Quick questions on Vietnamisation and Paris Peace Accords 1973: HSC Modern History Indochina

Richard Nixon was inaugurated on 20 January 1969. The administration adopted a four-track strategy. First, Vietnamisation: build up the ARVN and progressively withdraw US ground forces. Second, negotiation through Henry Kissinger's back-channel to Le Duc Tho in Paris.

The ARVN expanded to around 1.1 million by 1972. The US transferred around one million M-16 rifles, around 2,000 M-48 tanks and M-113 APCs, around 1,000 fixed-wing aircraft, and around 600 helicopters. ARVN officer schools, NCO academies, and logistics commands expanded.

Cambodia, under King Norodom Sihanouk's neutralist regime, had tolerated PAVN sanctuaries on its eastern border. Nixon authorised Operation Menu, the secret bombing of those sanctuaries, on 18 March 1969; the campaign ran to 26 May 1970, dropping around 110,000 tonnes on Cambodian territory. The bombing was disclosed when The New York Times published it (9 May 1969).

PAVN launched the Nguyen Hue Offensive on 30 March 1972 with around 14 divisions and Soviet-supplied T-54 tanks. Three axes: across the DMZ into Quang Tri; from Laos into Kontum; from Cambodia into Binh Long (An Loc).

The Paris peace talks had opened on 13 May 1968. The Kissinger-Le Duc Tho back channel began on 4 August 1969. The substantive negotiation ran from May 1971 onwards. Sticking points: the continued PAVN presence in the south (Hanoi insisted), the political future of Thieu (Hanoi demanded his removal), the demilitarised zone (the US insisted).

The Accords gave Nixon "peace with honour" and won Kissinger and Le Duc Tho the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize (Le Duc Tho declined).

Nixon privately assured President Thieu in letters (October 1972 and 14 January 1973) that the US would respond "with full force" to any major DRV violation. The commitment was never publicly disclosed.

Jeffrey Kimball (Nixon's Vietnam War, 1998) on the strategy.

Its limited objective (US disengagement) was achieved; the broader objective (a viable South Vietnam) was not.

27 January 1973, signed in Paris.

Linebacker II of 18 to 29 December 1972 brought Hanoi back to the table.