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In March 1972, North Vietnam launched a massive invasion of the south by sending 120,000 NVA troops, spearheaded by Soviet tanks, across the demilitarised zone. The offensive was aimed directly at the ARVN's main forces and focused on the cities of the Quang Tri province, Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc to the north of Saigon. At that time only 95,000 U.S. forces remained there, 6,000 of them combat troops, and the leadership of the DRV was aware that if Nixon sent American ground forces back to Vietnam, that would have grave domestic consequences. Moreover, the United States implemented a policy of détente through secret negotiations with China and the USSR and finally Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty at a summit conference in Moscow in May. Washington decided to strike back with Operation "Linebacker", which consisted of the mining of Haiphong harbour, a naval blockade of North Vietnam and intense bombing attacks in the Hanoi-Haiphong area, thereby cutting off North Vietnamese resupply of fuel and ammunition. The campaign of the summer of 1972 claimed a high casualty rate on both sides, (the North Vietnamese losing an estimated 100,000 men and the South Vietnamese 25,000), but it didn't change the military stalemate in Vietnam. Peace negotiations broke down in mid-December, and during the next twelve days the north was once again subjected to intensive U.S. bombing.
On January 27, 1973, the Paris talks eventually resulted in an agreement between North Vietnam, the South Vietnamese communist forces, the USA and South Vietnam. The peace accords included an immediate cease-fire, the cessation of all U.S. military activities against the DRV by ground, air or naval forces, the withdrawal of all American troops and military personnel as well as the dismantlement of U.S. military bases in South Vietnam within sixty days. In addition, the agreement planned to stop American invention into South Vietnam's internal affairs, to re-establish the military demarcation line at the 17th parallel as a provisional boundary until the reunification of the country by peaceful means and to return American prisoners of war.
Although the two chief negotiators Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for achieving a cease-fire agreement, the treaty should turn out not to be worth the paper it was printed on. North Vietnam still sought unification of the country on its terms whereas South Vietnam struggled to survive as an independent nation. The war in Vietnam continued without direct participation of the United States in its last phase. By the end of march, all U.S. troops had been withdrawn, (of which 58,000 had been killed during the war, more than 300,000 wounded and an indefinite number remained missing in action), but American naval power and air force remained in the Gulf of Tonkin and in Thailand and Guam as well as American economic and military aid for South Vietnam was maintained. In order to gain additional territory and to solidify his position in the south, Thieu resettled refugees and built forts in contentious areas, attacked North Vietnamese bases and supply lines and villages that were controlled by the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG, created by the NLF as an opposition to the Government of Viet-Nam). Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese adopted a wait-and-see policy, infiltrated troops and equipment into the south and extended their logistical network. When in late 1973 Thieu launched an offensive against enemy bases and PRG territories, the Politburo in Hanoi authorized NLF forces to engage in armed conflict. As Nixon's (whom the Watergate scandal forced to resign in August 1974) and Kissinger's arguments for support of the GVN did no longer pass a more and more reluctant Congress, the U.S. drastically cut its military aid in 1974, aggravating the political and economical crisis in South Vietnam. By the fall of that year, the military balance had shifted in favour of North Vietnam and the NLF. After a successful attack on Phuoc Binh (a provincial capital nearby Saigon) in December 1974, the Communists planned for a series of large-scale offensives during the next two years. Accordingly, combat forces commanded by North Vietnamese chief of staff General Van Tien Dung launched an offensive in the Central Highlands in March 1975, which would initiate the collapse of South Vietnam. After the rapid fall of Pleiku and Kontum, Thieu ordered a withdrawal from the highlands which resulted in the capture or destruction of large parts of the ARVN and the death of thousands of civilians. When the North Vietnamese forces advanced on Hue and Danang, the defending army disintegrated and, along with hundreds of thousands of civilians, created a stream of refugees towards Saigon. Gradually, the coastal cities were abandoned and, after Congress had rejected Gerald Ford's request for aid and at Xuan Loc, the only location where the ARVN was able to offer resistance, President Thieu resigned on April 21, 1975. The South Vietnamese government unconditionally surrendered on April 30 in Saigon, that afterwards was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. On July 2, 1976 the country was officially reunited as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
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