the U.S. government, recommending that (1) the U.S. make a clear statement of its desire to help the Vietnamese people form a government "truly responsive to Vietnamese aspirations"; (2) the U.S. and South Vietnam cease air strikes throughout Vietnam; (3) all anti-communist military operations be purely defensive; (4) the U.S. demonstrate a willingness to withdraw within a few months; and (5) the U.S. offer to pay for reconstruction. In 1967 he wrote Vietnam — The Lotus in the Sea of Fire, about his proposals. The South Vietnamese military junta responded by accusing him of treason and being a communist. While in the U.S., Nhất Hạnh visited Gethsemani Abbey to speak with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. When the South Vietnamese regime threatened to block Nhất Hạnh's reentry to the country, Merton wrote an essay of solidarity, "Nhat Hanh is my Brother". In 1964, after the publication of his famous poem, "whoever is listening, be my witness: I cannot accept this war...", Nhất Hạnh was labeled an "antiwar poet" and denounced as a "pro-Communist propagandist" by the American press. In 1965 he had written Martin Luther King Jr. a letter titled "In Search of the Enemy of Man". During his 1966 stay in the U.S., Nhất Hạnh met King and urged him to publicly denounce the Vietnam War. In 1967, King gave the speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" at Riverside Church in New York City, his first to publicly question U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Later that year, King nominated Nhất Hạnh for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize. In his nomination, King said, "I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than this gentle monk from Vietnam. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity". King also called Nhất Hạnh "an apostle of peace and non-violence". King had revealed the candidate he had chosen to nominate with a "strong request" to the prize committee, in sharp violation of Nobel traditions and protocol. The committee did not make an award that year. Refuge in France Nhất Hạnh moved to Paris in 1966. He became the chair of the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation. In 1969, Nhất Hạnh established the Unified Buddhist Church (Église Bouddhique Unifiée) in France (not a part of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam). In 1975, he formed the Sweet Potatoes Meditation Centre