According to Finnish historian Jussi Hanhimki, South Vietnam was put under pressure because of the triangular diplomacy that isolated it to accept an agreement that virtually ensured its collapse. [21] During the negotiations, Kissinger stated that 18 months after an agreement, the United States would not intervene militarily, but that it could intervene before. In the history of the Vietnam War, this has been described as a “decent interval.” [22] On January 15, 1973, President Nixon announced the suspension of offensive actions against North Vietnam. On January 23, Kissinger and Tha met again and signed a contract substantially identical to the project three months earlier. The agreement was signed by the heads of the official delegations on 27 January 1973 at the Majestic Hotel in Paris. In February 1970, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger began secret talks with North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho outside Paris, while the formal peace process continued in the city. However, until the summer of 1972, little progress was made. At that time, Nixon continued a détente with both China and the Soviet Union and wanted to leave Vietnam behind before the next elections. Both sides wanted peace. Hanoi feared political isolation if the United States moved closer to China and the Soviet Union.
They also knew that peace could put an end to the terrible American bombing and finally mean the total withdrawal of the military giant. Nixon wanted to move on to other foreign policy initiatives. The party was premature. Thieu, who had not been consulted during the secret negotiations, called for changes that had angered Hanoi and the talks were interrupted on 13 December. Nixon, wedged between a tenacious ally and a bitter enemy, intervened. He promised Thieu $1 billion in military equipment that would give South Vietnam to the world`s fourth-largest air force and assured Thieu that the United States would resume the war if North Vietnam did not stick to peace. These are promises that Thieu had no reason to doubt; Nixon had just won an anti-overwhelming election and the Watergate affair was almost invisible in the political landscape. Despite candidate Nixon`s promise of “Peace with Honour,” the blockade would last three and a half years of secret public meetings in Paris. Two key issues had been blocked by both sides. Washington wanted all the troops from northern south Vietnam; Hanoi rejected any provisional government in South Vietnam, in which its leader, Nguyen Van Thieu, participated.
In June 1969, the first troop withdrawals were made by the United States as part of its “Vietnamization Plan,” under which the South Vietnamese gradually assumed full military responsibility during the war and continued to be supplied with American weapons. The release of prisoners of war: in the days following the signing of the peace agreement on 27 January 1973, it sounded that the war was over. Camp officers read the news of prepared texts saying that men 120 would be released for a time two weeks apart. The sick and the wounded must leave first; the others followed in the order in which they were captured. In this context, the United States and Hanoi agreed in 1968 in Paris on the opening of peace talks. But almost immediately after the start of the talks, it stopped. When President Lyndon Johnson handed over the presidency to Richard Nixon, eight months after the talks, the two sides agreed only on the shape of the conference table. The increase in public criticism of the war has been one of the reasons for the growing pressure to find a peaceful solution. The financial cost was also a factor that global policy – Nixon`s doctrine (1969) showed that the president was less interested in containment and would only use American troops if the United States were directly threatened.
Nixon was also increasingly seeking to cooperate better with the USSR and the Chinese – anti-communist battles were less urgent than at the beginning of the Vietnam War.
