spartans_in_darkness

EO 1.4. (c)
Tefl SEeRETNeeMIN"F!OE:1
and that no military forces would be stationed
there either.l"
(TS//SI) Despite Thieu'sobjections, the
Americans put pressure on him to accept the
agreement. This pressure came from several
quarters. Nixon dispatched Alexander Haig to
Saigon with a letter which informed Thieu that he
would initial the accord on 23 January and sign in
on the 27th. 1 1
(U) On 23 January, Kissinger and Tho initialed
the accords and on 27 January, Secretary of
State William P. Rogers and Le Due Tho signed
them. The accords declared a cease-fire throughout
Vietnam. Prisoners of war would be
exchanged within sixty days of the agreement
(though notification and exchange of lists of prisoners
would occur within fifteen days of signing
the agreement). The United States agreed to
remove the last of its troops within sixty days of
the return of its prisoners. The North Vietnamese
were not required to pull their troops out, but
they promised not to "take advantage" of the situation,
though they could replace those troops
already there (a point that the United States felt
meant no more troops to be sent to South
Vietnam). An International Commission for the
Supervision and Control of the Cease-fire was
created and was to move into the quarters soon to
be vacated by MACV. On 29 March 1973, the last
United States soldiers left Vietnam. Now only
Saigon and Hanoi remained to decide the fate of
Vietnam.
(U) The first two years of the cease-fire that
followed the Paris Peace Agreement saw a shift in
fortunes as Saigon first managed to push the
communist forces and political cadre from a
number of villages and provinces that they had
held since the general offensive of early 1972.
Thieu had adopted a strict policy of refusing to
concede anything to the communists. This was
known as his "Four No's": no negotiations with
the enemy, no communist activity south of the
DMZ, no coalition government, and no surrender
of territory to the North or the Provisional
Revolutionary Government.
Knowing that aid
from Washington was at
the mercy of a skeptical
and war-weary Congress,
he ordered his troops to go
on the attack and strike
at communist positions
wherever possible.
(V) Henry Kissinger (backqround) and Le Duc Tho (center, foreqround, back
to camera), initi