At a 1997 dinner hosted by the Israeli ambassador to Hanoi, two of the guests felt an attraction utterly unrelated to the demands of diplomacy. They stayed by each other's side all that evening and were married the following year—an unremarkable though delightful scenario but for the identities of the couple involved. He is Douglas "Pete" Peterson, 64, a former Vietnam POW who in 1997 became the first U.S. ambassador to Vietnam since the fall of Saigon 25 years ago. And she is Vi Le Peterson, 43, a Vietnam native who left her homeland before she was a year old and lived in Laos, Thailand and Australia before returning to Vietnam in 1993 as an international banker.

Together, they are one of the most recognizable couples in the capital city of Hanoi, and the resonances of their marriage go far beyond the walls of the beautifully restored four-story French villa that serves as the ambassador's residence. "It has been poetry that the two of them are together," says Virginia Foote, president of the U.S.-Vietnam Trade Council. "Pete's experience in Vietnam initially was among the worst in his life, and now he has found something quite wonderful there."

The couple's surprise courtship thrilled their friends and captured the imagination of the Vietnamese people. Whether hosting diplomatic soirees or visiting rural villages to forge ties with the Communist government, the Petersons have become a popular team. "The two of us are sort of the epitome of the renewal of the international relationship," says Peterson. "It helps give people a new look at what's happening in Vietnam."

Neither Peterson nor Vi expected to find love after their different paths led them back to Vietnam. Though Vi's merchant father, Vinh Mau Le, and her mother, Frances, were originally from Hanoi, they fled south to Saigon in 1954, when the Communists defeated the French in the colonial war that preceded the Vietnam War. Three years later the family moved to Vientiane, Laos, and later to Bangkok, where they established a chain of bakeries. In 1977 they settled in Australia, where Vi's parents retired. Vi, by all accounts, inherited her parents' drive. "She was a very high achiever," says her younger sister Natalie, a pharmacist in Melbourne. (Vi also has two older siblings, sister Christine and brother Khai.) "She got into Melbourne University, which is very competitive."

After earning her bachelor's degree in economics in 1981 and a graduate diploma in corporate finance three years later, Vi joined the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. In 1993 she returned to Vietnam to set up the bank's "operations there, and three years later the Australian government appointed her its trade representative to Vietnam.

Peterson's upbringing was more prosaic. The ninth of ten children of an Omaha postal worker and his wife, he moved with his family first to Missouri and then on to Iowa. In 1954 he dropped out of Iowa Wesleyan College to join the Air Force, completing his degree in the service many years later. In 1956, Peterson met and married flight dispatcher Carlotta Neal, mother of their son Michael, now 42, and daughter Paula, 41. In 1966, Carlotta was eight months pregnant with their son Douglas when Peterson, by then a jet pilot, was sent to Vietnam. He had racked up 66 bombing missions when, on Sept. 10, 1966, his F-4 Phantom was shot down over North Vietnam. He spent the next 6½ years in Hoa Lo prison, known as the Hanoi Hilton, where Sen. John McCain was also held for a time. There Peterson was subjected to frequent interrogation and torture. Freed in 1973, he has shown an extraordinary ability to put the past behind him and rarely speaks of his imprisonment. "Being a POW is not my thing," he said in 1997. "I finished with that when I came home."

But fate was not finished with him. In 1983, two years after the family had moved to Tampa, where Peterson ran a construction business, Douglas, the son he hadn't seen until the boy was 7, was killed in a car crash. Then, in 1995, five years after Peterson was elected to Congress from Florida, Carlotta died of breast cancer. The loss of his son, says Peterson, "virtually paralyzed me." And his wife's death, he says, "caused a similar sense of despair and emptiness." When offered the ambassadorship two years later, he saw it as a chance to mend himself—and help two nations heal as well. "I think maybe I can be the bridge," he said of the job in '97, "the catalyst to make [reconciliation] work."

Making the relationship with Vi work was far easier. When they met at the Israeli ambassador's, there was no doubting the magnetism. "It was a buffet, and we made sure we sat together," she says. "It felt so natural. There were no problems that you have in other relationships. We felt that, yes, this was the way it was meant to be." A month later the pair began dating. They have been virtually inseparable ever since.

In May 1998, after negotiating a mile or two of the governmental red tape that foreigners marrying in Vietnam must untangle, the Roman Catholic couple were wed in Hanoi's St. Joseph's Cathedral. While a cadre of international press swarmed outside, some 700 guests sweltered in 104-degree heat inside. The groom's coat was soaked. "Even the candles melted," he recalls. Still, says Peterson's son Mike, a manager for an aviation support-services firm who flew over from Florida to be his father's best man, "it was a wonderful event. Vi's a ball of fire, and it's nice to see him have a life again."

That life is a full one. Peterson spends his days at the embassy, and Vi, who became a U.S. citizen in February, runs her own consulting business for companies planning to 8 set up shop in Vietnam. When Peterson visits a village or attends a school or hospital dedication without his wife at his side, the disappointment is palpable. "They make a formidable team," says Andrew Steer, director of the World Bank's operations in Vietnam. "At a dinner, you'll see Vi speaking on behalf of the private sector and Pete on behalf of the diplomatic sector, making complementary points."

When they have time, the couple love to stroll through Hanoi's colorful Old Quarter. Sometimes they explore the city on motorbikes, setting an example by wearing helmets, symbolizing the public-safety campaign that is one of their pet projects. In Vietnam, Peterson points out, studies predict that 30,000 children under the age of 5 will die this year due to preventable accidents—drowning, electrocution and road mishaps. "It's just appalling," he says.

Both Petersons think themselves fortunate that they met and fell in love in Vietnam. "Coming back here was renewing my roots," says Vi, who has met several relatives for the first time. For Peterson, the passage may be even more poignant. A week after he became engaged to Vi, a friend who knew of his years as a POW and about the deaths of his son and wife told him, "Pete, you're a lucky man." Peterson paused a moment and said, "Yes, nowadays that's true. Today I can say that."

J.D. Reed
Linda Kramer in Hanoi