It was quite a coup for the republican movement to engage the attention and then the intense interest of President Bill Clinton in the Northern Ireland peace process against the wishes of the British establishment.
The 1994 struggle for the Gerry Adams visa and then access to the White House was in part about fund-raising in the solid gold seams of Irish-America but just as importantly, it was about validating Sinn FΘin's place at the negotiating table.
It gave Mr Adams an international legitimacy in the eyes of his political enemies and new stature in the eyes of his allies on the military wing of the movement. The US was also able to play an independent role in any negotiations, acting as guarantor to nationalists - and unionists, the US would say - that any deal done by London or Dublin would be adhered to.
Its involvement injected a new dynamic and opportunities in the process.
There was a price to pay for republicans, but largely it consisted of a willingness to stay on board the process. Pressure when applied from Washington, as it was during the Belfast Agreement talks, was of a supportive rather than coercive kind.
That was true even when the Bush administration was installed last January.
Continuity was the order of the day and the appointment of the Ambassador, Mr Richard Haass, the pragmatic head of policy planning in the State Department, as the "point man" was a sign of precisely that.
Two events however changed everything - the arrest in August of three suspected IRA members in Colombia and the transforming of the US partner in the process from patient guarantor to angry demandeur after September 11th.
The IRA completely underestimated the potential damage that its involvement with the left-wing FARC guerillas could cause to its relationship to Washington - or did it?
Yesterday, when challenged about the Colombian arrests, Senator Chris Dodd was told by Sinn FΘin's Mr Martin McGuinness, in no uncertain terms, that if Dodd was angry about the episode, it was nothing compared to the rage of the Sinn FΘin leaders.
They were furious at being blindsided by their own people over the escapade.
FARC is not just another terrorist group. Until Osama bin Laden threw his dice on September 11th, Colombia was the front line in the US war on terrorism. This is a war on its doorstep into which the US has invested $2 billion.
Then to find three members of an organisation whose leadership is invited to White House parties involved in supporting it . . . on Capitol Hill the rage was palpable.
Congressional leaders who had been traditionally sympathetic to the republican cause were now demanding public hearings on the IRA role in Colombia.
A tight-lipped administration was no less angry but was playing it quieter.
For the first time, a senior congressional aide told me, the Northern Ireland peace process had impinged on the vital strategic interests of the US. The clock had started to tick down on the public harmony of the Sinn FΘin-US administration relationship.
The final straw was September 11th. Haass was in London when it happened, on his way to Belfast to tell Sinn FΘin that its time was running out. Now President Bush was warning terrorist groups and nations which sponsored them all over the world that they had to make a choice.
Their past would be overlooked if they came on board now. "You are for us or against us."
Haass's message was simple: the US still believed that Sinn FΘin had a contribution to make to the peace process, but it had better be made fast or the public would start to notice that there was one law for bin Laden and another for the IRA.
When he came back to Washington, his language was still one of opportunities rather than ultimata, but his body language was clear.
Time was running out but Sinn FΘin had to be given space to act without appearing under duress.