A Study On The Secret Talks Between The United States And North Vietnam During The Nixon Administration

In the late1960s early1970s, in order to escape from Vietnam as soon as possible and toimprove the unfavorable position in the Cold War, under the slogan of “peace with honor”the United States President Nixon authorized Kissinger to hold a series of secret talks over theVietnam War with Le Duc Tho and others. Based on the newly declassified original files, thisdissertation draws on the relevant research results at home and abroad, trying to dissect the artof conversation and the changing policies to sort out the whole course of the Secret Talksholding in Paris, and then to investigate the two sides’ success and failure.This dissertation is composed of the introduction, main body and the epilogue. Thepreface presents the background, the significance and the research method of this dissertation,and it simply sums up some relative academic research results.The main body is divided into three parts:The first part expounds that the United States and the North Vietnam realized thenecessity of Secret talks after the Tet offensive, and tracks back to the essence of the twocountries’ traditional diplomatic thoughts which had made a big influence on the rulers’diplomatic theory, and then it briefly summarizes the negotiating tactic of both sides.The second part focuses on the game process of Secret Negotiations between the UnitedStates and the North Vietnam, combining the theory of policies and the results of practice,based on the analysis about the reasons of negotiation strategies, objectives and changingmeans, it reproduces the history of bargaining.The third part makes a detailed analysis and assessment about the gains and losses ofUnited States and North Vietnam in the Secret Negotiations, and explores the finalconsequence and the influence to the relationships and the world situation, trying tosummarize some experience and lessons.The epilogue gives a brief summary and conclusion, and further states that there is noabsolute winner, only mutual compromise in the secret negotiations.