The value and significance of the Paris Peace Accords were recognized by the entire world. But the US side tried to save their honour by many ways. Answering questions from international newspapers after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, US Advisor Kissinger tried to plead for US faults and pretended to empathize with the Vietnamese people in particular and people on the Indochinese Peninsula in general.

He said that by that time, a generation of people on the Indochinese Peninsula, especially the Vietnamese people, had had to suffer the pain of war. He underlined that their greatest effort was to end the pain of the people and restore peace. But earlier on January 23rd, 1973, when the Paris Peace Accords were initiated, President Nixon appeared on US TV saying that he wanted to announce that the USA had just signed an agreement to end the war and bring “peace with honour” in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

The Nixon Administration also admitted that the Paris Peace Accords was a success of the Project “Peace with honour”. To some extent, the Paris Peace Accords benefited the US side. Although the Paris Peace Accords forced the US to withdraw all US troops from Vietnam, it could receive all US prisoners without admitting its failure and still kept the Saigon puppet regime. Later, the US Defence Department irrationally explained that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was successful in the negotiations mainly because the US had changed its objectives and would like to escape from Vietnam if US prisoners were released, and the Saigon regime had opportunity to stand steady on their legs for a considerable time.

Facts showed that during the years of negotiations, the US suffered an increasing number of losses in both political and military terms. This forced the Nixon Administration to quickly sit down at the table to sign the Paris Peace Accords. The US Defence Department confirmed that President Nixon and Advisor Kissinger had accepted that there was no military solution for the war. Therefore, they tried to keep a “drawn battle” in Vietnam, isolate the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from communist countries providing aid for Vietnam, and reach a political solution via negotiations.

Some years later, in his memoir, Kissinger wrote that he and most of his colleagues understood the significance of the words they had heard. The US Advisor asked to stop our meeting. He and C. Lord, head of the US delegation, tightly held their hands and said: “We are successful.” General Haig, who earlier was the commander of US military forces in the South of Vietnam uttered: “We have saved the honour of people who fought, suffered pain and laid down their lives there… We will get what we are seeking.”

However, many historians in the USA and the West showed their doubts about the US so-called “Peace with honour”. Everyone understood that the US had to bitterly accept an unprecedented fact in its history, signing an agreement on ending the war without victory, while sending an army of more than a half of million of war-fighting and well-equipped troops along with military strategic experts and experienced officers to participate directly in the war. According to statistics, more than US$ 150 billion was spent directly on the war, nearly 60,000 troops were killed and thousands of others were injured.

In his book, US historian Gabriel Kolko wrote that the withdrawal of US troops without admitting the military failure after its 20-year unsuccessful effort was a bitter victory of the world superpower. US historian George C. Herring assessed that the results from the Paris Peace Accords were really a high price paid by the US, badly affecting the status and power of the superpower. Although Nixon tried to escape from the war and sought “Peace with honour”, the US withdrawal from the war still left a shameful image in the eyes of people around the world and Americans, who had been sick of wars.

After the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, many Western political and military observers were right when expecting that the US would seek ways to undermine the implementation of the agreement. Professor Weddon A Brown at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute wrote in his book that any assessment of the agreement made people fearful rather than hopeful. Many thoughts that with its nature of aggressiveness and stubbornness, the Nixon Administration would pursue the war and that the agreed peace terms in January, 1973 only created a framework where the US could continue to intervene in the war without direct participation in it.

US historian Joseph A. Amter also stated that the signing of the Paris Peace Accords was really a product of the Nixon Administration’s deceitful arguments and tricks cheating public opinion. The Vietnamese people, with their desire for peace, freedom, independence and unity of their Fatherland, were not tricked; they continued their struggle and won the war.

Translated by Hoang Linh

Source: qdnd.vn

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Part 1: Victory contributes to peace