic photographs, many published here for the first time. Augmented by Kennerly's first-hand recollections of the historic events he witnessed, the photographs range from an early Supremes concert through Jonestown, with vivid coverage of Vietnam and other wars, the final days of the Nixon presidency, the inside workings of the Ford Administration, and groundbreaking events in international diplomacy.