Malcolm Wilde Browne was 30 years old when he arrived in Saigon on Nov. 7, 1961, as AP's first permanent correspondent there. From the start, Browne was filing the kind of big stories that would win him the Pulitzer Prize for reporting in 1964. But today, he is primarily remembered for a photograph taken 50 years ago on June 11, 1963, depicting the dignified yet horrific death by fiery suicide of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc.
Following years of growing tension, the Buddhist majority in South Vietnam reached its breaking point under the repressive regime of Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem. On May 8, 1963, in the ancient imperial capital of Hue, South Vietnamese soldiers opened fire on a group of Buddhists who were flying the Buddhist flag in direct violation of a government ban. Nine were killed.
In late May and early June, the Saigon Buddhists staged street demonstrations and memorial services for the victims of the May 8 incident. On June 1, two monks informed AP Saigon correspondent Malcolm Browne, along with other foreign correspondents, that two elderly monks planned to commit ritual suicide in protest against the Diem regime.
In a pre-digital world, it took a remarkable 15 hours over 9,000 miles of AP WirePhoto cable for Malcolm Browne's Burning Monk to become breaking news.