Word: tried
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...death protesting President Ngo Dinh Diem's anti-Buddhist repressions. At that time the monks were playing on a religious chord that brought a dramatic response in the largely Buddhist nation. This time the immolations were naked political power plays, inspired if not condoned by militant Monk Thich Tri Quang in Hue. While the flames were still flickering over the nun's charred body, Tri Quang summoned the press to make clear his grievance: Premier Ky's successful suppression of the Buddhist-inspired rebellion in nearby Danang, a "crime" against Buddhists equal to the "crime of Hiroshima...
...Tri 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...
...backing Ky, the U.S. in effect was opposing Tri Quang, whose influence in I Corps is paramount. Tri Quang openly accused the U.S. of supplying guns and tanks to Ky to destroy the Buddhists, and last week his mobs responded by burning the USIS library in Hue to the ground. Police and firemen calmly stood by watching. Later, rebel troops were dispatched to guard U.S. installations in Hué-a move hardly calculated to inspire American confidence. At week's end nearly all U.S. civilians were evacuated...
...hoped he would not and arranged at week's end a meeting between Ky and General Nguyen Chanh Thi, whose ouster as I Corps commander last March started South Viet Nam's latest political crisis. Though Buddhist marches and riots raged through Saigon all last week, Tri Quang so far had failed to arouse any widespread popular resentment against Ky and his government. The muscle of rebellion has been provided by I Corps Vietnamese soldiers who have remained loyal to Thi despite his ouster. If Thi and Ky can come to terms, the Buddhists will be shorn...