Buddhist crisis: The police of Ngô Đình Nhu, brother and chief political adviser of President Ngô Đình Diệm, attacked a group of American journalists who were covering a protest.
The Double Seven Day Scuffle was a physical altercation on July 7, 1963, in Saigon, South Vietnam. The secret police of Ng nh Nhuthe brother of President Ng nh Dimattacked a group of US journalists who were covering protests held by Buddhists on the ninth anniversary of Dim's rise to power. Peter Arnett of the Associated Press (AP) was punched on the nose, and the quarrel quickly ended after David Halberstam of The New York Times, being much taller than Nhu's men, counterattacked and caused the secret police to retreat. Arnett and his colleague, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and photographer Malcolm Browne, were later accosted by policemen at their office and taken away for questioning on suspicion of attacking policemen.
After their release, the journalists went to the US embassy in Saigon to complain about their treatment at the hands of Dim's officials and asked for US government protection. Their appeals were dismissed, as was a direct appeal to the White House. Through the efforts of US Ambassador Frederick Nolting, the assault charges laid against the journalists were subsequently dropped. Vietnamese Buddhists reacted to the incident by contending that Dim's men were planning to assassinate monks, while Madame Nhu repeated earlier claims that the US government had been trying to overthrow her brother-in-law. Browne took photographs of Arnett's bloodied face, which were published in newspapers worldwide. This drew further negative attention to the behaviour of the Dim rgime amidst the backdrop of the Buddhist crisis.
The Buddhist crisis (Vietnamese: Biến cố Phật giáo) was a period of political and religious tension in South Vietnam between May and November 1963, characterized by a series of repressive acts by the South Vietnamese government and a campaign of civil resistance, led mainly by Buddhist monks.The crisis was precipitated by the shootings of nine unarmed civilians on May 8 in the central city of Huế who were protesting a ban of the Buddhist flag. The crisis ended with a coup in November 1963 by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), and the arrest and assassination of President Ngô Đình Diệm on November 2, 1963.