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The Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973 by the governments of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States with the intent to establish peace in Vietnam. They were signed in Paris, France.

Negotiations between National Security Advisor (and later Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger had been proceeding with little success since 1968. In 1973, the North Vietnamese and United States were able to reach a compromise that would result in the withdrawal of all American combat troops and the end of hostilities. North Vietnamese troops would be allowed to stay in South Vietnam. South Vietnamese President Thieu refused to get on board with the treaty if NVA troops would remain in his country. After being warned by Kissinger that the treaty would most likely proceed regardless of Thieu's protests, just thirty days after Nixon's election, President Thieu suddenly abandoned his objections to the Peace talks.

After Nixon's election, problems still continued. For many months the North and South debated about the table to be used at the Paris Peace Conference. The North favored a circular table, in which all parties, including NLF (Viet Cong) representatives, would appear to be 'equal' in importance. The South argued that only a rectangular table was acceptable, for only a rectangle could show two distinct sides to the conflict, the North and South. Eventually a compromise was reached, in which representatives of the North and South government would sit at a circular table, with members representing all other parties sitting on individual square tables around them.

As American casualties mounted throughout the long conflict, due largely to American military over-confidence and under-estimation of the resolve of North Viet Nam and the National Liberation Front, and American unfamiliarity with the culture and people of Viet Nam, American domestic support for the war at home deteriorated with the due to the failure to produce the endlessly-promised victory. Americans could not understand how a small country like North Vietnam, with very few resources available other than the fighting spirit of its people, could be inflicting so much damage upon the mighty American military. Despite superior fire-power, the U.S. was not winning the guerilla warfare because the Government of South Viet Nam was not supported by the people as it was always a military dictatorship with revolving door leaders. Americans began to believe the Vietnam War could not be won and was 'unjust'. Consequently, great diplomatic pressure was brought to bear upon America's South Vietnamese ally, to sign a 'peace treaty' which would allow the United States to withdraw from Viet Nam without too much embarrassment.

A treaty was finally signed on January 27, 1973. All parties pledged to "respect the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of Vietnam as recognized by the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Vietnam." The United States agreed to continue its withdrawal of troops, which had started in 1969, leading to a complete withdrawal by March 29, 1973. This unilateral U.S. withdrawal had a devastating effect upon the economy and morale of the country and people of South Vietnam, who felt 'betrayed and deserted' by the United States, and were left alone to fight the Viet Cong guerillas and North Vietnamese regular army soldiers, who were backed by massive assistance from the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. If the tremendous fire-power of the United States military had not prevailed against the communists, what chance did South Vietnam have? Also, the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese government had not been very popular with the South Vietnamese people from the start, due to their policies of forced relocation of the native peoples, and because of corruption, which was widespread due to the massive influx of American goods and U.S. dollars, which seemed 'endless' to a poor country like South Vietnam. Furthermore, the American military had trained the South Vietnamese army to fight in the American way, with huge expenditures of men and resources, which little South Vietnam no longer had to spare.

The terms of the Paris Peace Accords, which were forced upon South Vietnam by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger was unpopular with Thieu but he believed Nixon's pledge of financial and military aid support. Thieu's main objection was that invading North Vietnamese troops were to be permitted to remain in areas they controlled in the South. Also, the Paris 'agreement', which had been unilaterally negotiated by the United States without South Vietnam's participation or representation, established a permanent North Vietnamese diplomatic presence in Saigon (while there was no such South Vietnamese counterpart in Hanoi), giving the impression that the North Vietnamese had already 'won the war', and greatly contributing to rumors of American political betrayal and desertion in South Vietnam. The Paris Peace agreement restricted U.S. aid to South Vietnam to replacement quotas only, but there were no such restrictions made upon the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China in their support of North Vietnam. Moreover, Thieu felt the Army of the Republic of Vietnam vulnerable if the North decided to violate the cease-fire, which never really went into effect, as there was no real provision in the Peace Accord to enforce it. In December, 1974 Thieu's fears came true, as North Viet Nam successfully launched a military offensive that quickly overwhelmed the Army of South Viet Nam, leading to the capitulation of the South on April 30, 1975. North Viet Nam's success was tremendously aided by bad military decisions made by President Thieu as he attempted to protect many tactically worthless outposts which stretched his military forces and left most bases extremely vulnerable. Moreover, despite propaganda about the new-and-improved ARVN, the post-war RAND Corporation report produced for the U.S. Secretary of Defense contains interviews with many former high-ranking ARVN officers who disclose that the one-million man army only had 100,000 good combat troops as most units were filled with new conscripts.

Signers

Other key figures in the negotiations

See also

External links

Accords de Paix de Paris

Further reading

Cold War treaties | Vietnam War | Peace treaties | パリ協定 (ベトナム和平) | Hiệp định Paris 1973

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Paris Peace Accords".

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