Paris Peace Talks

The Paris Peace Talks, which included secret bilateral preparatory talks, formal meetings, walkouts from negotiations, and return to the table after military force, resulted in a formal document signing on January 28, 1973. They signaled an end to U.S. combat involvement in the Vietnam War, making the Republic of Vietnam responsible for South Vietnam's ground war, 1972-1975. The latter ended with the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.

Preliminaries

In April, Nixon had sent communications to Moscow, via Cyrus Vance, to get the Soviets to open communications between the U.S. and North Vietnamese. At talks in May, the North Vietnamese replied to what Kissinger considered the message sent via Vance, with a "Ten Point" program that essentially would have met all North Vietnamese requirements, as a precondition to ending thew war. On August 4, 1969, Henry Kissinger, U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs had a first, secret meeting in Paris with Xuan Thuy, a North Vietnamese diplomat. They met in the apartment of Jean Sainteny, formerly the French Commissioner to Tonkin, who, nearly fifty years before, had tried to find a peaceful way to avoid the Indochinese revolution. Sainteny had sent a letter from Richard M. Nixon, in July, to Ho Chi Minh, suggesting negotiations. Ho and Sainteny were old adversaries who respected one another.

The Nixon letter, however, did threaten "measures of great consequence and force" if there were no diplomatic progress by November 1. Ho was dying, and may not actually have written the reply, which Nixon called a "cold rebuff."

Among the preconditions for discussion, set by the real head of the North Vietnamese delegation, Le Duc Tho, assisted by Nguyen Co Thach, were total U.S. withdrawal, removal of the South Vietnamese government and replacement by a NLF-based coalition with approval over other members.

In the preliminary discussions of the Paris Peace Talks, Le Duc Tho had originally demanded demanded the "Thieu-Ky-Huong" group be replaced as part of non-negotiable preconditions for negotiations. Once Khiem replaced Huong, the North Vietnamese demand changed to removal of "Thiu-Ky-Khiem".