Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to the Vietnam War. Because peace hadn’t truly been established, Tho declined the award. He is the first and only person to voluntarily refuse a Nobel Peace Prize.
President Nixon and Kissinger declared they had achieved “peace with honor” and hoped it would last long enough to give South Vietnam a fighting chance. In fact the war was far from over. Fighting continued and even increased in parts of South Vietnam. North Vietnam began preparations to overtake the South.
South Vietnamese President Thieu had reluctantly signed the peace agreement after President Nixon had secretly promised “swift and severe retaliatory action” if North Vietnam violated it. But, embroiled in the Watergate scandal, Nixon did not have the political capital to provide the backup he promised.
