When Senator George Mitchell left Northern Ireland on Good Friday last he never thought he would end up spending a further 11 weeks here.
Indeed, he concluded his book, Making Peace, by describing his dream of returning to the North "in a few years" with his son, Andrew, to roam the beautiful countryside and pay a discreet visit to the Stormont Assembly where he could watch from the visitors' gallery.
The fates - and two prime ministers at the end of their tether - decreed otherwise. This time he was a rather more commanding presence. With commendable frankness, his book describes how London and Dublin persuaded him not to disclose that a whole section of the so-called Mitchell Draft, which became the Belfast Agreement, was in fact written by the two governments.
But this time, while London and Dublin continued to have a very major input, there was a feeling that the senator was exercising greater control, directing proceedings rather than responding to prompts from the governments.
His own deepening experience contributed to this, but there was also the fact that the trick of bringing in the two prime ministers, which worked so well on Good Friday, began to lose its lustre at Hillsborough. It finally ceased to have any value last July when what Tony Blair called a "seismic shift" by republicans failed to move the UUP.
Historians may decide that the spin-doctoring which tended to accompany all prime ministerial visits ultimately damaged the process. On Good Friday rosy reports of progress may have helped to push the unionists towards a deal, but at Hillsborough and last July there was a sense that this time the republicans were getting the spin-treatment.
The hardened veterans of Castlereagh detention centre do not wilt easily, and any attempt to stampede them into a position they do not want to take can be highly counterproductive.
Having seen the back of Castle Buildings, hopefully for the last time, many politicians and journalists would like to believe that the end of the decommissioning issue is in sight. There can rarely have been a more dismal cloud cast over political activity than this controversy which could still sink the peace process and hopes of a brighter future.
The international media, in particular, have come under the decommissioning spell. Unversed in the complexities of Irish history in general and republicanism in particular, they cannot see the problem in handing over a few pistols and maybe a wee bit of Semtex. Look at the political gains for Sinn Fein if it would only decide to do the decent thing at last.
It's not quite that easy or simple. The need to retain weapons to defend the nationalist population against possible loyalist pogroms is what anthropologists might call a "foundation myth" of the Provisional IRA.
No working-class nationalist has forgotten 1969, and the story of how the leadership of the republican movement went overboard on politics and left the Catholics defenceless is passed on from generation to generation. While this has been challenged, it still retains tremendous potency.
A way round the problem seemed to have been found at Hillsborough with the clever notion of a Day of Reconciliation, with paramilitary and security force weapons being converted into a peace sculpture as part of a general North-South outpouring of grief, remembrance and friendship.
But unionists balked at the idea of RUC and British army guns being regarded as the equivalent of paramilitary weapons, and the IRA firmly rejected an idea which was not entirely without attractions for the political side of republicanism.
BY THE end of this month, if the Ulster Unionist Council approves the deal, we will have a shadow executive that will quickly become a regional government with devolved powers.
Parallel with this, the North/South ministerial council is expected to hold its first meeting, and there will also be an inaugural meeting of the British-Irish council. The IRA interlocutor to the decommissioning body will also be appointed.
A new context and atmosphere will be created. For the first time, republicans and unionists will be working together in government.
Decommissioning will be greatly diminished against the background of historic change. Today's impasse could become tomorrow's distraction.