By TIM LARIMER

Of all the dramatic photographs to come out of the Vietnam War, the first to shock the world was of a Buddhist monk in flames. The explosive impact of that 1963 self-immolation, a protest against the U.S.-backed regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, explains why even today, Vietnam's government fears outspoken, independent-minded Buddhist clerics.

Thich Quang Do has long topped the list of dangerous clergy. He actively opposed the governments of South Vietnam and was present that day 36 years ago when a fellow monk set himself aflame to protest Diem's repression of Buddhists. "When we are struggling for a right cause, we are not reluctant to make that kind of sacrifice," Quang Do, 71, said in November in his first face-to-face interview with a journalist since his most recent release from prison, in September. "If we lose our freedoms of religion and expression, we are like beasts. That is why we are ready to burn ourselves."

When communist forces captured South Vietnam in 1975, they inherited many headaches, including an activist clergy. Quang Do was arrested, again, in 1977 after complaining that the new government used pagodas to store rice and water buffalo. He spent 22 months in jail. In 1981, the government created a state-sanctioned church and outlawed the existing Buddhist organization. Most monks who objected fled the country. A few, like Quang Do, stayed and resisted. "I was not going to be used as their instrument," he said. He was exiled from Ho Chi Minh City to his birthplace in northern Thai Binh province.

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R E L A T E D S T O R I E S : BIG BROTHER IS STILL WATCHING The gray men who rule Hanoi continue to pounce on the slightest sign of political dissent