To End a War

by Richard Holbrooke

  Rudy Perina was waiting for us. As we drove into the city, he said there were no signs of public reaction to the bombing, which had now been going on for almost eight hours. The meeting was on, but Rudy had no idea what to expect. As we drove to the Presidential Palace, I could feel my stomach muscles tightening, as they often did before a high-risk, high-stakes meeting.

  The Patriarch Paper. We had not been in Belgrade since Mount Igman, and Milosevic opened our August 30 meeting with words of sympathy about our three lost comrades. He spoke, in particular, about Bob Frasure, whom he knew better than Joe and Nelson. I was startled to hear Milosevic talk in detail about Bob’s family, his farm, and his dreams for the future, and I realized, for the first time, that he and Bob must have spent a lot of time discussing personal matters.

  Then, abruptly, he shifted gears. “I’ve been a busy man while you were away,” he said, and, reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled out two sheets of paper.

  “I have listened carefully to your public statements,” he continued. “I have been meeting with the Bosnian Serb leaders—Karadzic, Mladic, Krajisnik, Buha, all of them—all weekend and again yesterday. This is the result.” He handed me the document. Not being able to read it—it was in Serbian—I handed it right back.

  “This paper creates a joint Yugoslav-Republika Srpska delegation for all future peace talks,” Milosevic said, using their own name for the Bosnian Serbs. “I will be the head of the joint delegation. And this document has been witnessed by Patriarch Pavle, the leader of the Serb Orthodox Church. Look here.” Milosevic pointed to a single signature centered below two vertical rows of signatures, at the bottom of the second page of the document. Below the signature was the Eastern Orthodox cross.

  For a moment I did not dare to believe it. For sixteen months, the Contact Group had argued fruitlessly with Milosevic over how to get the Bosnian Serbs to participate in negotiations under the Contact Group plan. Now we had the answer to the question we had asked for those sixteen months: who would speak for Pale? And the answer was: Slobodan Milosevic. Washington’s decision to negotiate with Belgrade and try to isolate Pale had produced its first success—only a procedural one, to be sure, but a real breakthrough. Genuine negotiations were about to begin.

  The document—which we afterward referred to as the Patriarch Paper, as if it were the title of a Robert Ludlum thriller—gave Milosevic virtually total power over the fate of the Bosnian Serbs. They agreed to the establishment of a six-person negotiating team, with three people from Yugoslavia and three from Pale. Milosevic proudly pointed to the most important clause in the Patriarch Paper: in the event of a tie vote on any issue, the head of the delegation would make the decision. And who was the head of the joint delegation, Milosevic asked rhetorically? We already knew the answer to this—Slobodan Milosevic!

  As Milosevic explained this remarkable document, I whispered to Chris Hill, “If only Bob Frasure could have seen this.” Chris told me later he’d had the same thought at exactly the same moment.

  Milosevic was now at his most charming. Lighting up a huge Monte Cristo cigar, he proposed that I convene an international peace conference immediately, where he could meet Izetbegovic and Tudjman and “settle everything.” Such a conference was, in fact, what Washington wanted, but our talks in Paris had made it evident that the Muslims were not ready. Besides, the bombing had just begun. “We will have a conference sooner or later,” I said, “but not yet.”

  I questioned the positions of the Bosnian Serbs. “How do you know that your friends from Pale will—”

  Milosevic showed momentary anger—real or feigned, I could not tell. “They are not my friends. They are not my colleagues. It is awful just to be in the same room with them for so long. They are shit.” Milosevic pronounced the last word with an Eastern European accent, so it sounded like “sheet,” but I was impressed with his undiplomatic command of the English idiom.

  For the next eight hours, we discussed almost every issue that we would later negotiate to a conclusion in Dayton. For the first time, everything was on the table, including several issues that had never been discussed before as part of the peace process.

  War Criminals … and the Bombing. Not until we had talked for almost two hours did Milosevic finally bring up the bombing in Bosnia. I was struck by his lack of emotion on the subject, in contrast, for example, to his passion on the subject of lifting the economic sanctions against Serbia.

  If we stopped the bombing, Milosevic said, Mladic would stop the shelling of Sarajevo. Such an offer would be favorably received in the U.N. and most NATO capitals, and by the military; they had little enthusiasm for the bombing, and had already lost a Mirage fighter jet: two French pilots were missing and presumed captured.

  I told Milosevic that if he could guarantee an end to the siege of Sarajevo, I would consider “recommending” a suspension of the bombing. Milosevic, repeating his performance of ten days earlier, immediately asked his faithful aide, Goran, to contact Mladic. We ate while waiting for Mladic’s reply. The meal was, as usual, several different preparations of lamb, accompanied by potatoes and vegetables, and, for variety, some pork.

  As we ate, Goran returned with an answer from Mladic. Milosevic read it aloud: “Mladic says that he promises to stop actions against the Muslims in Sarajevo if both NATO and the Muslims stop actions against his forces.”

  Typically, Mladic had tried to slip in a condition: the Bosnian Muslims would have to cease their own military activities throughout the country. This they would not do, as Milosevic well knew. He made no effort to argue Mladic’s case, but turned back to a discussion of other matters. I decided to bring up, for the first time, a critical issue.

  “Mr. President,” I began, “there is one matter I must raise with you now, so that there is no misunderstanding later. That is the question of the International War Crimes Tribunal.”

  Milosevic started to object, but I pressed on. “Mr. President, two of the men who signed the Patriarch agreement are indicted war criminals—Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. They cannot participate in an international peace conference of any sort. Under international law they will be arrested if they set foot on the soil of the United States or of any member of the E.U.” I also stressed that what had happened at Srebrenica and Zepa would have to be investigated.

  Milosevic argued about the events surrounding the fall of the two eastern enclaves; he continued to deny any involvement in or prior knowledge of the attack. I told him we knew that Mladic, who considered himself an officer of the Yugoslav Army, had received support from their units situated just across the Serbian border from Srebrenica, from an army under Milosevic’s command. “I want to be sure, since this is the beginning a serious negotiation with you as the head of a united Yugoslav-Srpska delegation,” I said, “that you understand that we will not, and cannot, compromise on the question of the war-crimes tribunal.”

  “But you need Karadzic and Mladic to make peace,” he replied.

  “That is your problem. Karadzic and Mladic cannot go to an international conference. They will be arrested if they set foot in any European country. In fact, if they come to the United States, I would gladly meet them at the airport and assist in their arrest. You have just shown us a piece of paper giving you the power to negotiate for them. It’s your problem.”

  Milosevic continued to object to the exclusion of Karadzic and Mladic from the peace process. “We should not decide this now,” he finally concluded wearily. “As for Srebrenica, I repeat: I had nothing to do with it, and I didn’t know it was going to happen.” Then he said he would agree to allow international investigators to travel to the enclaves to gather on-site information on what had happened—a significant concession if he meant it.

  We needed a break to alert Washington to the Patriarch Paper, which Milosevic wanted to make public. As I left to call Washington, I sought to dampen the upbeat mood, which had been fueled by a certain amount of scotch, wine,
and plum brandy. “We’ll be back soon, Mr. President,” I said, “but remember, NATO planes are in the air over Bosnia as we speak.”

  “Yes, Mr. Holbrooke,” he replied. “And you have the power to stop them.”

  The Press. When we arrived at the Presidential Palace in the morning, a large number of journalists were waiting outside. This had not happened before Mount Igman, before the bombing. I made a short, impromptu statement, saying that “President Clinton has sent us on a mission of peace in a moment of war.” An even larger group of journalists was waiting when we left the presidency building eight hours later. We realized that a big and aggressive press corps would henceforth be following our efforts—a significant development that we would have to take into account.

  By this time Milosevic had released the Patriarch Paper, and it was necessary to make some public comment about it. Deliberately seeking to downplay its significance, I said the document was “an important procedural breakthrough, but only a procedural one.” In our effort to prevent optimism, we were almost too successful; John Pomfret of The Washington Post got it just about right, describing it as “a conciliatory move” and a “significant advance,” but The New York Times did not even mention the document for several days.

  We asked Washington not to sound too upbeat. Bosnia was not a good place for the conventional Washington “spin,” that natural American style of making everything look as good as possible. I believed it was best to underplay signs of progress and minimize optimism, while simultaneously seeking to establish a sense of new American commitment and engagement. If the glass was filling up, I would prefer that we said it was still almost empty.

  Thus, our original plan to maintain “radio silence” and let Washington speak for us fell by the wayside. We did not even have a press officer with us—unprecedented for a major negotiating team. But as the pace picked up, the need for carefully calibrated nuance that was more likely to be understood by journalists in the region than Washington-based reporters required a major change in our approach to the press. The six-hour time difference created a special problem; our day was half over before most Washington officials got to the office, and they would often be asked to react early in the day to incomplete early-morning accounts of our activities on radio and television, before they could coordinate with, or sometimes even find, us. Considering this unexpected problem, Tom Donilon, Nick Burns, and White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry asked us to take the lead with the press. We continued to travel without a press officer, and, on over two hundred different flights, allowed a journalist on our small plane only twice. Relations with the press were admirably handled by Rosemarie Pauli and by the USIA press officers in the local Embassies. I encouraged every member of our small team to talk directly to journalists whenever they wanted to, provided they worked from a single script. The change in the way we dealt with the press would have far-ranging and positive consequences. The system worked well, a remarkable tribute to the dedication and discipline of our small group. With only a few relatively minor exceptions, the coverage of our efforts by the press based in the region was accurate and fair.

  We returned to the Hyatt Hotel from Milosevic’s office late in the evening. The sense that real negotiations had begun at last had given us a huge lift, and we stayed up half the night, reviewing our options and calling Washington and Brussels. In a handwritten note Jim Pardew captured our mood. “I’ve now put down the hammer I was using to beat down my own optimism,” he said. “This may work.”

  The scene at the hotel that evening also had its comic aspects. In an effort to prevent our hosts from eavesdropping on our private conversations, General Clark had brought into the hotel a bizarre setup designed, in theory, to allow us to discuss highly sensitive matters inside our hotel rooms. Clark’s team set up a small military tent inside a hotel room. Inside the tent they installed an air blower that emitted a continuous loud noise designed to “defeat” anyone trying to listen to our conversations. So, one by one, we huddled inside the tent inside the hotel room making secure telephone calls to Washington over an antiquated telephone system. But the noise from the air blower was so loud, and the secure telephone circuits often so weak, that we had to shout to be heard on the phone, thus making it easy for any listening devices (or anyone in the general vicinity) to pick us up.

  The military’s second device will remain forever enshrined in our memories, and we teased Wes about it endlessly long after we had abandoned it as unusable. This was a collection of bulky plastic “nose and mouth cones,” which we placed over our faces so we could speak to each other in privacy. The cones smelled of old rubber, and worked only intermittently. Placed next to one another at our small conference table, they were linked by messy wires that ran like spaghetti across the table. Sitting at the table, elbow to elbow, we talked to each other through these smelly devices, which we held over our faces. At two in the morning, after a day that was ending with a diplomatic breakthrough in Belgrade nineteen hours after its uncertain and tense beginning in Paris, these smelly, ineffective devices broke the tension. As we joked and took ceremonial photographs of everyone wearing his cone, Rosemarie came in and told us that we were yelling so loud that everyone in the hotel corridors could hear our supposedly classified conversations.

  The next morning, August 31, we met briefly with the Belgrade representatives of the British, French, German, and Russian governments. The British representative, Ivor Roberts, was erudite and charming, and I respected him for his intellect and his knowledge, although he seemed excessively pro-Serb. He was impressed by the Patriarch Paper, but cautioned me, in an eloquent letter, never to forget that the Serbs felt that history had victimized them. Don’t put them in a corner, Roberts urged, or they will lash back. The clear subtext was that the bombing was a mistake. I thanked Roberts for his views, and thought again of Rebecca West. The Serb view of history was their problem, I told Roberts later; ours was to end the war.

  After breakfast we flew to Zagreb to give briefings to President Tudjman and Muhamed Sacirbey on the talks in Belgrade. Tudjman immediately saw the full implications of the Patriarch Paper. “Sanctions worked,” he noted, “and we should keep up the military pressure.”

  NATO was doing just that. August 31 was, in fact, the busiest day of military action in NATO history, with planes ranging across all of northern and western Bosnia. The bombing was spreading into areas far beyond Sarajevo, areas that had nothing to do with the mortar attack. The Bosnian Serbs were stunned. I knew there would be great pressure from the U.N.

  Although we clearly were not ready for a full-scale international peace conference, I wondered about some intermediate step, one that would show progress. What about a short meeting, under American auspices, of the three Foreign Ministers—something that had not taken place in over two years?

  I asked both Tudjman and Sacirbey what they thought of the idea. Without hesitation, Tudjman said he would send Foreign Minister Granic to Geneva whenever we wanted. Sacirbey also agreed to go, although he expressed skepticism that anything could be accomplished without Milosevic present.

  The idea of convening a meeting of the three Foreign Ministers provoked a serious debate within our delegation as we flew back to Belgrade that evening. Not everyone on our delegation supported the idea. Our designated skeptic, Bob Owen, was—well, the most skeptical. “What will we accomplish?” he asked. “We have no position papers, no idea of what the parties will agree to. I’m not sure we are ready for this yet.”

  But the Patriarch agreement and the bombing had greatly strengthened our hand. It was time to see how much we could get from a preliminary meeting. We would be able to observe how the delegations interacted with one another and internally—good practice for the full-scale conference that still lay in the uncertain future. I asked Owen to start drafting the outlines of an interim, or partial, agreement. We did not consult or inform Washington.

  A great deal of any good negotiation is improvisation within
the framework of a general goal. After the tumultuous events of the last three days, a concept of how we should negotiate had begun to form in my mind. Although Washington wanted us to get the three Balkan Presidents together as quickly as possible, it was far too early to do this. But it was worth trying to reduce the huge differences between the parties with a series of limited interim agreements, which we could attempt to negotiate through shuttle diplomacy, then unveil in a series of quick one-day meetings at the Foreign Minister level. This might create a sense of momentum toward peace, and narrow the differences to the point where we could bring the three Presidents together.

  Our negotiating team had already developed an internal dynamic that combined bantering, fierce but friendly argument, and tight internal discipline. Complete trust and openness among all seven of us were essential if we were to avoid energy-consuming factional intrigues and back channels to Washington. This presented difficulties for representatives of those agencies—the NSC, the JCS, the Office of the Secretary of Defense—that often distrusted or competed with one another and whose representatives normally sent private reports back to their home offices each day. (While Harriman and Vance could not solve this problem in 1968, Kissinger had famously solved it later by cutting everyone else out of the process, producing dramatic results in the short term and great animosity later.) We succeeded in avoiding this problem, in part because our team was so small, and in part because we shared all our information internally and developed close, even intense personal relationships. I told my colleagues that if we could not come up with a single position, each member of the team could make his viewpoint known to Washington directly—provided only that he shared his dissent with the rest of us. This system worked, and was a key ingredient in the success of our small team.