In 1968, a weary President Johnson accepted the advice of the wise men and decided against sending more troops to Vietnam.  He proposed peace negotiations, and much to his surprise the North Vietnamese accepted his proposal.  Johnson halted the bombing of North Vietnam and was hopeful that a peace agreement could be negotiated in a reasonable amount of time.

For months there was absolutely no progress in the talks as each side haggled over minor issues such as the shape and size of the meeting table, where people would sit, who would be in meetings, whether or not they would have small flags on the table, and other petty issues.  One major issue confronting the negotiators was the inclusion of the South Vietnamese Communists as an independent negotiating entity.
South Vietnamese President Thieu vehemently objected to their inclusion because he recognized this would mean a group of insurgents were receiving a form of official status and legitimacy.  The Viet Cong had no form of government, no recognized leader, and had disrupted life in South Vietnam.  Nonetheless, they were granted an official position at the table.

Behind the scenes, Madame Anna Chenault, a strong Nixon supporter, urged South Vietnam President Thieu to stand firm and delay the talks because he would get better support from the new president.  President Thieu, upset about the inclusion of the Viet Cong and encouraged by Madame Chenault, withheld his delegation until mid-January, 1969.  Additionally, prior to his inauguration, representatives of President-elect Richard Nixon held secret meetings with the North Vietnamese in an effort to move the talks along with them.

The initial positions of each side can be summarized as follows:

United States: Wanted the mutual withdrawal of U.S. and North Vietnamese forces
      from South Vietnam.  Allow the South Vietnamese people to work out their own
      political problems without influence or invasion by North Vietnam.  All prisoners of
      war released.
 
North Vietnam:  Demanded the United States remove its forces immediately and
      unconditionally.  Further,  President Nguyen Van Thieu must resign.

South Vietnam: Demanded the immediate and unconditional removal of North
      Vietnamese forces.  South Vietnam would have one leader, not a coalition
      government.

South Vietnam Communists (Viet Cong):  Immediate removal of American forces.
     They must be allowed to stay in positions already under their control.  Thieu resign.
Each side was resolute in its position and no progress was made for many months.  In July of 1969, in an effort to move the talks forward President Nixon authorized Henry Kissinger and his team to have secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese only.  Nixon was hopeful that they could make advances without the other two parties direct involvement.  Still, the talks went nowhere and each side fought on the battlefield to try to improve its negotiating position.

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to the peace talks for the Americans was, ironically enough, the peace movement in the United States.  The North Vietnamese closely followed the protests and riots in the United States and would read newspaper articles to the U.S. diplomats whenever they met.  Their message was consistent that the American public would force their own troops out of Vietnam and the North need only wait them out.  Campus protests and a biased press rendered the United States negotiating team virtually powerless.  For nearly four years the peace talks would start and stop with no major breakthroughs.

What was arguably the most amazing move in the history of the war occurred on February 18, 1972.  President Nixon visited China in a bold move that would not only reshape the war, but bring into question its very necessity.  Both China and the Soviet Union, the two major Communist countries at the time, were supporting North Vietnam, but neither country necessarily trusted the other.  Unlike his predecessors, President Nixon had a more global view of foreign policy and he more fully understood the need to move beyond the Cold War. Nixon’s trip helped exploit the divisions between China and the USSR, as well as the divisions between China and Vietnam. (Recall that China ruled Vietnam for over a thousand years.)  Additionally, the trip gave him more leverage in his upcoming summit with the Soviet Union concerning nuclear arms.  Further, by opening up to China, President Nixon was, in effect, changing the China containment policy, which was at the root of the Vietnam war.

Opinion: It seems to me that President Nixon knew he could not win in Vietnam, but he also knew that a more global perspective of opening up to China and the Soviet Union was far more important than a “battle” in Vietnam.  Opening up to two major powers and ending the Cold War could provide a much greater form of peace than fighting a losing battle in Vietnam.  In other words, he knew he would lose Vietnam, but he could prevent the domino theory from becoming a reality by getting the two major sources of supply to the Vietnamese to reduce or eliminate support.
 
 
 

Meanwhile, the gradual withdrawal of American troops continued until in March of 1972 there were only 96,000 remaining.  With dramatically fewer American troops in South Vietnam, the peace talks stalled, and American public opinion growing against the war, the North Vietnamese decided the time was right for a major offensive.  In March of 1972, 120,000 North Vietnamese troops attacked across the demilitarized zone into South Vietnam.  Thousands of South Vietnamese civilians became instant refugees running for their lives.  ARVN troops were unable to stop the assault.

President Nixon was infuriated but was cautioned against an aggressive response.  A major response could jeopardize his upcoming summit, and that was far more important to the administration in the larger scheme of things.  Nixon felt, however, that the only way to get the respect of the Soviet Union and move the peace talks forward, was to respond dramatically.  President Nixon ordered the mining of the harbors near Haiphong and he initiated an intensive bombing campaign of North Vietnam.

Fortunately, the Soviet Union did not cancel the summit and when President Nixon visited the Kremlin he signed an arms reduction treaty, slowing the nuclear arms race.

Additionally, the once stalled Paris peace talks resumed.  Unfortunately, there was still very little progress in the talks until the fall when the United States made a move and said they would agree to not having a mutual withdrawal.  In October of 1972, an
agreement was established involving a cease fire and a prisoner exchange.  The agreement allowed North and South Vietnam to work out their political problems on their own, but it also allowed the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to stay in place in South Vietnam.
 
President Thieu of South Vietnam felt betrayed and refused to sign the agreement.  He felt that by allowing the Communist forces to stay in place that he would essentially be signing a death agreement for his country and himself.  Once again, the peace  talks collapsed.

It seemed hopeless and Henry Kissinger was discouraged.  But President Nixon was reelected by a landslide and he demanded that North Vietnam resume the talks or he would take drastic action.  Nixon gave the North Vietnamese a deadline to respond, but once again the peace demonstrators, following their hearts, held a “moratorium” across the country, which was a nationwide peace activity.  Activist leaders of the moratorium even received a letter of encouragement from North Vietnam’s Prime Minister, Pham Van Dong.
 
 

Unphased, on December 18, 1972, President Nixon unleashed the largest bombing campaign of the entire war.  This time, though, he placed virtually no limits on the targets.  He allowed the military to bomb areas they had long requested to hit.  Known as the “Christmas Bombing,” for 11 days B-52 bombers unmercifully hit roads, railways, power stations, radar installations, fuel depots, and other areas with such force that 500,000 people had to be evacuated from Hanoi alone.  Nixon stopped the bombing on Christmas day, but immediately resumed it the next day. Nations around the world cried foul.  The North Vietnamese returned to the negotiating table.

On January 23, 1973, a cease fire was signed in Paris that essentially mirrored the agreement of October, 1972.  This time, though, President Thieu had no choice but to sign it.  The Americans were leaving and this agreement was presented as the best we could get.  President Nixon and Henry Kissinger also assured President Thieu that we would continue to aid the South Vietnamese and that if the agreement was violated by North Vietnam that we would respond with help.  On January 27, 1973 a formal agreement was signed and the war was over.

Sadly, Lyndon Johnson never saw the end of the war that drove him from office.  In one history’s ironies, former President Johnson who had done so much for civil rights and fought so hard to win the war with Vietnam, but was treated unfairly with mindless chants of killing kids, died on January 22, 1973, one day before the cease fire.

On March 29, 1973 the last American troops withdrew from Vietnam.