Wilf wrote:

So what did compel Hanoi to start peace talks?
By 1972, Nixon is sending more Carriers, mining North Vietnamese harbours and increasing the bombing. NVA desertions reach record levels. Military force is getting Nixon what Nixon wants - flawed as those desires maybe.

My point is that even as late as 1973, the Vietnam War was America's to loose.
While Richard Nixon was a complex and morally flawed man, when he was at his best as a statesman there's much there worthy of admiration and close study. Coming into office having been dealt the worst hand of any president since FDR, he played his cards shrewdly.

The negotiations began in 1968, the Paris Accords were signed in 1973. Who was most effective in using military force to acheive political ends is best judged by which side got most of what they wanted. In my view, what Nixon managed to eke out from Hanoi with punishing bombing campaigns was an unreciprocal release of American POWs and a longer "decent interval" for the GVN than Hanoi might have preferred. That's about it.

Now, Nixon was being actively undercut by liberal Democrats in Congress at every step, some of whom, IMHO, badly wanted the US to lose the war for ideological and partisan reasons and were also nasty and vindictive toward our South Vietnamese allies - a prime example being our sitting Vice-President's whose conduct as a freshman senator toward South Vietnamese refugees was a disgrace. If Nixon had popular support, he might have pressed North Vietnam still harder with military force and gotten a better deal, but his objective was always cutting a deal that could be sold at home, not a victory.