Paris Peace Talks

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

Preliminaries

Almost as soon as coming in office, President Nixon sent communications to Moscow, via Cyrus Vance in April 1969, to get the Soviets to open communications between the U.S. and North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese replied with a "Ten Point" program, a list of requirements for ending the war. On August 4, 1969, U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger 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. In July, Sainteny had forwarded a letter from Nixon to Ho Chi Minh that suggested 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."

Le Duc Tho was the real head of the North Vietnamese delegation. His main assistant was Nguyen Co Thach. The main preconditions for peace discussions were total withdrawal of all U.S. troops, removal of the South Vietnamese government, and replacement by a NLF-based coalition with approval over other members. Specifically, Tho demanded the removal of the "Thieu-Ky-Huong" leadership group. Once Khiem replaced Huong, the North Vietnamese demanded the removal of "Thiu-Ky-Khiem" group.

Counteroffer

Johnson agreed to stop bombing North Vietnam proper, although he would continue reconnaissance over the North and bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail, and, of course, in South Vietnam. According to Kissinger, there also was an "understanding", never formally confirmed by the North but to which it did not object, that there would be:

• No attacks on major cities
• No artillery fire from or across the Demilitarized Zone
• No threatening troop movements in or near the DMZ, which would suggest movement into the South

The first meeting was on 10 May, with the delegations headed by Xuan Thuy, North Vietnamese foreign minister, and ambassador-at-large Averell Harriman. The main discussions were outside the conference room, where there continued to be symbolic arguments about status, and even of the shape of the table, by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, Viet Cong).

Without the participation of the RVN, it was difficult to conceive of serious negotiations, unless one accepted the North Vietnamese claim that the RVN was a total puppet of the U.S. Given the constant friction between the RVN and U.S., this seemed less than plausible. The North's additional demand to include the NLF as an equal party also delegitimized the RVN, something utterly unacceptable to Thieu.

Two days after the start, the Communist position was that substantive talks could begin only with the total and unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces, coupled with an overthrow of the RVN. In practice, this led to continued four-way posturing that accomplished little, while secret talks continued between the US and DRV.

Resolution

The talks wandered, with a North Vietnamese walkout. Nixon launched the all-out bombing campaign, Operation LINEBACKER II, which brought them back to sign within a month.