Editing Operation Linebacker II (section)

==Aftermath==
===Negotiating===
On 22 December, Washington asked Hanoi to return to the talks with the terms offered in October.<ref>Vo Nguyen Giap, ''Tong hanh dinh trong mua xuan toan thang'', Chap. 1</ref>  On 26 December, Hanoi notified Washington that it was willing to "impress upon Nixon that the bombing was not the reason for this decision, the CPV Politburo told Nixon that halting the bombing was not a precondition for further talks".{{Sfn|Asselin|2002|p=150}} Nixon replied that he wanted the technical discussions to resume on 2 January and that he would halt the bombing if Hanoi agreed. They did so and Nixon suspended aerial operations north of the 20th parallel on 30 December. He then informed Kissinger to agree to the terms offered in October, if that was what it took to get the agreement signed.<ref>Lipsman & Weiss, p. 29.</ref> Senator [[Henry M. Jackson|Henry Jackson]] (D, [[Washington (state)|Wash.]]), tried to persuade Nixon to make a televised address to explain to the American people that "we bombed them in order to get them back to the table."<ref name= "Ambrose, p. 411">Ambrose, p. 411.</ref> It would have been extremely difficult to get informed observers in the U.S. to believe that he "had bombed Hanoi in order to force North Vietnamese acceptance of terms they had already agreed to".<ref name="Ambrose, p. 411"/>

Now the only stumbling block on the road to an agreement was President Thieu. Nixon tried to placate him by writing on 5 January that "you have my assurance of continued assistance in the post-settlement period and that we will respond with full force should the settlement be violated by North Vietnam."<ref>Lipsman & Weiss, p. 28.</ref><ref>Karnow, p. 654.</ref> By this time,  due to congressional opposition, Nixon was in no position to make such a promise, since the possibility of obtaining the requisite congressional appropriations was nil.<ref>Ambrose, p. 406.</ref> The South Vietnamese president still refused to agree. On 14 January Nixon made his most serious threat: "I have therefore irrevocably decided to proceed to initial the agreement on 23 January 1973...  I will do so, if necessary, alone".<ref>Ambrose, p. 413.</ref><ref>Lipsman & Weiss, p. 32.</ref>

On 9 January, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho returned to Paris. The agreement struck between the U.S. and North Vietnam was basically the same one that had been reached in October. The additional demands that had been made by the U.S. in December were generally discarded or went against the U.S. [[John Negroponte]], one of Kissinger's aides during the negotiations, was more caustic: "[w]e bombed the North Vietnamese into accepting our concessions."<ref>Ambrose, p. 413</ref> The DMZ was defined as provided for in the [[Geneva Accords (1954)|Geneva Accords of 1954]], and would in no way be recognized as an international boundary. The demanded withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam was not mentioned at all in the text of the agreement.  Kissinger did obtain a "verbal agreement" from Tho for a token withdrawal of 30,000 North Vietnamese troops.<ref>Lipsman & Weiss, pp. 29–30.</ref>

The demand for an inclusive, Indochina-wide cease-fire was simply discarded in the written agreement. Once again, Kissinger had to be satisfied with a "verbal understanding" that a cease-fire would be instituted in Laos simultaneous with or shortly following that in South Vietnam.<ref>Lipsman & Weiss, p. 30.</ref> An agreement on Cambodia (where the North Vietnamese had no influence over the [[Khmer Rouge]]) was out of the question. The size of the ICCS was finally decided by splitting the difference in the number demanded by both parties at 1,160 personnel.<ref>Lipsman & Weiss, pp. 22, 30.</ref> The [[Paris Peace Accords]] were signed at the [[Hotel Majestic (Paris)|Majestic Hotel]] in Paris on 27 January 1973.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40A13F83C5F10738DDDA10A94D9405B838BF1D3 |title = Vietnam Peace Pacts Signed; America's Longest War Halts, Built on Compromises |work=The New York Times |first = Flora |last = Lewis |date = 28 January 1973}}</ref>

===Outcome and assessments===
==== Military ====
[[File:Hồ Hữu Tiệp.jpg|upright=1.5|thumb|B-52 wreckage left as a historical attraction in Hanoi as of 2022]]
During Operation Linebacker II, 741 B-52 sorties were dispatched to bomb North Vietnam; 729 completed their missions.<ref name ="Tilford, p. 263">Tilford, p. 263.</ref> B-52s dropped 15,237 tons of ordnance on 18 industrial and 14 military targets (including eight SAM sites) while fighter-bombers added another 5,000 tons of bombs to the tally.<ref name="Tilford, p. 263" /> Another 212 B-52 missions were flown within South Vietnam in support of ground operations during the campaign.<ref>Bernard C. Nalty, ''Air War Over South Vietnam''. Washington DC: Center of Air Force History, 1995, p. 178.</ref> Ten B-52s were shot down over the North and five others were damaged and crashed in Laos or Thailand. Thirty-three B-52 crew members were killed or missing in action, another 33 became prisoners of war, and 26 more were rescued.<ref>McCarthy & Allison, p. 173.</ref>

Over 11 days, North Vietnamese air defenses fired 266 SA-2 missiles downing—according to North Vietnam—34 B-52s and four F-111s.<ref name="Zaloga, Steven J 2007"/><ref name= "Pribbenow327" /> While warding off the massive strike by U.S strategic, tactical and carrier aviation, the North Vietnamese missile air defense forces conducted over 180 engagements, two-thirds of which were against B-52s. North Vietnamese claims of aircraft destroyed or shot down differ greatly from US official records. In Marshall Michel's 2002 book ''The 11 Days of Christmas: America's Last Vietnam Battle'', the author uses mission records to confirm that "15 B-52s were shot down... 10 crashed 'on the spot' in North Vietnam and 5 were able to move out of the Hanoi area and into Laos or Thailand before they crashed".<ref name= Michel239>Michel, p. 239</ref> North Vietnam claimed 36 aircraft destroyed (31 B-52s and 5 tactical aircraft) with the expenditure of 244 missiles against the B-52s and 22 missiles against tactical aircraft, or 7.9 missiles for every B-52 aircraft shot down, or 4.4 missiles for every tactical aircraft shot down. During the offensive, they initially overcame various types of interference and obstacles employed by the U.S aircraft to interrupt missile engagement.{{Sfn|Drenkowski|Grau|2007|pp=17, 19}} In the latter stages of the bombing campaign, due to a change in tactics, B-52 losses decreased significantly. By the last night of the campaign, no losses were reported. During the 11 days of Operation Linebacker, the B-52s flew 795 sorties with a loss rate of 2.63 percent (15 were shot down and five others were heavily damaged)<ref name=Michel239/>

The Air Force flew 769 sorties and 505 were flown by the Navy and Marine Corps in support of the bombers.<ref name="Tilford, p. 263" /> Twelve of these aircraft were lost on the missions (two F-111s, three F-4s, two [[A-7 Corsair II|A-7]]s, two [[A-6 Intruder|A-6]]s, an EB-66, an HH-53 rescue helicopter and an [[A-5 Vigilante|RA-5C]] reconnaissance aircraft).<ref name= "Boyne, Linebacker II" /> During these operations, ten American aviators were killed, eight captured and 11 rescued.<ref>Nalty, p. 182.</ref> US Air Force losses included fifteen B-52s, two F-4s, two F-111s, one EB-66 and one HH-53 search-and-rescue helicopter. Navy losses included two A-7s, two A-6s, one RA-5 and one F-4. Seventeen of these losses were attributed to SA-2 missiles, three to daytime MiG attacks, three to antiaircraft artillery and four to unknown causes. U.S. forces claimed eight MiGs were shot down during the operation, including two by B-52 tail gunners.<ref name="McCarthy p. 139">McCarthy 2009, p. 139.</ref><ref name="McCarthy p. 19">McCarthy 2009, p. 19.</ref> The two B-52 tail gunner kills were not confirmed by VPAF, and they admitted to the loss of only three MiGs.<ref>Toperczer #29 2001.</ref>

According to [[Dana Drenkowski]] and [[Lester W. Grau]], the number of aircraft lost by the USAF is unconfirmed since the USAF figures are also suspect.  If a plane was badly damaged but managed to land, the USAF did not count as a loss, even if it was a write-off. During the operation, the USAF told the press that 17 B-52s were lost but later, the USAF told Congress that only 13 B-52s were lost. Nine B-52s that returned to U-Tapao airfield were too badly damaged to fly again. The number of B-52s that managed to return to Guam but were combat losses remains unknown. The overall B-52 loss is probably between 22 and 27.{{Sfn|Drenkowski|Grau|2007|p=3}}

During this operation, the VPAF launched 31 air sorties of which 27 were flown by MiG-21s and four were flown by MiG-17s. They conducted eight aerial engagements and claimed two B-52s, four F-4s and one RA-5C shot down. Their losses were three MiG-21s.<ref name= "Predictability p. 26"/> Two B-52s were claimed by North Vietnamese MiG-21 fighter pilots; both incidents were attributed to SAMs by the U.S.<ref name= "Thompson">Thompson, pp. 255–6</ref> The raids inflicted severe damage to North Vietnam's infrastructure. The Air Force estimated the bombs caused 500 rail interdictions, destroyed 372 pieces of rolling stock and {{convert|3|e6usgal|m3|order=flip|abbr=off|sp=us}} of petroleum products and eliminated 80 percent of North Vietnam's electrical power production capability. Logistical imports into North Vietnam, assessed by U.S. intelligence at 160,000 tons per month when the operation began, had dropped by January 1973, to 30,000 tons per month.<ref>McCarthy & Allison, p. 171.</ref> [[Lê Duẩn]] later admitted that the bombing "completely obliterated our economic foundation."{{sfn|Asselin|2002|p=180}} Despite the damage, an enormous effort was made to keep transportation networks open. Some 500,000 workers were mobilized to repair bomb damage as needed, with an additional 100,000 constantly at work.<ref name="Jon M. Van Dyke 1992 pp. 22">Jon M. Van Dyke, North Vietnam's Strategy For Survival, (Pacific Books: 1992), pp. 22–126</ref> The raids did not break the stalemate in the South, nor halt the flow of supplies down the [[Ho Chi Minh trail]].<ref name="Lanning and Cragg, op. cit">Lanning and Cragg, op. cit</ref>

===Casualties===
[[File:Khâm Thiên Memorial.jpg|thumb|Khâm Thiên Memorial]]
According to official North Vietnamese sources the bombing campaign killed 1,624 civilians, including 306 in Haiphong and 1,328 in Hanoi.<ref name= "morocco" />  The book "Hanoi – The aerial Dien Bien Phu" from the "People's Army Publishing House" gives a death toll of 2,368 civilians killed and 1,355 others injured. The book states that many neighborhoods and villages were destroyed, 5,480 houses and nearly 100 other buildings including factories, schools, hospitals, and stations were destroyed.<ref name= "nmt">{{cite book |last=Nguyen |first=Minh Tam |year=2008 |title= Dien Bien covered the air |publisher=People's Army Publishing House | place = Hanoi |pages=156–57}}</ref> By 20 December 1972, there were 215 dead and 325 injured in Hanoi. In [[Haiphong|Hai Phong]] alone on 18 December, 45 people were killed, 131 people were injured. [[Đống Đa|Kham Thien Street]], Hanoi was attacked on the night of 26 December 1972, killing 278 people, including 91 women, 40 old people, and 55 children. 178 children were orphaned in Kham Thien Street and 290 people were injured, 2,000 houses, schools, temples, theaters, and clinics collapsed, of which 534 houses were completely destroyed.<ref name="nmt"/>

House 51 on Kham Thien Street was completely blown into a crater and the seven people living there were killed. This area has been converted into a memorial with a stele bearing the words "Khâm Thiên deeply holds the hatred of the American enemy" and a bronze statue of a woman holding a child who died from an American bomb was based on the owner of the destroyed house. On the anniversary of the bombing each year, people living on the street and other places come to the memorial to burn incense sticks to commemorate those who died from American airstrikes. In the courtyard of Bạch Mai Hospital, there is a stele bearing the word "Hatred" to remember the bombing of the hospital on 22 December, which killed 1 patient and 30 nurses and doctors. At the time of the bombing, most doctors and patients had already been evacuated. Each department had only a few people on duty and approximately 300 patients had taken cover in the basement.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://laodong.com.vn/Xa-hoi/4-ngay-dao-boi-cuu-nguoi-o-Benh-vien-Bach-Mai/96056.bld |title = 4 days of digging for people at Bach Mai Hospital |work=Lao Dong |first = Nguyen| last = Thi Cuc |date = 19 December 2012}}</ref>

==== Diplomatic ====
The North Vietnamese government reported that the U.S. had "carpet-bombed hospitals, schools, and residential areas, committing barbarous crimes against our people", citing the bombing of Bach Mai Hospital on 22 December and Kham Thien street on 26 December which they claimed had killed 278, wounded 290 and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://chamsocsuckhoe.org/TuDien/ChiTietBenhVien/tabid/138/IDHospital/1277/ |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120327165141/http://chamsocsuckhoe.org/TuDien/ChiTietBenhVien/tabid/138/IDHospital/1277/ |title=Bệnh viện Bạch Mai|work= Chi tiệnh viện |archive-date=27 March 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |page= A1 |title=Newsmen in Hanoi Visit Street of Ruins |newspaper= [[The New York Times]] |publication-place= [[New York City]] |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/29/archives/newsmen-in-hanoi-visit-street-of-ruins-newsmen-shown-street-of.html |volume= CXXI |issue=261 |last= Leclerc du Sablon |first= Jean |agency= France-Presse |date=29 December 1972 |oclc= 1645522 |issn= 0362-4331 |access-date=6 June 2021 |department=Main section |editor1-first= Dean |editor1-last=Baquet |editor2-first=Meghan |editor2-last=Louttit |editor3-first=Philip |editor3-last=Corbett |editor4-first= Lian |editor4-last= Chang |editor5-first=Monica |editor5-last=Drake |editor6-first=Joseph |editor6-last=Kahn |editor7-first=Kathleen |editor7-last=Kingsbury |editor8-first=A.G. |editor8-last=Sulzberger |editor9-first=Meredith Kopit |editor9-last=Levien |editor10-first=Roland A. |editor10-last=Caputo |editor11-first=William |editor11-last=Bardeen |editor12-first=Stephen |editor12-last=Dunbar-Johnson |editor13-first=Diane |editor13-last=Brayton}}</ref>

Both the Soviet Union and China denounced the bombing, while some Western countries also criticized the US operation. In a famous speech, [[Olof Palme]], the [[Prime Minister of Sweden]], compared the bombings to a number of historical crimes including the [[bombing of Guernica]], the massacres of [[Oradour-sur-Glane massacre|Oradour-sur-glane]], [[Babi Yar]], [[Katyn massacre|Katyn]], [[Lidice massacre|Lidice]] and [[Sharpeville massacre|Sharpeville]] and the extermination of Jews and other groups at [[Treblinka]]. He said that "now another name can be added to this list: Hanoi, Christmas 1972". In response to his protests, the U.S. withdrew their ambassador from Sweden and told Stockholm not to send a new ambassador to Washington.<ref>Alexander Stephan (ed), Dag Blanck, The Americanization of Europe, "[https://books.google.com/books?id=sgCqwXmGxNYC&pg=PA105 Cold War Alliances and the Emergence of Transatlantic Competition: An Introduction]", Berghan Books 2006.</ref><ref>Andersson, Stellan. "Olof Palme och Vietnamfrågan 1965–1983" (in Swedish).  Olof Palme org. Retrieved 27 February 2008.</ref>

The new [[Prime Minister of Australia]], [[Gough Whitlam]], whose country had pushed America to expand the war, angered the Nixon administration by criticizing the bombings in a letter to the U.S. President, chilling [[United States–Australia relations]] until Whitlam's [[1975 Australian constitutional crisis|dismissal in 1975]].<ref>{{cite news|last= Curran|first=James|date=1 August 2012|title=Whitlam v Nixon|url= http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/whitlam-v-nixon/story-e6frg6z6-1226439818865 |newspaper=The Australian|publisher= News Ltd|location= Canberra|issn=1038-8761}}</ref> In the U.S., Nixon was criticized as a "madman", and some of the people who supported [[Operation Linebacker I]],{{Who|date=July 2011}} questioned the necessity and unusual intensity of Operation Linebacker II.<ref>George Herring, pp. 248–49</ref> Newspaper headlines included: ''"Genocide"'', ''"Stone-Age Barbarism"'' and ''"Savage and Senseless"''.<ref name= "sparta">{{cite web|url= http://spartacus-educational.com/VNgiap.htm|title=Vo Nguyen Giap | first =John | last = Simkin|work= Spartacus Educational|access-date= 27 December 2015}}</ref> The USAF Strategic Air Command (SAC) made some serious mistakes, suffered serious losses and their campaign came close to failure, yet after the war they launched a massive media and public relations blitz (and internal witch hunt) to prove that Linebacker II was an unqualified success that unfolded as planned.{{Sfn|Drenkowski|Grau|2007|pp=1}}  US officials claimed that the operation had succeeded in forcing North Vietnam's Politburo to return to negotiating, citing the Paris Peace Accords signed shortly after the operation. Much of the American public had the impression that North Vietnam had been "bombed into submission".<ref name= "sparta" />

In Paris, the North Vietnamese refused to change the terms they had agreed to in the October 1972 agreement. When South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu objected to the terms, Nixon threatened to depose him like [[Ngo Dinh Diem]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/vietnam/2009/06/090624_nixon_tapes_vn.shtml |title= Việt Nam - Nixon ép Sài Gòn ký hòa đàm 1973| publisher = BBC |date=24 June 2009|access-date= 27 December 2015}}</ref> In January 1973, the U.S. signed the agreement as the Paris Peace Accords. The main effect of the accord was to usher the United States out of the war.<ref name= "vw-pbs">{{Cite episode|title= 9: A Disrespectful Loyalty (May 1970 – March 1973)|url= http://www.pbs.org/video/a-disrespectful-loyalty-may-1970-march-1973-l5oqkl/ |access-date= 26 October 2017|series=The Vietnam War|network= PBS|date= September 2017|time= 1:40:00}}</ref> Journalist Bob Woodward later wrote that Richard Nixon thought, prior to Operation Linebacker II, that previous bombing campaigns against North Vietnam had achieved "zilch". Woodward wrote that in early 1972 Nixon wrote a note to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, which said there was "something wrong" with the way the strategy was being carried out.  Other notes, written at the same time, show that Nixon was frustrated with the resistance of the North Vietnamese and wanted to punish them, in an effort to "go for broke".<ref>{{cite news |date=11 October 2015 |title=Secret archive offers fresh insight into Nixon presidency |first=David E. |last=Hoffman |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210202050226/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/11/secret-archive-offers-fresh-insight-into-nixon-presidency |archive-date=2 February 2021 |publisher= WP Co. (Nash Holdings) |issn=0190-8286 |oclc= 2269358 |publication-place=Washington, DC |editor1-first=Sally |editor1-last= Buzbee |editor2-first=Cameron |editor2-last= Carr |editor3-first= Kat Downs |editor3-last=Mulder |editor4-first=Scott |editor4-last= Vance |editor5-first= Barb |editor5-last= Vobejda |editor6-first=Steve |editor6-last= Ginsberg |editor7-first= Lori |editor7-last= Montgomery |editor8-first= Douglas |editor8-last=Jehl |editor9-first= Eva |editor9-last= Rodriguez |editor10-first=Greg |editor10-last=Manifold |editor11-first=Brian |editor11-last=Gross |editor12-first=Kenisha |editor12-last=Malcolm |editor13-first=Emily |editor13-last=Tsao |editor14-first= Mike |editor14-last=Semel |editor15-first=Monica |editor15-last=Norton |editor16-first=Jesse |editor16-last=Lewis |editor17-first=Courtney |editor17-last=Rukan |editor18-first=Greg |editor18-last=Barber |editor19-first=Charity |editor19-last=Brown |editor20-first=Jillian |editor20-last=Jarrett |editor21-first=Fred |editor21-last=Ryan |editor22-first=Elite |editor22-last=Truong |access-date= 6 June 2021 |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/11/secret-archive-offers-fresh-insight-into-nixon-presidency}}</ref>  Some historians believed that Hanoi was not in need of any settlement, and only agreed to do so to get the United States out of Vietnam. The historian [[Gareth Porter]] wrote that Hanoi's objective was an agreement on the October terms, and that "the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong forced Nixon and Kissinger to accept the terms they had earlier rejected." However, according to Pierre Asselin, had the bombing been a failure, as Hanoi said it was, the North Vietnamese leadership would never have agreed to Nixon's request to talk. Hanoi agreed to resume talks only because the bombing had crippled their country.  Additionally, the bombing paved the way for the finalization of an agreement, thus ending American intervention on terms acceptable to the Nixon administration.{{sfn|Asselin|2002|pp=164–166}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Karl J. Eschmann |url= |title=Linebacker |date=1989 |publisher=Ivy Books |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8041-0374-9 |pages=213–214}}</ref> Nevertheless, the terms were also favorable to North Vietnam.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=John T. |url= |title=The Linebacker raids : the bombing of North Vietnam, 1972 |date=2000 |publisher=London : Cassell |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-304-35295-1 |pages=173–174}}</ref> American historian A.J. Langguth wrote the Christmas bombings were "pointless" as the final peace agreement of 23 January 1973 was essentially the same as that of 8 October 1972 as Thọ refused to make any substantial concessions.<ref>Langguth, A.J. ''Our Vietnam: The War 1954–1975'', New York: Simon and Schuster 2000 p. 626</ref> John Negroponte, in the 2017 documentary ''[[The Vietnam War (TV series)|The Vietnam War]]'', was disdainful of the attack's value, stating "[w]e bombed them into accepting our concessions."<ref name= "vw-pbs" />