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=== 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.
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