Word: viets
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...more unjustly treated. It was not a barbarous act of revenge. It did not cause exorbitant casualties by Hanoi's own figures; certainly it cost much less than the continuation of the war, which was the alternative. A decade of frustration with Viet Nam, a generation of hostility to Nixon, and-let me be frank-exasperation over his electoral triumph, coalesced to produce a unanimity of editorial outrage that suppressed all judgment in an emotional orgy. Nixon chose the only weapon he had available. His decision speeded the end of the war; I can think of no other measure...
Great events rarely have a dramatic conclusion. So it was in Paris in January. After the issue of the demilitarized zone between North and South Viet Nam was settled (we agreed that the zone is a provisional military demarcation between two parts of Viet Nam-thus recognizing the separate entity of South Viet Nam; no movement was to be permitted across the DMZ by military units, but civilian movement through it would be negotiated), there remained primarily the theological issue of how to sign the documents so that Saigon did not have to acknowledge the Communist-front Provisional Revolutionary Government...
When I arrived in Paris, I learned that Lyndon Johnson had died that day. He was himself a casualty of the Viet Nam War, which he had inherited and then expanded in striving to fulfill his conception of our nation's duty and of his obligation to his fallen predecessor. There was nothing he had wanted less than to be a war President, and this no doubt contributed to his inconclusive conduct of the struggle. It was symbolic that this hulking, imperious, vulnerable...
...meeting started at 9:35 a.m., Jan. 23. Le Duc Tho managed even on this solemn occasion to make himself obnoxious by insisting on ironclad assurances of American economic aid to North Viet Nam. I told him that this could not be discussed further until after the agreement was signed; it also depended on congressional approval and on observance of the agreement. Finally, at a quarter to one, we initialed the various texts. After this, Le Duc Tho and I stepped out on the street in a cold misty rain and shook hands for the benefit of photographers...
America's Viet Nam War was over...