The indignant reporters stridently accused the Diem regime of causing the altercation, The protests did not garner any Presidential sympathy for the journalists, but instead resulted in trouble from their media employers. UPI's Tokyo office criticised Sheehan for trying to "make Unipress policy" on his own when "Unipress must be neutral, neither pro-Diem, pro-Communist or pro-anybody else".
Emanuel Freedman, the foreign editor of
The New York Times reprimanded Halberstam, writing "We still feel that our correspondents should not be firing off cables to the President of the United States without authorisation". The incident provoked reactions from both the Buddhists and the Diem regime. A monk called on the US embassy to send a military unit from the American advisors already present in Vietnam to
Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main Buddhist temple in Saigon and the organisational hub of the Buddhist movement. The monk claimed that the attack on Arnett indicated that Xá Lợi's monks were targets of assassination by Nhu's men, something that Trueheart rejected, turning down the protection request. Xá Lợi and other Buddhist centers across the country were
raided a month later by
Special Forces under the direct control of the Diem family. On the part of the South Vietnamese government, the
de facto first lady
Madame Nhu used her English-language mouthpiece newspaper, the
Times of Vietnam, to accuse the United States of supporting the
failed coup attempt against Diem in 1960. ==Arrest and interrogation==