Pierre Asselin
speaker
562 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 4d ago
Pierre Asselin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
At the same time, though, I mean, Nixon is up for reelection. He's been in office for four years. It doesn't look like the U.S. is anywhere close to peace. So the pressure is also mounting on the Americans to end this. And then for the South Vietnamese, I mean, this war has been going on for a really long time. People are tired. So 72, it's really, really, for everyone, it's a challenging year.
And essentially in 73, all sides will agree to end this because it has to end, at least for the moment.
Yes.
That's pretty much it. Yeah. I mean, and this is really what the only thing that this agreement will achieve, right? It will formalize the departure of the Americans, right? The withdrawal of the last American troops from Vietnam. They leave in March of 1973. It compels the Americans to basically seize all military operations in Vietnam and across the rest of Indochina.
And in exchange for this, Hanoi gives the Americans their prisoners back. And that's pretty much all that... And a ceasefire, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a ceasefire. And then essentially all of this long enough to allow the Americans to get their prisoners back to disengage before the Vietnamese resume their civil war. And that's all that agreement is.
It's really kind of a... It's a military solution. It doesn't solve any of the political problems that... that are at the heart of the conflict on the Indo-Chinese peninsula.
Kissinger had a pretty good understanding that, I mean, this is beyond anybody's capacity to resolve, right? But for Kissinger, it's been made clear to him by Nixon that when he goes into these negotiations, first and foremost, he has to secure these American objectives, right? And then if he can lay some kind of foundation for, you know, an enduring peace in Vietnam, then great.
But fundamentally, Kissinger, his position in these talks is to make sure that these basic American conditions are met.
No, absolutely. And that's the thing. I mean, you know, when you consider what Nixon manages to achieve, right? He ends the war in Vietnam, and in the same instance, more or less, he makes peace with the Chinese and the Soviets. So... I mean, to me, right, the ability to engage Moscow and Beijing kind of offsets defeat in Vietnam. And Nixon did achieve peace with honor.
I mean, the mere fact that he got a signed agreement from this leadership in Hanoi, to me, it's almost miraculous. And fundamentally, it's a testament to the effectiveness of his strategies and tactics. And again, right, some of those tactics and strategies were extremely violent and caused a lot of deaths. But, you know, they were all meant to fulfill larger, long-term objectives.
And in that respect, I think that from a very, very kind of narrow standpoint, Nixon was successful in meeting his primary goals.
That's exactly it, Don. I mean, to the extent that we could, you know, wars of all kinds should be avoided, right? I mean, wars are terrible. I mean, we're seeing it these days, right? I don't think most people understand what war does to people.
And not just civilians who are caught in the crossfire and end up losing their lives for a reason they don't understand, but for the combatants themselves, right? We send these 18, 19-year-olds to do things that are just... unconscionable. And then we expect them to reintegrate society normally afterwards. I mean, to me, it's obscene. The whole thing is obscene.
So we have this situation in Vietnam. It's a very messy situation. And then efforts are made by Nixon and Kissinger to end it. They're only partially successful. Fundamentally, it was left to the Vietnamese themselves to decide their own fate. And unfortunately, that meant two more years of violence, of Vietnamese on Vietnamese violence.
I mean, absolutely. I mean, that's around the time of the fall of Saigon, right? About 120,000 to 150,000 people, mostly Southerners, are going to leave, right? And then after 75, after the war ends, Hanoi starts persecuting its former enemies, re-education camps, anti-Chinese campaigns that will prompt tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of others to leave, right?
And then a lot of these guys end up in the United States. And it's interesting. I mean, they really change the demographic landscape, right? I mean, I'm in Southern California, and the Vietnam War is very much alive. Just like the San Bernardino, right? Well, exactly, right? And Orange County. I mean, we have counties here that are like 60% Vietnamese, that have Vietnamese mayors.
And that's, I mean, again, you know, when you look at America's relationship with war, right, I think we fail to appreciate the fact that our very look as Americans is very much conditioned by the wars we've waged, right? And, you know, the presence of Filipinos, right, of Koreans, of Vietnamese, of more recently, right, of people from Iraq and Afghanistan, right?
I mean, that's why, you know, tough as it is, studying these conflicts is important because in so many ways they shape who we are as Americans.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing, right? It's so easy to start a war. It's so difficult to end it, right? And I mean, we're seeing that right now, particularly with Ukraine, right? It's very, very easy to initiate a conflict, but then trying to find a way out, trying to end it is extremely, extremely problematic. But I I really believe, Don, that we can learn from the past.
I think that very often we draw or infer lessons that are completely false. But I think when it comes to negotiating the end of a conflict, I think in this particular case, I think there's much we can learn about Vietnam to resolve some of the situations we are facing today.
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