Malcolm Browne

The Burning Monk, 1963 On 11 June 1963 the Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire in a Saigon street in protest at the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem, and the Associated Press correspondent Malcolm Browne photographed it. The picture put the Buddhist crisis on front pages around the world and won the World Press Photo of the Year; President Kennedy reportedly exclaimed on seeing it. What it changed is genuinely disputed. Some accounts say it pushed Washington to reassess its support for Diem; others note that neither Kennedy nor Johnson rethought American involvement in Vietnam because of it. Its certain effect was on how the world saw the Diem government.