The joint award given to Lê Đức Thọ and Henry Kissinger prompted two dissenting Committee members to resign. Thọ refused to accept the prize, on the grounds that such "bourgeois sentimentalities" were not for him and that peace had not been achieved in Vietnam. Kissinger donated his prize money to charity, did not attend the award ceremony and later offered to return his prize medal after the fall of South Vietnam to North Vietnamese forces 18 months later.