Small talk eased the awkwardness of the historic first encounter between Robert McNamara, who helped send U.S. troops to Vietnam, and retired Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, who plotted their eventual defeat.
Smiling broadly amidst the flash and whir of cameras, Giap told McNamara that he'd heard about him long ago, and said he looked fit."I went out for a jog this morning," said McNamara.
"I also do that, but very gentle," replied the 84-year-old Giap, still erect in full uniform, soft-spoken and composed in contrast with McNamara's booming voice and air of excitement.
Twenty years have passed since the guns fell silent, leaving more than 3 million dead. The two governments established diplomatic relations in August and many U.S. veterans have returned and met with Giap.
But McNamara was a man of infamy, the target of Viet Cong assassins, who justified the war while deaths mounted but now with the hindsight of his 79 years declared it all a tragic error. For Vietnamese, his visit last week was special.
Although he did not offer any apology, he was the highest-level U.S. official from the war era to come back and shake hands, and his hosts responded warmly.
McNamara, who encountered more overt anger when touring the United States to promote his memoirs, said his overwhelming feeling was gratitude. "I've been greeted with cordiality, not hostility," he said.
But Vietnam too has political debates. Vietnamese language papers said little about McNamara's visit, perhaps because party leaders could not decide how to explain it to their veterans who feel overlooked in the new drive for economic development.
Vietnamese photographers and cameramen recorded the McNamara-Giap handshake, and were so riveted by the meeting that they ignored repeated efforts by army officers and Foreign Ministry officials to usher them out.
But nothing appeared about the meeting in the newspapers or on television, and ordinary people were unaware of McNamara's presence. No one recognized him on his morning jogs by a city lake, past a former bomb shelter.
"Morning," he called to a middle-aged woman playing badminton, whose shuttlecock landed at his feet. She waved her racket in reply.
Many Americans of the war generation visiting Hanoi make a reflective pilgrimage to the hospital damaged by a U.S. bomb, the war museum with its twisted heap of metal from downed U.S. warplanes, and the "Hanoi Hilton" prison where U.S. servicemen were held and tortured.
McNamara stuck to his agenda of promoting a bilateral conference to exchange information about war strategy and learn why early peace initiatives failed. He talked of "this horrible slaughter," but showed no emotion.
"We all make mistakes in life and I'm not trying to atone for mine," he said when quizzed about his motives.
Jayne Werner, a Vietnam scholar at Long Island University who visited Hanoi as an anti-war protester in 1972, said Vietnamese felt McNamara's coming was an adequate gesture of apology.
Werner, now on sabbatical in Hanoi, said they compared him favorably to their previous foes, the French, saying that none of them came back to acknowledge past mistakes.
"They don't have the same view of the war that we do," she added. "We still haven't worked out . . . what we feel about the war." As winners, the Vietnamese were able to put the war behind them.
"Their current big war as it were is their struggle for economic development and survival," she said.
Giap and government officials said McNamara's proposal for a war conference is a good idea. But it may take them some time to decide whether to accept.
The U.S. organizers, the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, want participants to bring archival material to support their memories of events. Most archival material in Vietnam is sealed.
And while there are many American versions of the war, the Vietnamese allow little variation from the official story. It is not clear if they will be willing to acknowledge fumbled diplomacy and failed tactics on their side.
Assistant Foreign Minister Dao Huy Ngoc said many meetings lie ahead.
"If the preparations go well we will have this conference," he said. "I tell you that it is a good idea to . . . draw from the war necessary lessons for our future generations."