"Peace with Honor" was a phrase U.S. President Richard Nixon used in a speech on January 23, 1973 to describe the Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam War. The phrase is a variation on a campaign promise Nixon made in 1968: "I pledge to you that we shall have an honorable end to the war in Vietnam."[1] The Accords specified that a ceasefire would take place four days later. According to the plan, within sixty days of the ceasefire, the North Vietnamese would release all U.S. prisoners, and all U.S. troops would withdraw from South Vietnam. On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. soldier left Vietnam. On 30 April 1975, Saigon was taken by North Vietnamese troops.[2]
Closely connected with the phrase is the idea that Nixon claimed in 1968 to have a secret plan to end the war. Nixon never made such a claim during his campaign, but neither did he explain how he would achieve peace. Therefore the assumption that he had a secret plan became a widespread belief and is commonly misattributed as a direct quote.[3]
49 BC, Cicero: "Until we know whether we are to have peace without honour or war with its calamities, I have thought it best to for them to stay at my house in Formiae and the boys and girls too."[4]
1607, William Shakespeare: "That it shall hold companionship in peace/With honour, as in war."[6]
1775, Edmund Burke: "The superior power may offer peace with honor and with safety… But the concessions of the weak are concessions of fear."[7]
1878, Benjamin Disraeli: "Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace—but a peace I hope with honour, which may satisfy our sovereign and tend to the welfare of our country."[8] Said upon returning from the Congress of Berlin. Wags paraphrased this as "Peace with honour — and Cyprus too."
1916, Wilson Business Men's League: "Wilson and peace with honor or Hughes with Roosevelt and War?" Part of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's reelection campaign.[9]
1938, Neville Chamberlain: "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is 'peace for our time.' Go home and get a nice quiet sleep." Said upon returning from the Munich Conference.[10]
1938, Winston Churchill criticizing Chamberlain's appeasement with Hitler, commented: "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war."[11]
1939, Józef Beck speaking in Sejm on 5th of May 1939 in response to Hitler's demands for annexating Free City of Danzig to the Third Reich: "We in Poland do not know the meaning of a peace at every price. There is only one thing in the life of people, nations and states that is priceless. That thing is the honour."[12]
