1973 in the Vietnam War Vietnamese parties wanted the kind of peace promised by the agreement" was the conclusion of one scholar. The last American combat troops left Vietnam as per the Paris Peace Accords. The U.S. military command in South Vietnam, MACV ceased to exist. Fewer than 250 U.S. military personnel remained in Vietnam assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon for advisory duties plus a few marines for protection of the Embassy. About 8,500 civilians working for the U.S. government remained in South South Vietnam. An official publication of North Vietnam summed up the pluses and minuses of the peace agreement. On the
1965 in the Vietnam War order and evaded pursuit by the ARVN. President Johnson halted the bombing of North Vietnam under Operation Rolling Thunder in an attempt to induce the North Vietnamese to negotiate a peace agreement. North Vietnam instead said the bombing halt was only "an effort to camouflage American intensification of the war." North Vietnam's leader Ho Chi Minh met with Chinese leader Mao Zedong in China. Ho said that North Vietnam would "take the main burden of the war by themselves" but requested additional Chinese economic and military support. Mao agreed and they set the ground rules for Chinese assistance: North Vietnamese