Vietnam War

X

Quang Tri Offensive

The tide of the war took an ominous turn for the worse one week later. On March 30 North Vietnam launched a massive offensive south across the DMZ into Quang Tri Province. In April, the United States retaliated with the first deep-penetration bombing raids over the north since 1967.

On May 8 President Nixon ordered the mining of major ports of North Vietnam, notably Haiphong, to destroy enemy supply routes. Air strikes were directed against North Vietnamese railway lines, causing, as a Hanoi newspaper admitted, serious economic problems. Quang Tri City, after being held by the Communists for four-and-a-half months, was recaptured by South Vietnamese forces on September 15.

XI

Re-Escalation

As the war continued into the second half of 1972, secret peace meetings were held at intervals in Paris between Henry Kissinger, assistant to the president for national security affairs, and the North Vietnamese delegate Le Duc Tho, beginning on October 8. A breakthrough was achieved when, for the first time, the Communist side expressed acceptance of a peace plan separating the military from the political settlement of the war, relinquishing its demand for a coalition government in South Vietnam, and agreeing to a formula for simultaneous discussion of the situation in Laos and Cambodia. On October 26 Kissinger disclosed a nine-point peace plan, but technical issues remained unresolved, and President Thieu of South Vietnam called the plan a sellout.

With the resumption of talks between Kissinger and Tho on December 4, general anticipation of a final, signed agreement was perhaps the highest it had been since the beginning of the Paris negotiations in 1968. But the talks abruptly collapsed on December 16, and the following day President Nixon ordered further massive bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. Subsequent night raids by B-52s and attack planes were termed the most severe aerial assaults in all of history, and the reaction of both the American people and the world to the sudden reescalation of the bitter conflict was for the most part one of shock. The air attacks also resulted in the loss of 15 B-52s and in the loss or capture of 93 US Air Force personnel.

XII

Temporary Peace

Despite the stepping up of US bombing, both sides appeared anxious to salvage the progress made in negotiation. On December 29, the United States announced a halt to the bombing above the 20th parallel, effective the next day.

With the new year came the resumption of the secret peace meetings in Paris. Sensing progress in the first days, President Nixon ordered a halt to all bombing, mining, and artillery fire in North Vietnam. After six days of conferring, Kissinger and Tho met once again on January 23, 1973, and, on that evening, President Nixon announced over nationwide television that agreement on all terms for a formal ceasefire had finally been reached.

On January 27, in Paris, delegations representing the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary Communist Government of South Vietnam signed an Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam. The ceasefire officially went into effect on January 28. Both the United States and North Vietnam asserted that there were no secret peace terms.

The peace accord called for complete cessation of hostilities; withdrawal of all US and allied forces from South Vietnam within 60 days of the signing; return of all captured military personnel by both sides at 15-day intervals within 60 days; recognition of the DMZ as “only provisional and not a political or territorial boundary”; an international control commission (composed of representatives of Canada, Hungary, Indonesia, and Poland) to oversee implementation of the peace; and provision for an international conference to be held within 30 days. The accord allowed some 145,000 North Vietnamese troops to remain in South Vietnam, but with limitation on their future replacement and supplies.

XIII

Ceasefire Aftermath

By the end of March 1973, all US fighting forces had been withdrawn. Although President Nixon had apparently assured the Thieu government that US forces would step in to support them in the event of a major treaty violation, further military assistance to South Vietnam became politically impossible. One of the reasons for this was the concurrent outbreak of the Watergate scandal.

Fighting between Vietnamese antagonists died down shortly after the ceasefire, only to be renewed as each side attempted to hold or expand its military positions. During 1974 fighting escalated, with major engagements occurring throughout the year. US military aid was drastically cut, undermining the South Vietnamese position. In December the North Vietnamese and their southern allies launched a major offensive that quickly resulted in unprecedented success. The government of South Vietnam lost control of numerous important cities; and by the time that Huê was captured in mid-March 1975, the war had become a rout, with a mass evacuation of remaining US personnel. On April 30, the capital city of Saigon was captured, and the Republic of Vietnam surrendered unconditionally to the Provisional Revolutionary Government.

XIV

Nature of the War

The Vietnam War marked a turning point in the history of modern conventional warfare both in the extent of guerrilla and antiguerrilla combat involved and in the increased reliance on helicopters, which afforded mobility in a difficult terrain. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the Vietnam War was essentially a people's war; because guerrilla fighters were not easily distinguished from non-combatants and because most civilians were mobilized into some sort of active participation, the civilian populace of Vietnam suffered heavily, in unprecedented numbers. The extensive use of napalm by US forces maimed and killed many thousands of civilians, and the employment of defoliants to destroy heavy ground cover devastated the ecology of an essentially agricultural country.