Le Duc Tho joins negotiations in Paris - Jun 03, 1968 - HISTORY.com

Le Duc Tho, a member of the North Vietnam Communist Party’s Politburo, joins the North Vietnamese negotiating team as a special counselor. The Paris peace talks had begun in March 1968, but had made little headway in ending the war. In August 1969, Tho and Henry Kissinger would begin meeting secretly in a villa outside Paris in an attempt to reach a peace settlement. It was these private talks that would ultimately result in the January 1973 Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Kissinger in 1973, Tho, aware that the North Vietnamese were still planning to conquer South Vietnam, declined the honor.