A traveller's guide to Vietnam's Buddhist Crisis of 1963

In June 1963, exactly 50 years ago, South Vietnam was paralysed by what has since become known as the Buddhist crisis. The US presence in Vietnam was still relatively small and confined to thousands of military "advisors". John F Kennedy was in the White House. In Saigon, journalists like David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan were making names for themselves while creating headaches back home for Kennedy's administration.

South Vietnam was run by the staunchly anti-communist US ally, President Ngo Dinh Diem.

President Diem's regime had all the hallmarks of a family dynasty and was becoming increasingly tyrannical.

The Ngo family story began in the former Nguyen Dynasty capital of Hue in central Vietnam and this is where the Buddhist Crisis began.



One of Diem's brothers, much feared Ngo Dinh Nhu, was President Diem's right hand man and ran the secret police. He was a brutal enforcer. Another brother, Ngo Dinh Thuc, was the Catholic Archbishop of Hue and the most senior cleric in Vietnam. He was a highly politically engaged churchman. Yet another brother, Ngo Dinh Can, was the regime's strongman in Hue. All four Ngo brothers were key players in the Buddhist crisis. Only Archbishop Thuc survived it.

The ramifications of the Buddhist crisis were to be enormous. It ended only when President Diem and his brother Nhu were assassinated in a US sanctioned coup in November 1963. In a bizarre twist, President Kennedy was assassinated in the same month.

Many historians believe the overthrow of Diem presaged the massive US military escalation that took place in 1965, and then ten catastrophic years of war that followed. The US turned on an unpalatable ally when they turned on Diem, and then became inextricably involved in a messy, distant war.

The first incidents of the Buddhist crisis occurred when President Diem's brother, Hue based Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, urged that the display of Buddhist flags be forbidden during Vesak, one of the most important days in the Buddhist calendar.


Vietnam was and is a majority Buddhist country. Turning on the Buddhist population seemed a suicidal path for the Diem regime to pursue. Ultimately it was.

Hue's Buddhists protested the flag decision and prompted an outrageously disproportionate response that saw 8 killed by Ngo Dinh Can's heavy handed security forces.

Perhaps the best known event of the Buddhist crisis was the self immolation of monk Thich Quang Duc on 11 June 1963 at a busy Saigon street corner.

Monk Duc was protesting the discriminatory policies of the Diem regime. AP Bureau Chief Malcolm Browne captured the immolation. His prize winning image created a crisis for the US government, an ally of the Diem administration. It became one of the most iconic images of the Vietnam War. You can view Browne's image here.

New York Times Correspondent David Halberstam wrote of witnessing the self immolation in his book The Making of a Quagmire,

"I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shrivelling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think ... As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him."

Despite assurances from the Diem regime that action would be taken to ease the crisis, it continued to escalate.

A later protest at Saigon's Xa Loi pagoda resulted in a brutal crackdown instigated by Diem's brother Nhu. Some historians say the brutality of the crackdown, in which hundreds of monks and their supporters were arrested and an unknown number killed, did not have the approval of Diem himself.

Either way, US support for the Diem regime became untenable. With US connivance, Diem's generals began to plot a coup against him. When they struck in November, Diem and Nhu were killed. Their man in Hue, Ngo Dinh Can was captured and executed in 1964.

The photos below mark out some of the places in Hue and Saigon connected to the Buddhist crisis and the demise of President Ngo Dinh Diem and his family.

Reminders of the crisis are plentiful and have official sanction. There's no harm in remembering the tyranny of the Diem regime it seems.

A recent major expansion of the memorial remembering the self immolation of Thich Quang Duc in downtown Saigon is especially interesting. Visitors might even come away with the impression that the Buddhists were in common cause with the communist movement. That would be a stretch however, as post 1975 history shows.

So if you're looking out for landmarks from the Buddhist crisis, check out these places.

Hue

Quoc Hoc School, Hue -

An extraordinary place, Quoc Hoc or National School, schooled Ngo Dinh Diem and at different times revolutionary leaders and Diem rivals Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap and Le Duan, Pham Van Dong and others.



Thien Mu Pagoda

The most beautiful of Hue's pagodas, perched looking over the Perfume River, was also closely connected to monk Thich Quang Duc. The car Duc drove to his self immolation in Saigon is displayed at the back of the pagoda.





Phu Cam Church - Hue

The Ngo family hails from Phu Cam village in Hue and Phu Cam Cathedral was a base for Ngo Dinh Thuc and his highly politically engaged Catholic hierarchy.

The current cathedral at Phu Cam was commissioned by Archbishop Thuc and designed by celebrated architect Ngo Viet Thu - the architect behind Saigon's Reunification Palace.



Truong Tien Bridge 8 May 1963 Monument

Right by Hue's Truong Tien Bridge stands a simple monument to the eight people killed on May 8th 1963 in the Hue crackdown that started the Buddhist Crisis.



Ngo Dinh Can - the forgotten brother

Ngo Dinh Can is the least well known of the Ngo clan but he was an important player in the crisis. A few hundred metres from the front of Phu Cam church is Can's former residence, now a hotel. Down an alley from there is Can's tomb. It looks fairly unkempt but some family members still tend it.




Saigon

Thich Quang Duc monuments

The original Thich Quang Duc monument at the corner of Cach Mang Thang Tam St and Nguyen Dinh Chieu St in Saigon's District 3 has had a major upgrade during the past year - presumably with the 50th anniversary in mind. A large plot of land opposite the original has been allocated to a much expanded monument.





Xa Loi Pagoda

Xa Loi Pagoda, the scene of so much action 50 years ago now sits discreetly, also in District 3, nearby some of the city's most impressive colonial architecture, in various stages of disrepair.

It's here that Ngo Dinh Nhu's forces beat, arrested and killed monks protesting the discriminatory policies of Ngo Dinh Diem's government.

Neil Sheehan, David Halberstam and Peter Arnett were all witnesses and their experiences and the whole 1963 Saigon situation is excellently captured in William Prochnau's book Once Upon a Distant War.



Former Gia Long Palace

The final residence of President Ngo Dinh Diem was the Gia Long Palace - now the Ho Chi Minh City Museum on Ly Tu Trong St. It was here that the troops and tanks of the coup against him assembled in November 1963. With his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, Diem fled to Cha Tam Church in Cholon.



Cha Tam Church - Cholon

President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu spent their final desperate hours in the pews of Cha Tam Church in Saigon's Cholon or Chinatown district. They were captured here and murdered on the way back downtown. To this day, I don't know for  sure where they're buried. Some say they're in a  cemetery in Binh Duong.