Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh signed the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973 (Photo: documentary)

Pham Ngac, former Director of the Department of International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was assigned as an English-language interpreter and rapporteur of both closed-door and public meetings during the five years of negotiations from mid-May 1968 to the end of January 1973 when the treaty was signed.

Mr. Ngac said the negotiations faced lots of challenges, even deadlocked. The US sent its best diplomats, like Averell Harriman and Henry Kissinger, and bombed the North to put pressure on Vietnam during the negotiation process, but Vietnam’s determination and diplomacy led to the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, according to Mr. Ngac.

“During the negotiations, bilateral contacts were the most important. The US was a powerful country but still showed respect and maintained good relations with Vietnam,” he said. 

The Paris agreement was finally signed after nearly five years of negotiations, more than 200 public meetings, 45 high-level private meetings, 24 secret meetings, 500 press conferences, and 1,000 interviews, besides hundreds of demonstrations by international friends from all over the world against the war.