Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: jewell@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Larry Jewell Kim Jewell)
Subject: Paris Peace Accords (1/5)
Sender: news@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (USENET News)
Organization: Purdue University
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 22:38:56 GMT
This file contains selected documents regarding the signing of
the "Paris Peace Accord" to end the hostilities in South
Vietnam.
The file contains the following items:
(1) Letter from President Nixon to President Nguyen Van Thieu of
the Republic of Vietnam, January 5, 1973.
[Reassuring Vietnam of US support.]
(2) "Peace With Honor": Radio-television broadcast, President
Nixon re: initialing of the Vietnam Agreement, 23 Jan. 1973
(3) News conference statement by Dr. Henry A. Kissinger,
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs,
January 24, 1973.
[Chapter-by-Chapter analysis of the Paris Agreement, excerpts.]
(4) Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam,
signed in Paris and entered into force January 17, 1973.
(5) Act of the International Conference on Vietnam, Signed at
Paris and entered into force March 2, 1973
(6) Complaints of Violations of the Cease-fire: United States
Note Verbale transmitted April 10, 1973 for delivery to
participants in the International Conference on Vietnam.
Collected, transcribed, and edited by:
Larry W. Jewell
jewell@mace.cc.purdue.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Letter from President Nixon to President Nguyen Van Thieu of
the Republic of Vietnam, January 5, 1973.
(Released Apr. 30, 1975)
January 5, 1973
Dear Mr. President:
This will acknowledge your letter of December 20, 1972.
There is nothing substantial that I can add to my many previous
messages, including my December 17 letter, which clearly stated
my opinions and intentions. With respect to the question of
North Vietnamese troops, we will again present your views to the
Communists as we have done vigorously at every ether opportunity
in the negotiations. The result is certain to be once more the
rejection of our position. We have explained to you repeatedly
why we believe the problem of North Vietnamese troops is
manageable under the agreement, and I see no reason to repeat
all the arguments.
We will proceed next week in Paris along the lines that General
Haig explained to you. Accordingly, if the North Vietnamese meet
our concerns on the two outstanding substantive issues in the
agreement, concerning the DMZ and type method of signing and if
we can arrange acceptable supervisory machinery, we will proceed
to conclude the settlement. The gravest consequence would then
ensue if your government chose to reject the agreement and split
off from the United States. As I said in my December 17 letter,
"I am convinced that your refusal to join us would be an
invitation to disaster-to the loss of all that we together have
fought for over the past decade. It would be inexcusable above
all because we will have lost a just and honorable alternative.
"
As we enter this new round of talks, I hope that our countries
will now show a united front. It is imperative for our common
objectives that your government take no further actions that
complicate our task and would make more difficult the acceptance
of the settlement by all parties. We will keep you informed of
the negotiations in Paris through daily briefings of Ambassador
[Pham Dang] Lam.
I can only repeat what I have so often said: The best guarantee
for the survival of South Vietnam is the unity of our two
countries which would be gravely jeopardized if you persist in
your present course. The actions of our Congress since its
return have clearly borne out the many warnings we have made.
Should you decide, as I trust you will, to go with us, you have
my assurance of continued assistance in the post-settlement
period and that we will respond with full force should the
settlement be violated by North Vietnam. So once more I conclude
with an appeal to you to close ranks with us.
Sincerely,
RICHARD NIXON
His Excellency Nguyen Van Thieu President of the Republic of
Vietnam Saigon.
----------------------------------------------------------------
(2) "Peace With Honor": Radio-television broadcast, President
Nixon re: initialing of the Vietnam Agreement, 23 Jan. 1973
(Text from PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS, vol. 9 (1973), pp. 43-5)
Good evening. I have asked for this radio and television time
tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have
concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor
in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.
The following statement is being issued at this moment in
Washington and Hanoi:
At 12:30 Paris time today [Tuesday], January 23, 1973, the
Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam was
initialed by Dr. Henry Kissinger on behalf of the United States,
and Special Adviser Le Duc Tho on behalf of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam.
The agreement will be formally signed by the parties
participating in the Paris Conference on Vietnam on January 27,
1973, at the International Conference Center in Paris.
The cease-fire will take effect at 2400 Greenwich Mean Time,
January 27, 1973. The United States and the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam express the hope that this agreement will insure
stable peace in Vietnam and contribute to the preservation of
lasting peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia. .
That concludes the formal statement.
Throughout the years of negotiations, we have insisted on peace
with honor. In my addresses to the Nation from this room of
January 25 and May 8, [1972] I set forth the goals that we
considered essential for peace with honor.
In the settlement that has now been agreed to, all the
conditions that I laid down then have been met. A cease-fire,
internationally supervised, will begin at 7 p.m., this Saturday,
January 27, Washington time. Within 60 days from this Saturday,
all Americans held prisoners of war throughout Indochina will be
released. There will be the fullest possible accounting for all
of those who are missing in action.
During the same 60-day period, all American forces will be
withdrawn from South Vietnam.
The people of South Vietnam have been guaranteed the right to
determine their own future, without outside interference.
By joint agreement, the full text of the agreement and the
protocols to carry it out, will be issued tomorrow.
Throughout these negotiations we have been in the closest
consultation with President Thieu and other representatives of
the Republic of Vietnam. This settlement meets the goals and has
the full support of President Thieu and the Government of the
Republic of Vietnam, as well as that of our other allies who are
affected.
The United States will continue to recognize the Government of
the Republic of Vietnam as the sole legitimate government of
South Vietnam.
We shall continue to aid South Vietnam within the terms of the
agreement and we shall support efforts by the people of South
Vietnam to settle their problems peacefully among themselves.
We must recognize that ending the war is only the first step
toward building the peace. All parties must now see to it that
this is a peace that lasts, and also a peace that heals, and a
peace that not only ends the war in Southeast Asia, but
contributes to the prospects of peace in the whole world.
This will mean that the terms of the agreement must be
scrupulously adhered to. We shall do everything the agreement
requires of us and we shall expect the other parties to do
everything it requires of them. We shall also expect other
interested nations to help insure that the agreement is carried
out and peace is maintained.
As this long and very difficult war ends, I would like to
address a few special words to each of those who have been
parties in the conflict.
First, to the people and Government of South Vietnam: By your
courage, by your sacrifice, you have won the precious right to
determine your own future and you have developed the strength to
defend that right. We look forward to working with you in the
future, friends in peace as we have been allies in war.
To the leaders of North Vietnam: As we have ended the war
through negotiations, let us now build a peace of
reconciliation. For our part; we are prepared to make a major
effort to help achieve that goal. But just as reciprocity was
needed to end the war, so, too, will it be needed to build and
strengthen the peace.
To the other major powers that have been involved even
indirectly: Now is the time for mutual restraint so that the
peace we have achieved can last.
And finally, to all of you who are listening, the American
people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace
with honor has made peace with honor possible. I know that you
would not have wanted that peace jeopardized. With our secret
negotiations at the sensitive stage they were in during this
recent period, for me to have discussed publicly our efforts to
secure peace would not only have violated our understanding with
North Vietnam, it would have seriously harmed and possibly
destroyed the chances for peace. Therefore, I know that you now
can understand why, during these past several weeks, I have not
made any public statements about those efforts.
The important thing was not to talk about peace, but to get
peace and to get the right kind of peace. This we have done.
Now that we have achieved an honorable agreement, let us be
proud that America did not settle for a peace that would have
betrayed our allies, that would have abandoned our prisoners of
war, or that would have ended the war for us but would have
continued the war for the 50 million people of Indochina. Let us
be proud of the 2 1/2 million young Americans who served in
Vietnam, who served with honor and distinction in one of the
most selfless enterprises in the history of nations. And let us
be proud of those who sacrificed, who gave their lives so that
the people of South Vietnam might live in freedom and so that
the world might live in peace.
In particular, I would like to say a word to some of the bravest
people I have ever met-the wives, the children, the families of
our prisoners of war and the missing in action. When others
called on us to settle on any terms, you had the courage to
stand for the right kind of peace so that those who died and
those who suffered would not have died and suffered in vain, and
so that, where this generation knew war, the next generation
would know peace. Nothing means more to me at this moment than
the fact that your long vigil is coming to an end.
Just yesterday, a great American, who once occupied this office,
died. In his life President [Lyndon B.] Johnson endured the
vilification of those who sought to portray him as a man of war.
But there was nothing he cared about more deeply than achieving
a lasting peace in the world.
I remember the last time I talked with him. It was just the day
after New Year's. He spoke then of his concern with bringing
peace, with making it the right kind of peace, and I was
grateful that he once again expressed his support for my efforts
to gain such a peace. No one would have welcomed this peace more
than he.
And I know he would join me in asking for those who died and for
those who live, let us consecrate this moment by resolving
together to make the peace we have achieved a peace that will
last.
Thank you and good evening.
--------------------------------------------------------------
(3) News conference statement by Dr. Henry A. Kissinger,
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs,
January 24, 1973.
(Presidential Documents, Vol. 9 (1973), pp. 64-70)
(Excerpts)
DR. KISSINGER. Ladies and gentlemen, the President last evening
presented the outlines of the agreement and by common agreement
between us and the North Vietnamese we have today released the
texts. And I am here to explain, to go over briefly what these
texts contain, and how we got there, what we have tried to
achieve in recent months and where we expect to go from here.
Let me begin by going through the agreement, which you have
read.
PROVISIONS OF THE AGREEMENT
Chapter 1: Vietnamese National Rights
The agreement, as you know, is in nine chapters. The first
affirms the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial
integrity, as recognized by the 1954 Geneva Agreements on
Vietnam, agreements which established two zones, divided by a
military demarcation line.
Chapter II: Cease-fire and Withdrawal
Chapter II deals with the cease-fire. The cease-fire will go
into effect at 7 o'clock Washington time on Saturday night
[January 27]. The principal provisions of Chapter II deal with
permitted acts during the cease-fire and with what the
obligations of the various parties are with respect to the
cease-fire.
Chapter II also deals with the withdrawal of American and all
other foreign forces from Vietnam within a period of 60 days.
And it specifies the forces that have to be withdrawn. These are
in effect all military personnel and all civilian personnel
dealing with combat operations. We are permitted to retain
economic advisers and civilian technicians serving in certain of
the military branches.
Chapter II further deals with the provisions for resupply and
for the introduction of outside forces. There is a flat
prohibition against the introduction of any military force into
South Vietnam from outside of South Vietnam, which is to say
that whatever forces may be in South Vietnam from outside South
Vietnam, specifically North Vietnamese forces, cannot receive
reinforcements replacements or any other form of augmentation by
any means whatsoever. With respect to military equipment, both
sides are permitted to replace all existing military equipment
on a one-to-one basis under international supervision and
control.
There will be established, as I will explain when I discuss the
protocols, for each side, three legitimate points of entry
through which all replacement equipment has to move. These
legitimate points of entry will be under international
supervision.
Chapter III: Return of POW's
Chapter III deals with the return of captured military personnel
and foreign civilians as well as with the question of civilian
detainees within South Vietnam.
This, as you know, throughout the negotiations, presented
enormous difficulties for us. We insisted throughout that the
question of American prisoners of war and of American civilians
captured throughout Indochina should be separated from the issue
of Vietnamese civilian personnel detained-partly because of the
enormous difficulty of classifying the Vietnamese civilian
personnel by categories of who was detained for reasons of the
civil war and who was detained for criminal activities, and
secondly, because it was foreseeable that negotiations about the
release of civilian detainees would be complex and difficult and
because we did not want to have the issue of American personnel
mixed up with the issues of civilian personnel in South Vietnam.
This turned out to be one of the thorniest issues, that was
settled at some point and kept reappearing throughout the
negotiations. It was one of the difficulties we had during the
December negotiations.
As you can see from the agreement, the return of American
military personnel and captured civilians is separated in terms
of obligation, and in terms of the time frame, from the return
of Vietnamese civilian personnel.
The return of American personnel and the accounting of missing
in action is unconditional and will take place within the same
time frame as the American withdrawal.
The issue of Vietnamese civilian personnel will be negotiated
between the two Vietnamese parties over a period of 3 months,
and as the agreement says, they will do their utmost to resolve
this question within the 3 month period.
So I repeat, the issue is separated, both in terms of obligation
and in terms of the relevant time frame from the return of
American prisoners, which is unconditional.
We expect that American prisoners will be released at intervals
of 2 weeks or fifteen days in roughly equal installments. We
have been told that no American prisoners are held in Cambodia.
American prisoners held in Laos and North Vietnam will be
returned to us in Hanoi. They will be received by American
medical evacuation teams and flown on American airplanes from
Hanoi to places of our own choice, probably Vientiane.
There will be international supervision of both this provision
and of the provision for the missing in action. And all American
prisoners will, of course, be released, within 60 days of the
signing of the agreement. The signing will take place on January
27, in two installments, the significance of which I will
explain to you when I, have run through the provisions of the
agreement and the associated protocols.
Chapter IV: Self-determination for South Vietnam
Chapter IV of the agreement deals with the right of the South
Vietnamese people to self-determination. Its first provision
contains a joint statement by the United States and North
Vietnam in which those two countries jointly recognize the South
Vietnamese people's right to self-determination, in which those
two countries jointly affirm that the South Vietnamese people
shall decide for themselves the political system that they shall
choose and jointly affirm that no foreign country shall impose
any political tendency on the South Vietnamese people.
The other principal provisions of the agreement are that in
implementing the South Vietnamese people's right to self-
determination, the two South Vietnamese parties will decide,
will agree among each other, on free elections, for offices to
be decided by the two parties, at a time to be decided by the
two parties. These elections will be supervised and organized
first by an institution which has the title of National Council
for National Reconciliation and Concord, whose members will be
equally appointed by the two sides, which will operate on the
principle of unanimity, and which will come into being after
negotiation between the two parties, who are obligated by this
agreement to do their utmost to bring this institution into
being within 90 days.
Leaving aside the technical jargon, the significance of this
part of the agreement is that the United States has consistently
maintained that we would not impose any political solution on
the people of South Vietnam. The United States has consistently
maintained that we would not impose a coalition government or a
disguised coalition government on the people of South Vietnam.
If you examine the provisions of this chapter, you will see,
first, that the existing government in Saigon can remain in
office; secondly, that the political future of South Vietnam
depends on agreement between the South Vietnamese parties and
not on an agreement that the United States has imposed on these
parties; thirdly, that the nature of this political evolution,
the timing of this political evolution, is left to the South
Vietnamese parties, and that the organ that is created to see to
it that the elections that are organized will be conducted
properly, is one in which each of the South Vietnamese parties
has a veto.
The other significant provision of this agreement is the
requirement that the South Vietnamese parties will bring about a
reduction of their armed forces, and that the forces being
reduced will be demobilized.
Chapter V: Reunification and the DMZ
The next chapter deals with the reunification of Vietnam and the
relationship between North and South Vietnam. In the many
negotiations that I have conducted over recent weeks, not the
least arduous was the negotiation conducted with the ladies and
gentlemen of the press, who constantly raised issues with
respect to sovereignty, the existence of South Vietnam as a
political entity, and other matters of this kind. I will return
to this issue at the end when I sum up the agreement, but it is
obvious that there is no dispute in the agreement between the
parties that there is an entity called South Vietnam, and that
the future unity of Vietnam, as it comes about, will be decided
by negotiation between North and South Vietnam, that it will not
be achieved by military force, indeed, that the use of military
force with respect to bringing about unification, or any other
form of coercion, is impermissible according to the terms of
this agreement.
Secondly, there are specific provisions in this chapter with
respect to the Demilitarized Zone. There is a repetition of the
agreement of 1954 which makes the demarcation line along the
17th Parallel provisional, which means pending reunification.
There is a specific provision that both North and South Vietnam
shall respect the Demilitarized Zone on either side of the
provisional military demarcation line, and there is another
provision that indicates that among the subjects that can be
negotiated will be modalities of civilian movement across the
demarcation line, which makes it clear that military movement
across the Demilitarized Zone is in all circumstances
prohibited.
Now, this may be an appropriate point to explain what our
position has been with respect to the DMZ. There has been a
great deal of discussion about the issue of sovereignty and
about the issue of legitimacy, which is to say which government
is in control of South Vietnam, and, finally, about why we laid
such great stress on the issue of the Demilitarized Zone.
We had to place stress. on the issue of the Demilitarized Zone
because the provisions of the agreement with respect to
infiltration, with respect to replacement, with respect to any
of the military provisions, would have made no sense whatsoever
if there was not some demarcation line that defined where South
Vietnam began. If we had accepted the preposition that would
have in effect eroded the Demilitarized Zone, then the
provisions of the agreement with respect to restrictions about
the introduction of men and materiel into South Vietnam would
have been unilateral restrictions applying only to the United
States and only to our allies. Therefore, if there was to be any
meaning to the separation of military and political issues, if
there was to be any permanence to the military provisions that
had been negotiated, then it was essential that there was a
definition of where the obligations of this agreement began. As
you can see from the text of the agreement, the principles that
we defended were essentially achieved.
Chapters VI and VII: International Machinery; Laos and Cambodia
Chapter VI deals with the international machinery, and we will
discuss that when I talk about the associated protocols of the
agreement.
Chapter VII deals with Laos and Cambodia. Now, the problem of
Laos and Cambodia has two parts. One part concerns those
obligations which can be undertaken by the parties signing the
agreement-that is to say, the three Vietnamese parties and the
United States-those measures that they can take which affect the
situation in Laos and Cambodia.
A second part of the situation in Laos has to concern the nature
of the civil conflict that is taking place within Laos and
--
JEWELL@MACE.CC.PURDUE.EDU; Listowner: WWII-L;
Moderator: BYRD.MU.WVNET.EDU
"Sunday's horoscope is note worthy because of its strange, sudden and wholly
unpredictable and inexplicable occurrences, affecting all phases of life."
Your Horoscope" L.A. Evening Herald Express, Sat, 12/06/41