S3 Ep7: How to Get Out of a War in Indochina: Nixon, Mao and the Paris Peace Accords

In February 1972 Richard Nixon flew to Beijing to shake Mao's hand. In May he went to Moscow. In between, North Vietnam launched the largest conventional offensive of the war and American bombers returned in force. All of it, in one way or another, was about how to leave Vietnam without appearing to lose it.

Time Period Covered: 1971 to 1973

How do you get out of a war without losing it? What did Nixon's opening to China have to do with Vietnam? And how much of 'peace' in 1972 was about diplomacy, and how much was about the election?

In this episode, Lachlan examines the pivotal year of 1972. North Vietnam launches the Spring Offensive, the largest conventional campaign of the war, while American air power returns on a massive scale. At the same time, Nixon travels to Beijing and Moscow, reshaping the Cold War balance and strengthening his position at home.

Behind the scenes, Henry Kissinger conducts secret negotiations in Paris. The Oval Office tapes reveal a colder logic: South Vietnam may not survive indefinitely, but if it lasts long enough, the United States can leave on its own terms. Cambodia, meanwhile, remains entangled in bombing, secrecy, and executive overreach, part of the same governing culture that produces Watergate.

By January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords are signed. American prisoners are coming home. Nixon has won a landslide re-election on promises of peace.

But the settlement leaves North Vietnamese troops in the South, freezes the battlefield in place, and offers no real solution for Cambodia.

The war, in other words, is ending. Just not for everyone.

Sources:

Short Mao: The Man Who Built China
Hastings Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy
Miller The Vietnam War: A Documentary Reader
Various Recordings: Nixon Whitehouse 1971-2
Shawcross Sideshow