In 1968 I began my life in diplomacy as an aide to Averell Harriman and Cyrus Vance, who were heading peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris. Thirty-four years later, I ended that career as the George W. Bush administration's first special envoy to Afghanistan, appointed weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Like Richard Holbrooke, my contemporary on the Paris delegation and my eventual successor as envoy to Afghanistan, I have been struck by parallels between the two wars and the two peace processes, the first of which ultimately ended in failure and the second of which is only now taking shape, the fruit of much effort by Holbrooke and his successor, Ambassador Marc Grossman.
A recent Post editorial ("Talking with the Taliban," Jan. 5) was right to note that the Taliban's preference for negotiating with Washington rather than with Kabul is similar to North Vietnam's preference for negotiating with the United States rather than with the government in Saigon. And we all know how that process ended, with the total withdrawal of U.S. forces, a North Vietnamese invasion, the collapse of South Vietnamese resistance and the disappearance of South Vietnam.