and air, not bullets. We want freedom, but we don't want to be exploited by it." In a radio interview in late 1962, she mockingly remarked that American journalists were "intoxicated with communism". The following year she instructed her Women's Solidarity Movement to oppose American attempts "to make lackeys of Vietnamese and to seduce Vietnamese women into decadent paths." As relations became strained, she publicly accused the Americans of having supported the 1960 coup. Buddhist crisis On 8 May 1963, a series of celebrations were held by Buddhist priests all over South Vietnam to honor Buddhist holiday of Vesak, as 8 May was the 2,527th anniversary of the Buddha's birthday. The Catholic Diệm disapproved of Vesak, and ordered the police to put down the celebrations under a law which forbade religious symbols from being paraded in the streets. A series of clashes occurred all over South Vietnam as the police sought to end the marches. When she heard that Diệm was to sign a statement offering compensation to the families of Buddhist protesters shot dead by the police of his brother Ngô Đình Cẩn, Nhu was reported to have thrown a bowl of soup at him. On 8 June 1963, Madame Nhu released a statement through the Women's Solidarity Movement accusing the Buddhists of neutralism, effectively accusing them of being communist collaborators. It then implored "bonzes of good faith" to stop helping the communists, otherwise Vietnamese Buddhism would be seen as a "small anti-nationalist branch of a dubious international association, exploited and controlled by communism and oriented to the sowing of the disorder of neutralism". She made another attack on the United States, calling on Diệm to "keep vigilance on all others, particularly those inclined to take Viet Nam for [a] satellite of [a] foreign power or organization." Madame Nhu publicly mocked Thích Quảng Đức, who performed a self-immolation on 11 June 1963 in a crowded Saigon street to protest against the shooting of Buddhists by Diệm's regime. She labelled it a "barbecue" and stated, "Let them burn and we shall clap our hands." She further offered to provide more fuel and matches for the Buddhists, noting the "barbecuing" was not "self-sufficient" because "imported gasoline" was used. The monk's suicide followed Ngô Đình Nhu's repression of the Buddhist-inspired protests and was responsible for the regime's continuing instability. According to historian Howard Jones, these comments "all but put the finishing touch