[VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. Sheaffer fountain pen set with wooden base and brass hardware including etched plaque. THE PEN THAT ENDED THE VIETNAM WAR. After years of negotiations and secret talks, on 27 January 1973, representatives of the South Vietnamese communist forces, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States gathered in Paris to sign the Paris Peace Accords, to officially end the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. The negotiations were facilitated by the government of France and led by Henry Kissinger, the U.S. National Security Advisor, and Le Duc Tho, a senior North Vietnamese official. The ceasefire took effect on January 28, 1973, and the last U.S. troops left Vietnam in March 1973. The Paris Peace Accords marked the formal end of U.S. involvement in the conflict and the beginning of the process to establish a political solution for Vietnam. However, the peace was short-lived, as fighting resumed between North and South Vietnam in 1974, eventually leading to the fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, in 1975 and the reunification of the country under communist control. William P. Rogers (1913-2001) served as the 55th United States Secretary of State from 1969 to 1973 under President Richard Nixon. During his tenure as Secretary of State, he played a key role in several important foreign policy matters. Notable among them was his involvement in the negotiations leading up to the Paris Peace Accords. On 15 October 1973, Rogers received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Nixon. Eric Caren notes that this item “represented the most tragic element of the 1960s, inspiring the collective rebellion on university campuses, and the combined rights for women and Blacks that led to the most positive changes in the most interesting decade. There is rare and there is unique, this pen is obviously both.” Provenance: Gifted to the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (Rogers passed the New York bar exam in 1937).