Paris Peace Talks
The Paris Peace Talks were initiated in 1968 amidst the backdrop of the Tet Offensive, a pivotal event that altered perceptions of the Vietnam War in the United States. Following this offensive, which, despite being a military setback for North Vietnam, served as a psychological victory, the U.S. government sought to reassess its involvement in Vietnam. In May 1968, negotiations commenced in Paris between North Vietnamese officials and representatives from the U.S. and South Vietnam. The primary aim for the U.S. was to extricate its forces while attempting to support an independent, noncommunist South Vietnam through a process known as "Vietnamization." Conversely, North Vietnam aimed to utilize the talks to further their war efforts while easing the burden of continuous bombing.
Throughout 1968 and into 1969, the talks faced numerous obstacles, including disagreements over the participation of South Vietnamese factions and a lack of compromise from both sides. President Nixon’s administration adopted a more confrontational approach, exacerbating tensions. Despite ongoing discussions, the war continued, fueling a robust antiwar movement in the U.S. that manifested significantly on college campuses. The Paris Peace Talks ultimately culminated in the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, yet the conflict persisted, leading to the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. The talks highlight a complex interplay between military strategy, politics, and public sentiment during a tumultuous period in history.
Paris Peace Talks
Date: 1968-1969
The first serious effort of both the United States and North Vietnamese governments to negotiate an end to the Vietnam conflict. However, both sides’ failure to compromise on a variety of issues stalled the talks by late 1969.
Origins and History
The Paris Peace Talks began as a result of the backlash from the Tet Offensive of early 1968. Tet shocked the U.S. government and public; subsequently, many Americans believed the war in Vietnam could not be won. For North Vietnam, Tet was a military defeat but a psychological victory because the offensive caused the U.S. government to rethink its policy in Vietnam.
The Talks
Three days after President Lyndon B. Johnson’s March 31, 1968, speech, in which he spoke of peace in Vietnam and announced his decision not to seek another term as president, the North Vietnamese government of Ho Chi Minh agreed to open negotiations with U.S. and South Vietnamese officials. Talks began in Paris on May 12. From the U.S. side, chief negotiator Averell Harriman and Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford led the move to extricate the United States from Vietnam. They offered to stop the bombing campaign in exchange for reciprocal North Vietnamese army troop withdrawals from South Vietnam. North Vietnam, however, argued for an unconditional halt of U.S. bombing north of the demilitarized zone.
From the start, both sides revealed reasons for coming to the negotiating table. For the United States, the goal was to get its forces out of Vietnam as it gradually transferred the job of fighting to the South Vietnamese military (a process called “Vietnamization”). Johnson’s original objective of securing an independent, noncommunist South Vietnam remained intact despite the realization that the United States could no longer fight the war for the South Vietnamese. For North Vietnam, the peace talks functioned as part of the nation’s new strategy for winning the war. Its army had suffered greatly during the Tet Offensive, and the country desperately needed a break from the constant bombing. In addition to these concerns, the North Vietnamese realized that what occurred on the battlefield had caused, and could continue to cause, internal dissension between U.S. policymakers and the American public. Therefore, the North Vietnamese instituted a policy of danh va dam, or “fighting while negotiating.”
The Paris talks stalled the remainder of 1968, and the fighting in Vietnam continued. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces maintained constant pressure on the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. Vietnamization gradually intensified. A minor breakthrough occurred in the fall of 1968 when President Johnson agreed to halt the bombing campaign in return for minor concessions. Harriman convinced North Vietnamese negotiators to drop their unconditional stance against cessation. While agreeing unofficially, the North Vietnamese insisted that the National Liberation Front (NLF) be allowed to participate in the talks. The South Vietnamese government rejected the proposal, causing yet another impasse just as the talks appeared to be making some progress. The South Vietnamese responded to pressure from Republicans in the United States who were concerned that progress in the peace talks might result in a Democratic victory in the November, 1968, presidential election. The South Vietnamese decided to take their chances with Richard M. Nixon and the Republicans in 1969. The North Vietnamese, for their part, agreed to open “serious” talks once the bombing stopped. Johnson halted the bombing campaign unconditionally on October 31.
The talks stalled again over the shape of the negotiating table, delaying substantive negotiations for weeks. By the time the table issue was settled, the Johnson administration was out of office. President Nixon proved too uncompromising to make any real progress in negotiations during 1969. Instead, he turned to a peace-through-coercion approach that included bombing of Viet Cong sanctuaries in Cambodia. In May, 1969, Nixon unveiled a new peace plan, which included the phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam, leaving an independent South Vietnam. This plan, in reality, was nothing new, leading the North Vietnamese to reject it.
Impact
Despite the peace talks, the continuing war in Vietnam served only to feed the antiwar movement in the United States. The movement manifested itself primarily on college campuses throughout the country, where protests against U.S. involvement in Vietnam grew increasingly intense and violent, culminating in the shooting deaths of four Kent State University students by National Guardsmen in 1970. In Vietnam, more Americans and Vietnamese were killed and wounded as Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia. In all, it took the Nixon administration four years to achieve “peace with honor” to end the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Two years later, in 1975, South Vietnam fell.
Additional Information
See Ronald Spector’s After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (1993) and George C. Herring’s America’s Longest War, 1950-1975 (1996).