268 e lusive v ictories
conditions the Americans came to recognize as essential components of
any deal Hanoi would accept. His worst fears were confi rmed, more-
over, when a provisional commitment he made in 1971 to step down
(part of an off er that Al Haig told him Hanoi would reject) became
public. Once out in the open, such a pledge could never be fully
renounced, and Kissinger felt free to bargain away Th ieu’s status as part
of a post-cease-fi re political arrangement.
Th ieu’s suspicion that Nixon and Kissinger planned to betray him
and his nation erupted into open refusal when he learned the terms of
the proposed peace agreement in late October 1972. He had already
made plain his opposition to any scheme for a three-sided (Saigon/
NLF/neutralist) reconciliation or electoral commission that might be
seen as the basis for a coalition government, as well as to any agreement
that permitted NVA troops to remain in the South. By this point, the
American position had diverged too sharply from that of the South
Vietnamese government for the two to be reconciled. Th ieu reasoned
that his best chance lay in sabotaging the agreement, and he insisted on
multiple changes in the text sure to be unacceptable to Hanoi. Even
when promised additional rush deliveries of military equipment to beat
a proposed cease-fi re deadline, or when threatened by American offi -
cials that they would conclude a deal without him even as Congress cut
off all aid to his government, he refused to sign, and he made his objec-
tions very public through a Saigon TV and radio broadcast.
He succeeded in temporarily derailing the deal. Although Kissinger
announced on October 26, 1972, that “peace is at hand,” his intro-
duction of the many amendments Thieu wanted caused the North
Vietnamese to suspect bad faith on the American side and in turn led
them to withdraw some of their earlier concessions. Th e Paris talks col-
lapsed in mid-December. Nixon ordered a resumption of B-52 raids
against Hanoi in what became known as the Christmas bombing, the
largest heavy-bomber attacks since the end of World War II.
Th e bombing represented one fi nal violent exercise in diplomatic
signaling by the United States, and it was as misconceived as most of
the earlier gestures. Nixon intended to send a message to the North
Vietnamese that he would punish them for any renewal of aggression
and to reassure Th ieu that he could rely on the United States to enforce
the peace agreement through fi rm military action. In several messages