One week to the day after Quaker Norman Morrison burned himself to death outside the Pentagon, Roman Catholic Roger LaPorte, 22, a student at Manhattan's Hunter College, doused his clothes with gasoline and set himself aflame on a street corner outside United Nations headquarters. Like Morrison, he chose immolation as a way to protest U.S. warfare in South Viet Nam.
LaPorte lived for 33 hours, mostly in a coma, before dying. From the hospital, he sent a message to friends, saying: "I want to live." A Catholic priest felt sufficiently convinced of his contrition to give LaPorte the last rites...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
