The Paris Peace accords leading to a ceasefire in Vietnam were signed on January 27, 1973. To critics, “peace with honor” didn’t look that different from options available when Nixon first took power: “Kissinger and Nixon wasted four years of negotiations with the Vietnamese communists, agreeing to virtually the same peace terms in 1973 that were on the table in 1969,” argues Brigham. In total, 2.5 million to 3 million Vietnamese and other Indochinese and 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam. Hundreds more were missing in action.
On the other side of the equation, a consultant to the Johnson Administration on the peace process stood ready to pass information from the 1968 peace talks to Nixon, who then did his utmost to sabotage them, even though, according to the Logan Act, it is illegal for U.S. citizens “to engage in unauthorized diplomacy with foreign countries with intent to ‘influence the measures or conduct’ of a foreign government.” The informant from within the talks? None other than Henry Kissinger, who used his role as Johnson’s adviser at the peace talks to help secure Nixon’s 1968 victory.
You don’t get to claim you contributed to peace when you deliberately stalled it and lengthened the war and then achieved literally nothing at all in terms of improving the terms of the piece. His role in the negotiations was to ensure more people died.