A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreement

A first-rate piece of contemporary diplomatic history: clear, well-documented, objective, and yet forthright in condemnation. The major theme is that between 1946 and 1975 great powers (France and the U.S.) consistently tried to undermine with force signed agreements which, if followed, threatened to undermine client regimes. The persuasive pivotal argument is that the Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong by the U.S. in 1972 did contribute to the signing of the Paris accords of January 1973, not by coercing the North Vietnamese but by so undermining domestic and international tolerance for the Nixon Administration that it was forced to accept in January the very terms which it had rejected in October.