This gallery contains photos of scanned slides that I took on a visit to Panmunjom in the fall of 1972. It was not a photographic excursion but I was able to take some photos during the brief and strictly controlled visit.
We were not free to roam around on our own (for security reasons).
Panmunjom is located about 34 miles north of Seoul along with the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission (UNCMAC), and is considered one of the last vestiges of the "Cold War". It is located in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the 2.5 mile wide buffer that runs along the heavily armed military border. Panmunjom refers to the Joint Security Area (JSA), a 400m x 800m rectangular area, set up on the Military Demarcation Line within the UNCMAC compound and reserved for talks between the United Nations Command (UNC) and its Communist counterparts (North Korea and China). When the JSA was first created, officials from both sides were allowed to move freely within the Area. However, that is not the case anymore with the enforcement of the military dividing line (or the MDL) within the JSA in the wake of the Axe Murder incident of 18 August 1976.
Today the ROK (South Korean) Military Police now stand off in a face to face confrontation with the North Korean military counterparts. This face to face confrontation was one of the changes made after the Axe Murder incident in 1976 (do a Google or Yahoo search - Panmunjom Axe Murders and Operation Paul Bunyan for a complete story).