Suicide Series

It was the most macabre week in South Viet Nam's three-month-old religious and political crisis. In Saigon, an 18-year-old girl tried unsuccessfully to cut off her left hand "as a humble offering to Buddha while our religion is in danger." Outside the coastal city of Hue, a 17-year-old novice Buddhist monk wrapped himself in a kerosene-soaked, six-color Buddhist flag, then struck a match. In the village of Ninh-hoa, 200 miles north of Saigon, a young Buddhist nun sat down in a Catholic school playground and set herself on fire. Less than 24 hours later, back in Hue, a 71-year-old monk announced over the Tudam Pagoda loudspeaker that he was going to kill himself, then burned himself to death in the pagoda's courtyard.

The Quarrel Spreads. The three ritualistic suicides brought to five the number of Buddhists who have turned themselves into human torches in further protest against the regime of South Viet Nam's Roman Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem. The government reacted by placing the Buddhist strong holds of Hue and Nhatrang under virtual martial law. Although worried that the burnings might get out of hand, Buddhist leaders defended the suicides as "noble sacrifices," were rounding up secular and military support.

Leaflets containing Western press accounts of the controversy were being distributed to army units all over the country. Soldiers and peasants began wearing saffron patches the same color as a monk's robes to indicate their support of the Buddhists. In one division mess, Catholic and Buddhist officers began eating apart, and at a military training school, Buddhist cadets demanded a chapel similar to the Catholic chapel.

Buddhist leaders said they would not agree to any conciliation until the government made several concessions, and accepted responsibility for the nine Buddhists being shot down at a religious demonstration in Hue last May. But Diem is still hopeful that they will agree to some discussion and mediation.

Implied Rebuke. The President's apparent readiness to meet with the Buddhists is bitterly opposed by his sisterin-law, Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu, who has consistently urged that the Buddhist opposition be crushed. "If the President keeps bowing to the Buddhists," she said, "they will keep right on taking advantage of this weakness to make new, impossible demands. They are utterly hypocritical." With what sounded like a rebuke to Mme. Nhu, Diem countered: "It is only because some have contributed, either consciously or unconsciously, to raising doubts about this government's policy that the solution to the Buddhist affair has been retarded. The policy of utmost conciliation is irreversible."

In Washington, where Henry Cabot Lodge was getting his final briefings before leaving to take over as new U.S. Ambassador in Saigon, Secretary of State Dean Rusk declared himself "deeply distressed" over the crisis and the detrimental effect it was having on the war against the Communist Viet Cong. Said Rusk: "We hope the government out there will take a strong lead to bring about a greater degree of peace and serenity."

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