[3] Lê Đức Thọ became active in Vietnamese nationalism as a teenager and spent much of his adolescence in French colonial prisons, an experience that hardened him.

Xuân Thuỷ was the official head of the North Vietnamese delegation, but Thọ arrived in Paris in June 1968 to take effective control.

On Thọ's behalf, Kosygin sent President Lyndon B. Johnson a letter reading: "My colleagues and I believe and have grounds to believe that an end to the bombing [of North Vietnam] would lead to a breakthrough in the peace talks".

[9] On 26 June 1968, Thọ first met Cyrus Vance and Philip Habib of the American delegation at a "safe house" in the Paris suburb of Sceaux.

[13] Thọ was unhappy when Hanoi demanded that the National Liberation Front take part in the peace talks as the lead negotiating team above the North Vietnamese, which he knew would cause complications.

[17] On 4 August 1969, Kissinger had a secret meeting at the house of Jean Sainteny, a former French colonial official who served in Vietnam and was sympathetic towards Vietnamese nationalism.

[18] Thọ first met Kissinger in a secret meeting in a modest house in Paris on the night of 21 February 1970, marking the beginning of a test of wills that was to last three years.

Kissinger was later to say of Thọ: "I don't look back on our meetings with any great joy, yet he was a person of substance and discipline who defended the position he represented with dedication".

[22] By May 1971, Thọ started to change tactics in the talks, insisting that the main issue now was removing President Thiệu after the Americans departed.

[23] In July 1971, Kissinger taunted Thọ with the news that President Nixon would be visiting China soon to meet Mao Zedong, telling him that the days when the North Vietnamese could count of the supply of Chinese arms were coming to close.

[25] Thọ sent a message, saying if the bombing was resumed, it would be "a very serious step of escalation, aimed at stopping the collapse of the situation in South Vietnam and putting pressure on us".

The meeting was hostile, as the North Vietnamese had just taken Quang Tri City in South Vietnam, which led Nixon to tell Kissinger "No nonsense.

During the meeting, Thọ mentioned that Senator William Fulbright was criticizing the Nixon administration, leading Kissinger to say: "Our domestic discussions are no concern of yours".

Thọ told Kissinger that the timetable for Thiệu's departure was no longer an immediate concern, and instead he wanted some $8 billion in reparations for the war damage.

Kissinger no longer aimed at secrecy and was followed by paparazzi as he went to a house owned by the French Communist Party where Thọ was waiting for him.

Kissinger announced that the Americans wanted major changes to the peace agreement made in October to accommodate Thiệu, which led Thọ to accuse him of negotiating in bad faith.

Though Nixon had decided after all to accept the peace terms of 8 October, the bombings allowed him to portray himself as having forced North Vietnam to the table.

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.

Before Kissinger could say anymore, Thọ exploded in rage, saying in French: "Under the pretext of interrupted negotiations, you resumed the bombing of North Vietnam, just at the moment when I reached home.

Kissinger finally offered that the United States would use "maximum influence" to pressure the South Vietnamese government to release all Viet Cong prisoners within sixty days of a peace agreement being signed.

Due to continued ceasefire violations by all sides, Kissinger and Thọ met in Paris in May and June 1973 for the purpose of getting the implementation of the peace agreement back on track.

On 13 June 1973, the United States and North Vietnam signed a joint communique pledging mutual support for full implementation of the Paris Accords.

[46] However, Thọ declined to accept the award, claiming that peace had not yet been established, and that the United States and the South Vietnamese governments were in violation of the Paris Peace Accords: However, since the signing of the Paris agreement, the United States and the Saigon administration continue in grave violation of a number of key clauses of this agreement.

[47]In the interview by the UPI, Thọ also explained for his decision: Unfortunately, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee put the aggressor and the victim of aggression on the same par.

General Thai begged Thọ to let him go win glory on the battlefield, but he was unyielding, saying that turning the Ho Chi Minh Trail into a highway was more important.

In December 1974, the North Vietnamese launched an offensive in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam that proved more successful than expected and on 6 January 1975 took the provincial capital of Phước Long.

Le Duan, the secretary-general of the Vietnamese Workers' Party, decided to follow up this victory with an offensive to seize all of the Central Highlands and sent Thọ down to monitor operations.

[50] Following the Communist victory at the Battle of Ban Me Thuot which ended on 11 March 1975, Thọ approved the plans of the North Vietnamese commander, General Van Tien Dung, to take Pleiku and push further south.

[51] The principal problem for the North Vietnamese was that operations had to be completed before the monsoons arrived in June, giving them a very short period of two months to win the war in 1975.

[55] From 1978 to 1982 Lê Đức Thọ was named by Hanoi to act as chief advisor to the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation (FUNSK) and later to the nascent People's Republic of Kampuchea.