Postal documentation of ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War

U.S. Stamp Notes by John M. Hotchner

The Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam War began in 1968 but made little headway due to the assumptions both sides brought to the table as to what needed to happen to open the road to peace and were complicated by the South Vietnam government’s demands of both sides.

Eventually, while the formal delegations postured in Paris, serious negotiations were being undertaken in secret in August 1969 between United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho representing the leadership of North Vietnam.

To make a very long story short, an agreement was settled between the two on Jan. 23, 1973, and was adopted by the formal Paris negotiating teams on Jan. 27.

The agreement, known as the Paris Peace Accords, did not end the war. What it did was to remove the United States from the ongoing hostilities and establish a ceasefire between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, which was immediately ignored, despite the fact that an international commission was set up to monitor the accords.

The commission, called Operation Gallant, was composed of Canada, Hungary, Indonesia and Poland. Given that the four nations were never going to agree to anything, the commission was ineffective, paving the way for North Vietnam-directed forces in the south to continue their efforts to establish domination over a reunited Vietnam, which was achieved in April 1975.

The Paris Peace Accords were never ratified by the U.S. Senate, so the agreement did not have the status of an official treaty. Also, the United States had essentially no say in how the situation developed after it withdrew militarily as it could bring to bear only limited diplomatic pressure on North Vietnam.

What has all this to do with philately? The covers presented here will answer that question.

Shown here is an aerogram addressed to the North Vietnam delegation in Paris, with a message asking that it intervene to have U.S. prisoners of war released as a basis for serious negotiations.

This letter and all other correspondence from Americans who were not officials was refused and returned to sender, a measure of the North Vietnamese delegation’s truculence.

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