CNN.com EXCLUSIVE:
HIGH-WIRE DIPLOMACY
VIDEO
Meet Giandomenico Picco, a UN diplomat who negotiated an end to two wars with the force of his decency and the strength of the UN. But little could prepare Picco for the danger he would face in resolving the Lebanon hostage crisis.
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QUESTIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
VIDEO
Giandomenico Picco talks about his life as a swashbuckling diplomat and his memoir "Man Without a Gun."
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LIFE-OR-DEATH DECISION
VIDEO
Giandomenico Picco's life was filled with life-or-death decisions, high-wire diplomacy and secret negotiations that led to the release of the Leganon hostage crisis. Here's more about his story and his recent book.
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July 23, 1999
Web posted at: 5:18 p.m. EDT (2118 GMT)

(CNN) -- For Giandomenico Picco, a trip to Tehran in 1992 was filled with trepidation. For months the respected Italian diplomat, credited with negotiating an end to wars in Afghanistan and between Iran and Iraq, had worked to resolve the Lebanese hostage crisis.

As he tells it, he did so because U.S. President George Bush gave Iran a signal in his inaugural speech that the United States would become involved in winning the prisoners' release, declaring that "good will begets good will."

In his new memoir, titled "Man Without a Gun," Picco says, "Those code words soon became the basis of everything I did until the last hostage was released. It was a public promise by leader of the West's most powerful nation.... Yet, in the end, the promise was not kept. With the last of the American hostages finally freed by the end of 1992, the Bush administration told a stunned Picco there would be, after all, no reciprocal dealings with Tehran -- not even a tacit gesture of U.S. acquiescence to a European sale of spare parts."

And Picco was now returning to Tehran to face the music. He had lied to the Tehran leaders -- unwittingly, yes -- but lied nonetheless. What would their response be?

"Man Without a Gun" is the true story of Picco's high-wire struggle for peace in the Middle East. As the chief U.N. hostage negotiator, Picco often had to make split-second, life-or-death decisions based on the promise of a masked informant or an anonymous official. Yet on the strength of his own word, he managed to forge an unlikely coalition among Iran, Syria, Israel and the Lebanese groups to win the release of the captives.

Picco recently appeared on the CNN International show "Q&A" to discuss his book and to share details about his years of diplomatic service with the United Nations.

Read an excerpt from "Man Without a Gun."

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