Paris Peace Accords

For the treaties marking the official end of the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, see 1991 Paris Peace Agreements.
Paris Peace Accords
Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam
Vietnam Peace Agreement
SignedJanuary 27, 1973 (1973-01-27)
LocationParis, France
Negotiators
SignatoriesSee below
Parties
Full text
Paris Peace Accords at Wikisource

The Paris Peace Accords (Vietnamese: Hiệp định Paris về Việt Nam), officially the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam (Hiệp định về chấm dứt chiến tranh, lập lại hòa bình ở Việt Nam), was a peace agreement signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The agreement was signed by the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam); the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam); the United States; and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG), which represented South Vietnamese communists.[1] US ground forces had begun to withdraw from Vietnam in 1969, and had suffered from deteriorating morale during the withdrawal. By the beginning of 1972 those that remained had very little involvement in combat. The last American infantry battalions withdrew in August 1972.[2] Most air and naval forces, and most advisers, also were gone from South Vietnam by that time, though air and naval forces not based in South Vietnam were still playing a large role in the war. The Paris Agreement removed the remaining US forces. Direct U.S. military intervention was ended, and fighting between the three remaining powers temporarily stopped for less than a day. The agreement was not ratified by the U.S. Senate.[3][4]

The negotiations that led to the accord began in 1968, after various lengthy delays. As a result of the accord, the International Control Commission (ICC) was replaced by the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), which consisted of Canada, Poland, Hungary, and Indonesia, to monitor the agreement.[5] The main negotiators of the agreement were U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese Politburo member Lê Đức Thọ. Both men were awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts, but Lê Đức Thọ refused to accept it.

The agreement's provisions were immediately and frequently broken by both North and South Vietnamese forces with no official response from the United States. Open fighting broke out in March 1973, and North Vietnamese offensives enlarged their territory by the end of the year. Two years later, a massive North Vietnamese offensive conquered South Vietnam on April 30, 1975, and the two countries, which had been separated since 1954, united once more on July 2, 1976, as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.[1]

Part of the negotiations took place in the former residence of the French painter Fernand Léger; it was bequeathed to the French Communist Party. The street of the house was named after Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, who had commanded French forces in Vietnam after the Second World War.[6]

  1. ^ a b Ward & Burns 2017, pp. 508–513.
  2. ^ Stanton, Shelby L. (2007-12-18). The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1963-1973. Random House Publishing Group. pp. 358–362. ISBN 9780307417343.
  3. ^ The Paris Agreement on Vietnam: Twenty-five Years Later Archived 2019-09-01 at the Wayback Machine Conference Transcript, The Nixon Center, Washington, DC, April 1998. Reproduced on mtholyoke.edu. Accessed 5 September 2012.
  4. ^ The Constitution - Executive agreements Accessed 29 July 2014.
  5. ^ Rhéaume, Charles (30 July 2010). "Cautious neighbour policy: Canada's helping hand in winding down the Vietnam War". Cold War History. 11 (2): 223–239. doi:10.1080/14682740903527684. S2CID 154387299. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  6. ^ Breakthrough in Paris Blocked in Saigon, October 8–23, 1972 Retrieved December 11, 2021