'Burning Monk' by Malcolm Browne

Malcolm Browne, Burning Monk

Today is the anniversary of one of the most well-known pictures ever taken, known as "Burning Monk," taken on this day 58 years ago.

It's a picture of the death by suicide of Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, as a staged protest against government repression of the majority Buddhist religion in South Vietnam. The picture was taken by Malcolm Wilde Browne, who had become the AP's first permanent correspondent in Saigon when he was stationed there in November of 1961. He might have been the only Western journalist there on that day in 1963.

President Ngo Dinh Diem had "won" a rigged referendum and proclaimed himself President of the new Republic of Vietnam in 1955. A Catholic, he repressed Buddhists with escalating brutality, which in turn inspired escalating protest. At the time of Thich Quang Duc's death by immolation, Diem himself had only a few months to live. He fled a U.S.-backed military coup in November of 1963, initially embarrassing his pursuers by eluding them through subterfuge. After believing he had negotiated safe passage to exile for himself and his brother, Diem was executed in the back of an armored personnel carrier by ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) officers.

The AP has an informative page about the famous photograph as part of its "Explore" series. "In a pre-digital world," the AP relates, "it took a remarkable 15 hours over 9,000 miles of AP WirePhoto cable for Malcolm Browne's Burning Monk to become breaking news." And the picture the papers broke on June 12th was not this one—initially, a different frame, now mostly forgotten, was the most widely published image. It was that picture, not this one, which had such a visceral impact on then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Malcolm Browne was an accomplished photojournalist and a skilled photographer who filed many stories and would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1964. Talking about his most famous photograph, Browne remembered that "the monks were telephoning the foreign correspondents in Saigon to warn them that something big was going to happen. Most of the correspondents were kind of bored with that threat after a while and tended to ignore it. I felt that they were certainly going to do something, that they were not just bluffing, so it came to be that I was really the only Western correspondent that covered the fatal day." After a long and distinguished career—and a memoir, called Muddy Boots and Red Socks: A Reporter's Life—Malcolm Browne died in New Hampshire in 2012, at the age of 81.

Malcolm Browne in 1964. Photographer unknown.

Greg Myre of NPR's All Things Considered wrote, "In a war that would produce many shocks to the American public, Browne's photo was one of the first and remains an iconic image of the war a half-century later." You can see a larger version of the image here.

Mike

Product of Interest this week:

As Porsche does with the 911, Fujifilm just keeps refining its perfect pocket camera and making it better and better. Also available from Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Cliff McMann: "This picture is four years older than me, it wasn’t until years later at history of photography course at NOVA Community College that I saw it for the first time. I remember the visceral reaction, mine and the class’s. Beyond the power of images, some images possess power."

Mike replies: Hey, I used to teach at NOVA!

Tex Andrews (partial comment): "This ranks as one of the most horrifying images I have ever seen. There are many, many horrifying images—which in itself is a horror, compounded by the fact that with so may you'd think we would have had enough and learned to be better humans, but no, we have instead become inured to horror it seems—but what so unnerves me even so many decades later is that in this image this man is still alive. It's unbearable to me."

John Krill: "I'm going to suggest two books on the Vietnam War. The first is The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam and the other is Once Upon a Distant War by William Prochnau. Both have excellent description of the crisis with the Buddhists. All Buddhists were still badly mistreated even when I was in Vietnam in 1969."

Comments

[Greg heins]

Never forget. Thank you.

[Chuck Albertson]

I remember seeing the photo as a kid growing up in northern Arizona, and wondering, "Where's Vietnam, and what's going on there?" I don't recall the Daily Courier running it, and I don't think either of the Phoenix papers would touch it. Had to wait for it to appear in Life, or maybe Look, a week or so later.

[Timothy Auger]

I saw that car some 25 years ago on a trip to Vietnam and again a couple of years ago. It's a very unmemorable Austin that has acquired ironic status. Unfortunately it's also acquiring some surface rust presumably because of Vietnam's humid climate, and I don't think it will be on display for ever.

[Daniel]

One monk has a camera. Only three in the crowd are wearing hats.
What make is the car?

[Kodachromeguy]

This is a very pertinent discussion of the tragedy of Vietnam. June 13, 2021, is the 50th anniversary of the initial release of the Pentagon Papers. From Wikipedia,

"The New York Times began publishing excerpts on June 13, 1971; the first article in the series was titled "Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces Three Decades of Growing US Involvement". The study was dubbed The Pentagon Papers during the resulting media publicity. Street protests, political controversy, and lawsuits followed."

Today, do we have the honesty for a similar in-depth analysis of Iraq or Afghanistan or the previous presidential administration?

[Tom]

I remember this photo, I am 79.
You didn't mention Madame Nhu's comment about this event.

[That's because I don't know what that is. --Mike]

[Tom]

Madam Nhu called them "barbecued monks". That was as shocking as the picture.
Her brother in-law was Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam, assassinated in 1963.

[r.l]

i was drafted in 66.. this paper clipping and a cartoon from ww2 'we sure liberated the hell outta this place' were in my wallet during my '67 tour of 'snoopy'

[Timothy Auger]

@Daniel: It's an Austin, either an A55 Cambridge or an A95 Westminster, late 1950s. The trim looks more like the Westminster, but I'm surprised they exported that to Vietnam, with its relatively large 6-cylinder engine.

[Gerard Geradts]

I remember seeing that photo on the TV news, when I was 12 yrs.

Vietnam, having been a French colony, was crowded with French Cars. Me thinks the Austin was not imported, maybe an emassy staffcar?
TBH All the years I wonderen about the Origin of that car. Even in France proper English were a rarity. THose French were not stupide (stupide in English). It was the years before Britain (formerly known as Great Britain) was a member of the EC.

[Gerard Geradts]

I remember this event very vividly, made a big impression on my 12 year old self. Glad I wasn't an American (still am) and had to fight that war 7 years later.