In Saigon's huge Xa Loi Pagoda, Buddhist monks and nuns were holding a 48-hour hunger strike against the regime of South Viet Nam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. Expecting trouble, police sealed off nearby streets with barbed wire. To prevent a repetition of the ritualistic suicide last month, when a protesting Buddhist monk burned himself to death on a Saigon street corner, two fire trucks were on hand.
Suddenly, about 500 saffron-robed Buddhist priests, laymen and women emerged from a nearby alley and started to run toward the pagoda to join their fasting fellow-Buddhists. Stymied by wire and police, the demonstrators...