Editing Lê Đức Thọ (section)

== Peace-making in Paris ==
The United States actively joined the [[Vietnam War]] during the early 1960s. Several rounds of Paris Peace Talks (some public, some secret) were held between 1968 and 1973. [[Xuân Thuỷ]] was the official head of the [[North Vietnam|North Vietnamese]] delegation, but Thọ arrived in Paris in June 1968 to take effective control.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 510}} On his way to Paris, Thọ stopped in Moscow to meet the Soviet Premier [[Alexei Kosygin|Aleksei Kosygin]]. On Thọ's behalf, Kosygin sent President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] a letter reading: "My colleagues and I believe and have grounds to believe that an end to the bombing [of North Vietnam] would lead to a breakthrough in the peace talks". While [[Xuân Thuỷ]] led the official negotiating team representing the [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam]] at the talks in Paris, Thọ and [[United States National Security Advisor|U.S. National Security Advisor]] [[Henry Kissinger]] beginning in February 1970 engaged in secret conversations that eventually led to a cease-fire as part of the [[Paris Peace Accords]] of 23 January 1973.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 509}}

=== 1968 ===
On 26 June 1968, Thọ first met [[Cyrus Vance]] and [[Philip Habib]] of the American delegation at a "safe house" in the Paris suburb of Sceaux.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp. 510–511}} On 8 September 1968, Thọ first met [[W. Averell Harriman]], the head of the American delegation, in a villa in the town of Vitry-sur-Seine.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp. 518–519}} At the meeting, Harriman conceded that in "serious talks" the National Liberation Front ([[Viet_Cong|NLF]]) might take part in the talks provided that the South Vietnamese were also allowed to join.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 519}} At another meeting with Harriman on 12 September, Thọ made the concession that South Vietnam could continue as an independent state provided the National Liberation Front could join the government, but demanded that the United States had to unconditionally cease bombing all of North Vietnam first.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 518}} After the meeting, Harriman thanked Thọ for his "straight talk", but disputed a number of Thọ's claims, saying that the Vietnam war was not the most costly [[List of wars involving the United States|war in American history]].{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp. 519–520}} 

Thọ was unhappy when Hanoi demanded that the National Liberation Front take part in the peace talks as the lead negotiating team, instead of the North Vietnamese, which he knew would cause complications. He flew back to Hanoi in an attempt to change the instructions, in which he was successful, but was also told to tell Harriman that an expanded four-party talks involving the Americans, the South Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese and the NLF would begin "as early as possible" without settling a firm date.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 522}} However, the four-party talks did not take place as planned, as South Vietnamese President [[Nguyễn Văn Thiệu]] decided to stall talks after receiving messages from [[Anna Chennault]] that the Republican presidential candidate [[Richard Nixon]] would be more supportive.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp. 523–527}} On 18 January 1969, Thọ told Harriman that he regretted the latter's departure, saying: "If you had stopped bombing after two or three months of talks, the situation would have been different now".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 530}}

=== 1969 ===
In February 1969, Kissinger asked the Soviet ambassador in Washington, [[Anatoly Dobrynin]], to set up a meeting with Thọ in Paris.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 541}} On 4 August 1969, Kissinger had a secret meeting at the house of [[Jean Sainteny]], a former French colonial official who served in Vietnam and was sympathetic towards Vietnamese nationalism. However, Thọ did not appear as expected and instead [[Xuân Thủy|Thuỷ]] represented the DRV.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 550}} 

=== 1970 ===
Thọ first met Kissinger in a secret meeting in a modest house in Paris on the night of 21 February 1970, marking the beginning of a test of wills that was to last three years. Kissinger was later to say of Thọ: "I don't look back on our meetings with any great joy, yet he was a person of substance and discipline who defended the position he represented with dedication".<ref name="Kp623" /> Thọ told Kissinger at their first meeting that "[[Vietnamization]]" was doomed, dismissively saying in French: "Previously, with over one million U.S. and Saigon troops, you have failed. Now how can you win if you let the South Vietnamese Army fight alone and if you only give them military support?".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp. 562–563}} Kissinger saw that Thọ's beginning his activism working for Vietnamese independence at the age of 16 as proof that he was a "fanatic", and portrayed Thọ to Nixon as an unreasonable, uncompromising man, but one who was also well mannered, cultured, and polite. Kissinger found Thọ's air of superiority exasperating as Thọ took the viewpoint that North Vietnam was the real Vietnam, and regarded the Americans as "barbarians" who were merely trying to delay the inevitable by supporting South Vietnam.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 562}} In April 1970, Thọ broke off his meetings with Kissinger, saying that there was nothing to discuss.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 563}} An attempt by Kissinger to talk to Thọ again in May 1970 was rejected with a note reading "The U.S. words of peace are just empty ones".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 569}}

=== 1971 ===
By May 1971, Thọ changed tactics in the talks, insisting that the main issue now was removing President Thiệu after the Americans departed.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 582}} In July 1971, Kissinger taunted Thọ with the news that President Nixon would be visiting China soon to meet [[Mao Zedong]], telling him that the days when the North Vietnamese could count of the supply of Chinese arms were coming to close. Thọ showed no emotion, saying: "That is your affair. Our fighting is our preoccupation, and that will decide the outcome for our country. What you have told us will have no influence on our fighting".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 592}}

=== 1972 ===
In March 1972, the North Vietnamese launched the [[Easter Offensive]]. It was initially successful and provoked warnings that the United States would start bombing North Vietnam again.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 598}} Thọ sent a message, saying if the bombing was resumed, it would be "a very serious step of escalation, aimed at stopping the collapse of the situation in South Vietnam and putting pressure on us".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp. 598–599}} 

On 2 May 1972, Thọ had his 13th meeting with Kissinger in Paris. The meeting was hostile, as the North Vietnamese had just taken [[Quảng Trị|Quang Tri City]] in South Vietnam, which led Nixon to tell Kissinger "No nonsense. No niceness. No accommodations". During the meeting, Thọ mentioned that Senator [[J. William Fulbright|William Fulbright]] was criticizing the Nixon administration, leading Kissinger to say: "Our domestic discussions are no concern of yours". Thọ snapped back: "I'm giving an example to prove that Americans share our views".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 600}} When Kissinger asked Thọ why North Vietnam had not responded to a proposal he sent via the Soviet Union, Thọ replied: "We have on many occasions said that if you have any question, you should talk to directly to us, and we shall talk directly to you. We don't speak through a third person".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 601}}

Thọ next met Kissinger on 19 July 1972.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 604}} Kissinger asked: "If the United States can accept governments in large that are not pro-American, why should it insist on a pro-U.S government in Saigon?"{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp. 604–605}} Thọ stated that Kissinger was not offering anything new. By August 1972, Kissinger was promising Thọ that he would pressure [[Nguyễn Văn Thiệu]] to resign only if Thọ would agree to make a peace deal before the presidential elections of that year. Thọ told Kissinger that the timetable for Thiệu's departure was no longer an immediate concern, and instead he wanted some $8 billion in reparations for war damage. Kissinger also told Thọ that he wanted to tell the world about their secret meetings since 1970 in order to give the impression that Nixon was making progress on peace in Vietnam, a suggestion that Thọ rejected, saying it was not his job to assist Nixon's reelection campaign.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 605}} On 15 September 1972, Kissinger told Thọ: "We wish to end before October 15-if sooner, all the better".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 606}} Thọ told Hanoi that Kissinger wanted a peace agreement before the election and now was the best time to settle.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp. 606–607}}

On 7 October 1972, Kissinger and Thọ agreed to a government of national reconciliation in Saigon that was to include the National Liberation Front. Kissinger told Thọ that he expected a peace agreement to be signed in Paris on 25 or 26 October 1972, saying that all that was needed now was the approval of Thiệu and Nixon.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 607}} However, when Kissinger arrived in Saigon, Thiệu refused to sign the peace agreement.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 609}} Nixon had initially agreed to the peace agreement, but, upon hearing of Thiệu's claims of betrayal, started to change his mind.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 610}} 

On 20 November 1972, Kissinger met Thọ again in Paris. Kissinger no longer aimed at secrecy and was followed by paparazzi as he went to a house owned by the French Communist Party where Thọ was waiting for him. Kissinger announced that the Americans wanted major changes to the peace agreement made in October to accommodate Thiệu, which led Thọ to accuse Kissinger of negotiating in bad faith. Thọ stated: "We have been deceived by the French, the Japanese and the Americans. But the deception has never been so flagrant as of now". Kissinger insisted that the changes he wanted were only minor, but in effect he wanted to renegotiate almost the entire agreement. Thọ rejected Kissinger's terms, saying he would abide by the terms agreed to on 8 October.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 612}} Putting more pressure, Nixon told Kissinger to break off the talks if Thọ would not agree to the changes he wanted. Kissinger told Nixon: "While we have a moral case for bombing North Vietnam when it does not accept our terms, it seems to be really stretching the point to bomb North Vietnam when it has accepted our terms and when South Vietnam has not". By December 1972, the talks had broken down, and Nixon decided to resume bombing North Vietnam.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 613}} 

On 17 December 1972, the [[Operation Linebacker II|Christmas bombings]] began.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 614}} On 26 December 1972, North Vietnam announced a willingness to resume peace talks in Paris again in January. Though Nixon had decided after all to accept the peace terms of 8 October, the bombings allowed him to portray himself as having forced North Vietnam back to the table. The American historian A.J. Langguth wrote the Christmas bombings were "pointless", as the final peace agreement of 23 January 1973 was essentially the same as that of 8 October 1972, as Thọ refused to make any substantial concessions.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 626}}

=== 1973 ===
After the Christmas bombings of 1972, Thọ was in a particularly savage mood towards Kissinger. The relationship between Kissinger and Thọ was antagonistic and condescending on the part of Thọ, angering Kissinger. After one meeting, Kissinger asked "Allow me to ask you one question: do you scold your colleagues in the Central Committee the way you scold us?"

At their meeting on 8 January 1973 in a house in the French town of [[Gif-sur-Yvette]], Kissinger arrived to find nobody at the door to greet him. When Kissinger entered the conference room, nobody spoke to him. Sensing the hostile mood, Kissinger speaking in French said: "It was not my fault about the bombing". Before Kissinger could say any more, Thọ exploded in rage, saying in French: "Under the pretext of interrupted negotiations, you resumed the bombing of North Vietnam, just at the moment when I reached home. You have 'greeted' my arrival in a very courteous manner! Your action, I can say, is flagrant and gross! You and no one else strained the honor of the United States". Thọ shouted at Kissinger for over an hour, and despite Kissinger's requests not to speak so loudly because the reporters outside the room could hear what he was saying, he did not relent. Thọ concluded: "For more than ten years, America has used violence to beat down the Vietnamese people-[[napalm]], [[Boeing B-52 Stratofortress|B-52s]]. But you don't draw any lessons from your failures. You continue the same policy. ''Ngu xuẩn! Ngu xuẩn! Ngu xuẩn!''" When Kissinger asked what ''ngu xuẩn'' meant in Vietnamese, the translator refused to translate, as ''ngu xuẩn'' (in [[Chữ Nôm]]: 愚蠢) roughly means that a person is grossly stupid.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 619}}

When Kissinger was finally able to speak, he argued that it was Thọ, who by being unreasonable, had forced Nixon to order the Christmas bombings, a claim that led Thọ to snap in fury: "You've spent billions of dollars and many tons of bombs when we had a text ready to sign".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp. 619–620}} Kissinger replied: "I have heard many adjectives in your comments. I propose that you should not use them". Thọ answered: "I have used those adjectives with a great deal of restraint already. The world opinion, the U.S. press and U.S. political personalities have used harsher words".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 620}}

When the talks finally began, Kissinger put forward the demand that North Vietnam pull out all of its troops out of South Vietnam, a demand that Thọ rejected out of hand. Thọ stated the only issues remaining were [[Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone|the demilitarized zone]] (DMZ), which he wanted to see abolished under the grounds that all of Vietnam was one country, while Kissinger insisted that only civilians be allowed to cross the DMZ that divided the two Vietnams. After much argument, Kissinger agreed to take the issue of the DMZ out of the peace agreement and inserted the phrase "among the questions to be negotiated there is the question of the modalities for civilian movement across the provisional military demarcation line". 

A paragraph was inserted calling for the withdraw of all foreign forces from South Vietnam, which Kissinger claimed was a commitment from Thọ to pull out North Vietnamese forces. Thọ did not share this view, as he argued that the North Vietnamese troops were not foreign. Thọ told Kissinger that if a peace agreement was signed, that within 15 days a peace agreement would be signed for Laos. But he stated, that unlike the [[Pathet Lao]] in Laos, North Vietnam had no influence over the [[Khmer Rouge]] in Cambodia. Kissinger did not believe Thọ's claims that the Khmer Rouge leader [[Pol Pot]] was a fanatical Khmer nationalist with a hatred of the Vietnamese. After the meeting, Kissinger told Thọ: "We must forget all that has happened. When we walk out, we must be smiling".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 620}}

On the night of 9 January 1973, Kissinger phoned Nixon in Washington to say that a peace agreement would be signed very soon.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 620}} On 10 January 1973, the negotiations broke down when Kissinger demanded the release of all [[American POWs in the Vietnam War|American POWs in North Vietnam]] once a peace agreement was signed, but offered no guarantees about Viet Cong prisoners being held in South Vietnam. Thọ stated: "I cannot accept your proposal. I completely reject it".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 621}} Thọ wanted the release of all prisoners once a peace agreement was signed, which led Kissinger to say this was an unreasonable demand.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 622}} Thọ, who had been [[Torture|tortured]] as a young man by the French colonial police for advocating Vietnamese independence, shouted: "You have never been a prisoner. You don't understand suffering. It's unfair". Kissinger finally offered that the United States would use "maximum influence" to pressure the South Vietnamese government to release all Viet Cong prisoners within sixty days of a peace agreement being signed.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 621}} On 23 January 1973, at 12:45 pm, Kissinger and Thọ signed the peace agreement.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 622}}

The basic facts of the Accords included:

* release of POWs within 80 days;
* ceasefire to be monitored by the [[International Commission of Control and Supervision|International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICC)]];
* free and democratic elections to be held in South Vietnam;
* U.S. aid to South Vietnam would continue;
* North Vietnamese troops could remain in South Vietnam. 

On 28 March 1973, the last of the American forces left South Vietnam.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 622}} While 23 January is generally recognized as the enactment date of the Peace Accords, the talks continued out of necessity. Sporadic fighting continued in some regions, while U.S. ground forces were being removed. Due to continued ceasefire violations by all sides, Kissinger and Thọ met in Paris in May and June 1973 for the purpose of getting the implementation of the peace agreement back on track. On 13 June 1973, the United States and North Vietnam signed a joint communique pledging mutual support for full implementation of the Paris Accords.