To End a War

by Richard Holbrooke

  At the NATO Council. With the friction between our delegation and Admiral Smith rising, we moved on to NATO headquarters in Brussels. As we arrived, confusion reigned: People milled around Secretary-General Claes’s offices as he talked by phone to his military commanders, trying to find out how General Janvier’s talks with General Mladic had gone. General Joulwan had been ready to support a resumption of the bombing, but had been pulled up short by Admiral Smith, who had already called to complain about Clark.

  The bombing pause was now thirty-six hours old. I felt that the bombing should resume after no more than seventy-two hours unless Mladic accepted every detail of the conditions for the relief of Sarajevo, which was unlikely. But at NATO headquarters, many Ambassadors did not wish to resume the bombing.

  By chance, the NATO Council was about to debate the issue when we arrived. Claes and Joulwan asked me to delay our departure in order to convey our views directly to them. We agreed immediately.

  The Council convened in the early evening. After Ambassador Hunter made some introductory remarks, I said we confronted in its purest form “a classic dilemma in political-military relations, one we faced but never solved in Vietnam: the relationship between the use of force and diplomacy. The NATO decision to bomb was necessary, given the provocation. It is now essential to establish that we are negotiating from a position of strength…. If the air strikes resume and hurt the negotiations, so be it.”

  The questioning from the NATO Ambassadors continued for hours. As the clock passed midnight, Clark and I moved to a conference room and talked first to Admiral Smith, then at length with the White House, where Talbott, Berger, Admiral Owens, Sandy Vershbow (the NSC’s senior European hand), and Slocombe were tracking both the NATO debate and the talks between Janvier and Mladic. The news from Bosnia was shocking, but not surprising: Janvier had received an insolent proposal from Mladic—and publicly deemed it acceptable. He was immediately supported by Admiral Smith. “Our dilemma,” Berger said, “is that Janvier and Smith have accepted a bad proposal from Mladic. He has played them for fools.” We told Washington that while Smith did not want to resume the bombing, he would if ordered to by NATO. Berger and Talbott called Joulwan, Smith, and Claes to press for action.

  With the NATO Ambassadors locked in a hopeless bureaucratic deadlock, NATO Secretary-General Willy Claes came through for the second time in a week, ruling on his own authority that a new NATO Council decision was not needed to resume the bombing. Claes’s contribution during this week was hardly recognized at the time, and virtually forgotten within weeks, as he faced a personal scandal that forced him from the top NATO job. A Flemish Socialist and former Belgian Foreign Minister, Claes was best known as an amateur orchestra leader, a pursuit his critics used as a metaphor for his reputation as a weak man given to searching for a consensus at all costs. Our Ambassador in Belgium, Allan Blinken, had assured us this was not true, and predicted that Claes would surprise us. Blinken was right. Before Claes was forced to resign as NATO Secretary-General because of charges that he and his party had received bribes from a helicopter company—allegations that, two years later, had still not received a full and proper judicial hearing—he made a major contribution to a historic new policy.

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3

  Our team split up. Sending most of my colleagues to Zagreb to see Tudjman, I flew to Geneva to meet with the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which had long felt its pro-Bosnian positions had been ignored by the West. We met at the American Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, where our Ambassador, Daniel Spiegel, deftly led me through the meetings. The presence of the Ambassador from Iran, whom I ignored, made the meeting somewhat strained, but I was pleased to hear strong support from several nations, notably our NATO ally Turkey, Pakistan, and Malaysia. I had complete trust in Spiegel, who had been an assistant to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance during the Carter years and had then become a lawyer in Washington, and turned over to him the delicate task of arranging the logistics for the Foreign Ministers meeting, which was only five days away.

  Early Sunday morning, Vice President Gore called Izetbegovic to say that the United States did not believe that the pause should continue. His call was designed to reassure an increasingly disturbed Izetbegovic that we were not abandoning him, while we continued to fight for a resumption of the bombing. Meanwhile, I flew from Geneva to Belgrade, where my colleagues had already begun a meeting with Milosevic. Owen and Hill had produced a short set of “Joint Agreed Principles” for Geneva. We used as our starting point the Contact Group plan of 1994, which divided the country into two “entities,” giving the Croat-Muslim Federation 51 percent and the Serbs 49 percent of the land. Our long negotiating session, accompanied by a meal consisting of various kinds of lamb and sausages, ended with partial agreement on a draft we would discuss with Izetbegovic, who was visiting Turkey, the next day. By the time we returned to our hotel, called Washington, and went to sleep it was 4:00 A.M. Our colleagues in Washington were still struggling to get the bombing resumed.

  Jimmy Carter, Early Sunday morning in Washington, at about the same time as my meeting in Geneva with the Islamic representatives, Talbott received a call from Jimmy Carter. In an effort to head off a resumption of the bombing, Radovan Karadzic had reached out again to Carter. Using as his channel a Serbian-American plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills who knew the Carters well, Karadzic said that he would stop the attacks on Sarajevo in return for a United Nations guarantee of the safety of the Bosnian Serb Army. It was a difficult situation for Strobe, one of the most polite people in Washington, and always respectful of the former President, whose administration he had covered as a journalist. But, determined to protect the negotiations, he told Carter that the Karadzic channel had to be shut down at least until our efforts were given a fair test. The Administration, Strobe told Carter, would not accept any offer from Karadzic, no matter what it was. Carter was not happy; a CNN camera crew was already standing by outside his office, and he had hoped to announce that he had reached an agreement with Karadzic. After several difficult talks with Strobe, he agreed to hold off.

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4: THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION

  It was Labor Day in America, and we were starting the longest day of the entire shuttle. The battle over resumption of the bombing was still unresolved. We did not have an agreed text for Geneva yet, and to discuss it with Izetbegovic we had to follow him to Ankara, Turkey, where he was making an official visit. But on our way to Turkey we decided to take a side trip to Athens and Skopje to tackle the bitter dispute between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) over the name of the country and its national flag.

  The world’s press tended to treat this as a comic issue. But to the two countries, the name and the flag of the new country were serious, and Washington and Western Europe feared that the tiny landlocked country would be the next flash point in the Balkans.

  FYROM had explosive problems with all its neighbors—almost 30 percent of its population was Albanian, its language was virtually identical to Bulgarian, and, since it was supporting the economic sanctions against Serbia, relations along that border were also tense. The most threatening situation was to its south, with Athens, which felt that the new country posed a direct threat to Greece’s very identity by attempting to co-opt Hellenic culture and a sacred name. Greece felt that by calling itself the “Republic of Macedonia,” the government in Skopje was trying to create the basis for a future annexation not only of Greek culture and history but perhaps even parts of Greece’s northernmost province, which had always been known as Macedonia. To the people of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, however, the name and the flag defined the identity of a new state carved—like Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina—out of the old Yugoslavia. The new country added to the tensions by adopting an ancient Greek symbol, the sixteen-point Star of Vergina on the tomb of Philip of Macedon (the father of Alexander the Great), as the central motif of its nat
ional flag.

  In February 1994, Greece imposed an economic blockade on the new country to its north, crippling its economy, which had already been hurt by its support for the sanctions against Serbia. The situation was so explosive that the United States made its only exception to the policy of not sending troops to the region, and sent 550 American soldiers to FYROM on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in order to prevent the war in Bosnia from spreading to the south and igniting a general Balkan conflict.

  For more than two years, two tenacious negotiators had worked side by side to resolve the dispute: Cyrus Vance, representing the United Nations, and Matthew Nimetz, a New York lawyer who had served as Counselor to Secretary Vance during the Carter Administration, as the American negotiator. Inching through the maze of complex issues, they had come within sight of ending the dispute several times, only to see one or both sides back away from the final concessions required for settlement.

  The idea that we try to settle this issue came from Chris Hill and Marshall Adair, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State who covered Greece and Turkey. They suggested that we fly to Athens and Skopje to see if we could use the momentum of the Bosnian shuttle to end the dispute. We were greatly encouraged in this risky venture by the advice of Greece’s Ambassador in Washington, Loucas Tsilas, who urged us to try for a breakthrough.

  Hill and Pardew flew to Skopje in secret on September 1 to see President Kiro Gligorov. They returned with an upbeat report. “When I learned that you were coming today, I decided that now is the right time for an agreement,” President Gligorov told them. He said he was ready to drop his long-standing insistence that the Greeks agree to end the embargo before the two sides sat down for a final agreement.

  Greece was the member of NATO and the E.U. with the most positive feelings toward Belgrade—primarily because of a common religious heritage—and Milosevic had been careful not to alienate Athens by recognizing Macedonia. He predicted that no agreement between Athens and Skopje was possible in the foreseeable future. As he spoke, I privately hoped we would stun him with a breakthrough. We did not tell him we were going to Skopje.

  We landed in Athens late on the morning of September 4. As our cars maneuvered through the crowded streets with the help of a sizable police escort, Chris Hill and the acting Ambassador, Tom Miller, wrote out by hand a short announcement that we hoped the two sides would make later that day. At the Greek Foreign Ministry, our first stop, an unruly group of journalists knocked one another down, shoved tape recorders into our faces, and backed into glass doors as we entered. Once behind closed doors, we found Greek Foreign Minister Karolas Papoulias openly hostile to any movement. He neither believed that Gligorov was ready to make a move, nor did he care. “You can never trust those people,” he said. “Never.”

  Discouraged, we drove to the so-called Pink Villa, the luxurious new home of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou in the suburbs north of Athens. The gardens were still unfinished, and the house had provoked controversy because of its opulence, but Papandreou did not care: he had built it as a present for his young new wife, Dimitra, whom he had married in 1989 after a long public affair that had led to a bitter breakup with his American wife, Margaret.

  Papandreou was nowhere to be seen when we arrived. Instead, we were met by Mrs. Papandreou, who was wearing an almost transparent silk pajama suit that barely concealed important parts of her impressive anatomy. Greeting us warmly, she apologized for her husband’s delay, and promised he would see us shortly. Mrs. Papandreou had a reputation as a sort of Greek Imelda Marcos. Whatever the truth about her past, I had previously observed the genuine tenderness that existed between her and her aged, frail husband. I knew she would not sit in on the meeting itself, but would have great influence on him. Taking her aside, I said we were carrying a message from Gligorov that offered her husband a unique opportunity to make history. If we achieved a breakthrough, it would greatly enhance the chances for peace in Bosnia. The new Mrs. Papandreou was highly controversial, and given her costume it was easy to see why, but I felt that she had her husband’s best interests at heart and understood my message. She showed no interest in the details of the issue, but seemed focused on her husband’s welfare and his place in history.

  The word “legendary” is much overused, but it certainly applies to the seventy-six-year-old Andreas Papandreou, whose life had encompassed so much Greek-American history. As a Greek-born American citizen, he earned a doctorate in economics from Harvard, served in the United States Navy during World War II, and then taught at Harvard, the University of Minnesota, and Berkeley (where he was chairman of the economics department). He was part of Adlai Stevenson’s advisory team during his two runs for the presidency. Then he returned to Greece and fought his way into power, surviving a long period in the political wilderness after right-wing pressure forced the resignation of his father, Georgios Papandreou, in 1965, two years before the military coup. He won the prime ministership fifteen years after his father had been forced out of it, and then lost it following a series of corruption scandals—only to make another astonishing comeback, regaining it again in 1993. To conservative Americans, he was anathema, an American turncoat. To Greeks, both those who followed him and those who hated him, he was the dominant political figure of the era.

  He emerged from a back room, frail and moving slowly. His hands were thin, and his handshake all bones. But his mind was alert and he was cordial as he ushered us into his study. His wife plumped up some pillows behind his head, whispered something to him, and left us alone with him, his Foreign Minister, and his diplomatic advisor, Dimitrius Karaitides.

  We outlined Gligorov’s new position. Unlike his Foreign Minister, Papandreou was immediately interested. But Papoulias objected. First he said that it would require the approval of the entire Cabinet. This was a phony issue, and I said so, noting that the Prime Minister seemed to agree. Finally, Papoulis turned to Hill with a gleam in his eye. “When did you last see Gligorov?” he asked. “Because if it was more than twenty-four hours ago”—Papoulias knew it had been three days earlier—”his word is worthless.”

  The deal we were offering did no damage to Greece’s basic interests. On the contrary, it gave Athens what it wanted on the flag; removed the economic embargo, which was hurting both nations; and left open the issue of the country’s name—an issue that negotiators could continue to discuss without prejudice to the position of either side.

  As the Foreign Minister argued, Papandreou began to tire. Time was running out. We still had to see Gligorov in Skopje, and then meet Izetbegovic in Ankara. Papandreou seemed unable to decide. He appeared sympathetic, but no longer possessed the strength with which he had for so long dominated the Greek scene. I decided to make one last effort, addressing in highly personal terms this proud man’s long and complex love-hate relationship with the United States.

  “Mr. Prime Minister, you and I have something in common,” I began. “We both began our involvement in American politics working for Adlai Stevenson in 1952—only I was an eleven-year-old distributing bumper stickers, and you were a senior member of Stevenson’s economic team. We both grew up despising Nixon. But we must admit that it took a Nixon to go to China, and it took a Sadat to go to Jerusalem. History will remember their courage and vision. Today, Mr. Prime Minister, you can do the same thing—and at no cost to your nation’s interests, only benefit. And you can start us on the road to peace in Bosnia, on the eve of the Geneva meetings. But only you can do it.”

  The Foreign Minister glared at us, and spoke in Greek. Trying to convey a sense of urgency, I tried one more idea that had come to mind as Papoulias warned that Gligorov’s word was worthless.

  “Mr. Prime Minister, your Foreign Minister does not believe you can accept the word of the leaders in Skopje. But let the United States act as the guarantor of Skopje’s pledge. Let us hold Gligorov’s pledge ‘in escrow.’ ”

  Papandreou looked puzzled. “You do not have to accept G
ligorov’s word for anything,” I explained. “We will fly to Skopje now, hear Gligorov out, and call you from his office to tell you whether or not he has given his word, and whether the Americans think it is reliable. You do not need to accept anything directly from him, only from the United States.”

  There was a long pause. Then, in a very frail voice, the old man said, “I like you. I want to do something to help peace in Bosnia, and to help you and your country. I will trust you. Call me from Skopje, from Gligorov’s office.”

  It was time to leave. It was clear Papoulias would try to undo our progress as soon as we left, so I asked Tom Miller to be present at the Pink Villa when we called from Skopje. Then I bade good-bye to the old man whose life had reflected every up and down in the stormy drama of U.S.-Greek relations since World War II. I saw him last standing at the door of the Pink Villa, waving weakly.

  We flew to Skopje to lock up the deal, hoping to rush through the meeting and go to Ankara. But Gligorov had other ideas. Even though he had given Hill and Pardew his new offer three days earlier, now he wanted to make us sweat awhile. We were learning that reneging on earlier offers was a basic style in the Balkans. These old men—Gligorov, like Papandreou, was in his seventies—were stubborn, but they would yield to pressure from the United States, if applied at the right moment.