Overview

This volume is part of a Foreign Relations subseries that documents the most important issues in the foreign policy of President Richard M. Nixon. It includes a complete set of the memoranda of conversation between President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry A. Kissinger and North Vietnamese Politburo Member and Special Adviser to the North Vietnamese Delegation Le Duc Tho during the negotiations that led to the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973. It further includes negotiating sessions between Kissinger and Tho conducted in the aftermath of the Agreement, in February, May, June, and December 1973, in an attempt to achieve a stable cease-fire. Presented chronologically, the documents in this volume—memoranda of conversation recording the meetings—show, among other things: 1) the evolution of the U.S. and North Vietnamese positions in the negotiations, 2) how the parties reached agreement on the Accords, also called the agreement or the settlement, and 3) how the Accords failed to lead to a stable cease-fire or to a political settlement of the conflict.