Word: quang
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Immoderate as the moderate Tarn Chau might have appeared, he could not hold a candle to Thich Tri Quang, the rebellious high priest of Hue. Carrying civil disobedience to an ingenious new low, Tri Quang ordered all Buddhists in the ancient imperial capital to display their defiance by hauling family altars out of their homes into the nearest street. Thousands complied, and the Hue police did nothing to stop them. The altars blocked all roads, halting for 48 hours convoys on their way to a military buildup north of Hue-until Tri Quang generously allocated a few hours every...
...Quang's response to that was another press conference. "If I were an American," he railed, thrusting his jaw forward like an emaciated Mussolini, "I would be ashamed of the President for this statement that the immolations are useless." But in point of fact, unlike 1963 the grisly suicides thus far have proved largely useless in advancing Tri Quang's campaign to topple the Ky government. The reason: the great majority of Vietnamese Buddhist laymen are clearly unconvinced that the immolations are either justified or necessary, and horror has given way to exasperation and even ennui...
...that point, Ky balked. Tri Quang's response at week's end: threat of a complete Buddhist boycott of the September elections unless Ky quits now. Otherwise, he said, "the Americans and their servants would establish a militaristic national assembly." If Tri Quang's usually pear-shaped tones lost some of their resonance, it was because, for all the week's burnt offerings to the Buddhist cause, Premier Ky still had the upper hand in a nation beginning to weary of pointless civil strife amid a genuine, far more deadly battle for national survival against...
...exceptions, notably The New Yorker's Robert Shaplen, 49, the Saigon correspondent most universally respected by both his colleagues and Washington observers. Close behind him in both respect and expertise is the Reporter's Warner. Both have painstakingly documented the myriad activities of Thich Tri Quang as he moves above and below the surface to extend his influence...
Others have not been so canny. Press coverage, says the Washington Star's Richard Critchfield, has played into the hands of Buddhism's political kingmakers. "I don't think Tri Quang would have really existed without the American press," he says. "He has fooled an awful lot of people for a long time into thinking he speaks for the Buddhists of South Viet Nam. Now, I know he only pretends to speak for about one and a half million people." Critchfield also questions the immolations: "My impression is that these just aren't voluntary suicides...