Burning-Monk Photographer Malcolm Browne Dies

Malcolm W. Browne, a former Associated Press correspondent who snapped a photo of a Buddhist monk's self-immolation that shocked the Kennedy White House into a re-evaluation of its Vietnam policy, has died. He was 81.

His wife, Le Lieu, says Browne died Monday night at a hospital in New Hampshire, not far from their home in Thetford, Vt. He had Parkinson's disease for more than a decade.

Browne was the only foreign journalist at the scene when an elderly monk was doused in aviation fuel in Saigon in June 1963 and set himself aflame.

His photo became among the most iconic of the Vietnam era. President John F. Kennedy reportedly said that he was "shocked" by the image and that "we have to do something about that regime."

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.