ANTERO DE ALDA Photography Recent Works
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ace of spades
My dear Colby, give me 300 pounds. I have a dozen village managers plus two heads of district.
How much can you give for ten fingernails torn out of the hands of a woman from Long An?
My dear Colby, could you get me an ace of spades, to put in the mouth of the next beheaded Vietcong?
ANTERO DE ALDA May 1999
Victims of «Phoenix Program» (1967-75). Photo by BBC-TV/NRK
Colby = William C.; CIA agent, in charge of leading the «Phoenix Program» in Vietnam, since 1968 until its closure, in 1975. 300 pounds = according to later revelations, Americans seduced the Vietnamese villagers by paying them according to the rank of the killed Communists. 20 pounds per each village manager and 30 pounds per each district officer.
____ The Ace of Spades: this is a warrior card. The prolific American military symbolism gives it a special meaning: it was adopted by different companies, appearing on the hull of aircrafts, in flags, on soldier’s helmets... Over the (19)60’s in Vietnam, the ace of spades was instrumental in the psychological warfare which combined two different interpretations: the natives feared because of the associated killings and the Americans used it as a signature, a representation of power, threat and glory (some U.S. companies even sent these cards in industrial quantities for the battlegrounds). This dichotomy helps us to understand the existence of two traditional esoteric currents. For some it's the last card in the deck, known as the "card of death". Each deck has 52 cards, as many as the weeks in one year, and is spread over four suits, corresponding to the four seasons, each suit with 13 cards, corresponding to the thirteen lunar months of the Celts. Thus, the ace of spades kills the year and symbolizes the beginning of the winter cycle. For others, the ace of spades, as all aces, takes precedence in the deck, symbolizes a starting point, the beginning of something new and ultimately, is a symbol of victory. In 1977 the ace of spades re-emerged in the U.S. as the soldier’s combat guide in ("Soldiers Guide to Combat Intelligence") and, despite having been banned by the military hierarchies, resurfaced yet again in 1990, in the Gulf War, with the inscription “Desert Shield”, gain by of U.S. soldiers initiative. At the same time, the ace of spades with the effigy of Saddam Hussein was very popular. It is a fact that some years before the Vietnam War, the Japanese used not the ace of spades but the ace of hearts as propaganda, in the Battle of the Philippines (1941-42), carrying anti-American messages («The number of maimed and disabled men, or of those driven insane, exceeds by far the total capacity of all hospitals in the US»). |
