ANDRIA HALL, CNN ANCHOR: In a brand new series, CNN is looking back on significant worldwide events that have occurred during our 20- year broadcasting history. The top story nine years ago today, the breakdown of Iraqi peace talks just before the Persian Gulf War.</s>RALPH BEGLEITER, FMR. CNN CORRESPONDENT: People sometimes say, you know, what's the most memorable story you have ever covered and certainly one of the most memorable for me, January 9, 1991 is a date most people won't even remember. Secretary of State James Baker and Tariq Aziz (ph), who was then Iraq's foreign minister, met in Geneva for an all-day session, and CNN carried it live all around the world. It was the last time the the United States and the Iraqi foreign minister met to try to negotiate an avoidance of what later became the Gulf War. It was one of those occasions when people all over the world were watching to see whether there would be war or peace. When Aziz and Baker concluded their talks, the two of them were supposed to hold press conferences to announce the results of the talks. Baker came in and a couple of sentences into his remarks he uttered the word...</s>JAMES BAKER, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Regrettably, ladies and gentlemen, I heard nothing today that...</s>BEGLEITER: And at that very moment, people all over the world realized without even hearing the specifics that what that one word meant was there would be war in the Middle East. I was a bit choked up, because frankly, I had always covered diplomacy and to me it was just a given that negotiations would succeed. You're not going to go to war. You're going to negotiate an end to this, and negotiation had failed, and for me it was something of a -- I guess, a personal blow.
CNN 20: Breakdown of Geneva Peace Talks; Beginning of Persian Gulf War