Paris Peace Accords


The Paris Peace Accords, officially the Agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Viet-Nam, was a peace agreement signed on 27 January 1973 to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. It included a main treaty and accompanying annexes. It was scheduled to take effect at 8:00 AM Saigon time the following day. The agreement was signed by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, the Provisional Revolutionary Government, and the United States. The PRG represented the Viet Cong, a South Vietnamese opposition movement de facto controlled by the North. US ground forces had begun to withdraw from Vietnam in 1969, and had suffered from deteriorating morale during the withdrawal. By the beginning of 1972 those that remained had very little involvement in combat. The last American infantry battalions withdrew in August 1972. Most air and naval forces, and most advisers, also were gone from South Vietnam by that time, though air and naval forces not based in South Vietnam were still playing a large role in the war. The Paris Agreement removed the remaining US forces, and direct US military intervention ended. Fighting between the three remaining powers did not stop on 28 January, even for an hour. The agreement was not formally designated a treaty, and President Nixon did not ask the US Senate to ratify it.
The negotiations that led to the accord began in 1968, after various lengthy delays. As a result of the accord, the International Control Commission was replaced by the International Commission of Control and Supervision, which consisted of Canada, Poland, Hungary, and Indonesia, to monitor the agreement. The main negotiators of the agreement were US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese Politburo member Lê Đức Thọ. Both men were awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts, but Lê Đức Thọ refused to accept it. The agreement contained two notable provisions that represented concessions to both North and South Vietnam: North Vietnamese troops were allowed to remain in the South, and the Republic of Vietnam government in Saigon led by President Thiệu was allowed to continue to exist rather than be replaced by a coalition government.
The agreement's provisions were immediately and frequently broken by both North and South Vietnamese forces with no official response from the United States. Open fighting broke out in March 1973, and North Vietnamese offensives enlarged their territory by the end of the year. Two years later, a massive North Vietnamese offensive conquered South Vietnam on April 30, and the two countries, which had been separated since 1954, united once more in 1976, as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Part of the negotiations took place in the former residence of the French painter Fernand Léger; it was bequeathed to the French Communist Party. The street of the house was named after General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, who had commanded French forces in Indochina from 1945 until July 1946.

Provisions

The agreement generally called for:
  • The ceasefire at 24:00 on January 27 GMT.
  • The withdrawal of all US and allied forces within sixty days.
  • The return of prisoners of war parallel to the above.
  • The clearing of mines from North Vietnamese ports by the US.
  • The refusal to recognize the border between the two Vietnams as a national one.
  • The respect for South Vietnam's sovereignty and self-determination.
  • The recognition of neutral political force in South Vietnam.
  • The recognition of both the PRG and the Saigon government in South Vietnam.
  • The establishment of a tripartite reconciliation council in the South consisting of the South Vietnamese government, the PRG, and neutralists.
  • The organization of free elections and the establishment of a common government for South Vietnam.
  • The normalization of US-North Vietnam relations.
  • The reunification of Vietnam through peaceful means without coercion or annexation by either party, and without foreign interference.
  • The establishment of "Joint Military Commissions" composed of the four parties and an "International Commission of Control and Supervision" composed of Canada, Hungary, Indonesia, and Poland to implement the cease-fire. Both operate by unanimity.
  • The withdrawal of foreign troops from Laos and Cambodia.
  • A ban on the introduction of war material in South Vietnam unless on a replacement basis.
  • A ban on introducing further military personnel into South Vietnam.

    Paris peace negotiations

Background and early deadlocks

In July 1954, the First Indochina War ended with the victory of communist insurgency over the French Union's coalition, Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel with the pro-French State of Vietnam holding the South and the communists taking power in the North under the name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This division was a political defeat for the communists. However, the communists hoped to unify Vietnam under a communist model through a general election. Facing a likely defeat in an election, Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese dictator, cancelled plans for a nationwide election. War between North and South Vietnam broke out in the context of the global Cold War, and the United States supported the pro-Western South as an ally. South Vietnam experienced significant internal turmoil, including the Buddhist Crisis and the removal of Diem in an American backed coup. Although the United States and its allies won a major victory in the 1968 Tet Offensive, the campaign sparked a strong rise of the American anti-war movement.
Following the strong showing of anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary, in March 1968 US President Lyndon B. Johnson halted bombing operations over the northern portion of North Vietnam, in order to encourage Hanoi to begin negotiations. Although some sources state that the bombing halt decision announced on March 31, 1968, was related to events occurring within the White House and the Presidents counsel of Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford and others rather than the events in New Hampshire. Shortly thereafter, Hanoi agreed to discuss a complete halt of the bombing, and a date was set for representatives of both parties to meet in Paris. The sides first met on May 10, with the delegations headed by Xuân Thuỷ, who would remain the official leader of the North Vietnamese delegation throughout the process, and US ambassador-at-large W. Averell Harriman.
For five months, the negotiations stalled as North Vietnam demanded that all bombing of North Vietnam be stopped, while the US side demanded that North Vietnam agree to a reciprocal de-escalation in South Vietnam; it was not until October 31 that Johnson agreed to end the air strikes and serious negotiations could begin.
One of the largest hurdles to effective negotiation was the fact that North Vietnam and its National Liberation Front in the South, refused to recognize the South Vietnamese government in Saigon; with equal persistence, the South Vietnamese government refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the NLF. Harriman resolved this dispute by developing a system by which North Vietnam and U.S. would be the named parties; NLF officials could join the North Vietnam team without being recognized by South Vietnam, while Saigon's representatives joined their US allies.
A similar debate concerned the shape of the table to be used at the conference. The North favored a circular table, in which all parties, including NLF representatives, would appear to be "equal"' in importance. The South Vietnamese argued that only a rectangular table was acceptable, for only a rectangle could show two distinct sides to the conflict. Eventually a compromise was reached, in which representatives of the northern and southern governments would sit at a circular table, with members representing all other parties sitting at individual square tables around them.

Negotiations and the Nixon campaign

, a former White House staff member in the Eisenhower administration, claimed to have "a double agent working in the White House....I kept Nixon informed." Harlow and Henry Kissinger separately predicted Johnson's "bombing halt." Democratic senator George Smathers informed President Johnson that "the word is out that we are making an effort to throw the election to Humphrey. Nixon has been told of it."
According to presidential historian Robert Dallek, Kissinger's advice "rested not on special knowledge of decision making at the White House but on an astute analyst's insight into what was happening." CIA intelligence analyst William Bundy stated that Kissinger obtained "no useful inside information" from his trip to Paris, and "almost any experienced Hanoi watcher might have come to the same conclusion." While Kissinger may have "hinted that his advice was based on contacts with the Paris delegation," this sort of "self-promotion...is at worst a minor and not uncommon practice, quite different from getting and reporting real secrets."
Nixon asked prominent Chinese-American politician Anna Chennault to be his "channel to Mr. Thieu"; Chennault agreed and periodically reported to John Mitchell that Thieu had no intention of attending a peace conference. On November 2, Chennault informed the South Vietnamese ambassador: "I have just heard from my boss in Albuquerque who says his boss is going to win. And you tell your boss to hold on a while longer." Johnson found out through the NSA and was enraged saying that Nixon had "blood on his hands" and that Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen agreed with Johnson that such action was "treason." Defense Secretary Clark Clifford considered the moves an illegal violation of the Logan Act.
In response, Johnson ordered the wire-tapping of members of the Nixon campaign. Dallek wrote that Nixon's efforts "probably made no difference" because Thieu was unwilling to attend the talks and there was little chance of an agreement being reached before the election; however, his use of information provided by Harlow and Kissinger was morally questionable, and vice president Humphrey's decision not to make Nixon's actions public was "an uncommon act of political decency."