In October 1972, the North Vietnamese Communist leader and peace negotiator, Le Duc Tho, proposed a settlement whereby the USA pulled all of its troops out of Vietnam in return for the release of all of its prisoners in North Vietnam. Kissinger was prepared to accept this proposal, and so was President Nixon; but the South Vietnamese President, Nguyen Van Thieu, refused to accept any sort of peace deal that called for the withdrawal of American forces. Nixon's advisors H. R. Halderman and John Ehrlichman persuaded the President that Thieu's objections had merit, and Nixon ordered Kissinger back to Paris to force Tho to accept them. Tho refused, as Kissinger had expected, and walked out of the talks. This prompted Kissinger to describe the North Vietnamese as "a bunch of shits."
In January 1973, Kissinger and Tho reached agreement on a deal that was essentially the same as Tho's original proposals. Thieu once again rejected the deal, but after Nixon issued an ultimatum he agreed to accept it. The peace agreement was signed on 29 January 1973.
When the Nobel awards were announced, on 10 December 1973, two members of the Nobel Committee resigned in protest. Le Duc Tho refused the award, saying that peace had not been established; Kissinger accepted it "with humility," donating the proceeds "to the children of American servicemembers killed or missing in action in Indochina."
By the summer of 1974, the US embassy reported that morale in the South Vietnamese army had fallen to dangerously low levels and it was uncertain how much longer South Vietnam would last. In August 1974, Congress passed a bill limiting American aid to South Vietnam to $700 million annually. In November 1974, Kissinger lobbied the Soviet and Chinese leaders to end military aid to North Vietnam. On 15 April 1975, Kissinger urged Congress to increase the military aid budget to South Vietnam by another $700 million as the North Vietnamese were rapidly advancing on Saigon, but this was refused. Kissinger has maintained ever since that if only Congress had approved his request for another $700 million, South Vietnam would have been able to resist.
It was on 30 April 1975 that Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese, and this is seen as the end of the war. Kissinger attempted to return his Nobel medal, but this was refused.
© Haydn Thompson 2022