HOW LONG WILL HE LAST

April 30, 1999

Ron Hatchett, director for the Center of International Studies at the University of St. Thomas; Dusko Doder, former Washington Post correspondent and author of a biography about Slobodan Milosevic to be released in October; and, Warren Zimmerman, professor of International Diplomacy at Columbia University and former ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1992, discuss Slobodan Milosevic as a person and leader.

JIM LEHRER: How long can Milosevic withstand the bombs? And to Margaret Warner. MARGARET WARNER: We get views on that question from three Balkan veterans. Warren Zimmermann was US Ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1992 and wrote a book about the country's breakup entitled "The Origins of a Catastrophe." He's now a Professor at Columbia University. Ron Hatchett is a former military intelligence officer who has lived and worked in the Balkans. He's now Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. He was in Belgrade earlier this month, and interviewed President Milosevic for a Houston TV station. And Dusko Doder is a former "Washington Post" correspondent who has reported extensively from Yugoslavia. He's written a biography of Milosevic that will be released in October. Ron Hatchett, you've just spent time with President Milosevic. How did he strike you? Did he strike you as someone who is feeling the heat, who is feeling the pressure? RON HATCHETT: He was remarkably calm, and in the interview, he was a very gracious host. I spent about two-and-a-half hours with him, 60 minutes or so I got on tape. Another hour-and-a-half were discussions that were a little more private. He seemed to be a good listener. I gave him my best assessment of what America's positions were and NATO's positions and what were the possible outcomes of this thing from our perspective, and he was a good listener. He showed a range of emotion, too: Anger sometimes and humor sometimes. MARGARET WARNER: Did he show anger over the bombing campaign? RON HATCHETT: Yes, very much anger over the bombing campaign. It was very clear that he thought we had no right to be interfering in what he perceives to be his internal matters. MARGARET WARNER: Ambassador Zimmermann, based on your knowledge of this man, does it surprise you that after six weeks of real pounding that his country has taken that he shows no sign of caving? WARREN ZIMMERMANN: It doesn't surprise me at all, Margaret. In fact, Ron's description is very much the Milosevic I knew in the early 90's in periods when he was not nearly as stressed as he is now. I think this is a man who can be very cool in a crisis, and he's also somebody who has wrapped himself in the Kosovo issue to the point where he knows he will - he will live or die over this issue, and therefore, he can have the calmness of a man who knows that his course is set and he can't really veer very far from it. MARGARET WARNER: So you mean, in other words, it's really his own survival, as well as, he sees it his country's survival? They're one and the same to him? WARREN ZIMMERMANN: I think so. In fact, I think we have to count on the possibility that we may have to defeat Milosevic and not just persuade him. He may be so tied up to the Kosovo issue that he is simply prepared to make no significant concessions at all, which means that he would be prepared to go down to defeat and perhaps take a lot of people with him, because he puts no value at all on human life, even the lives of his Serb country-members. MARGARET WARNER: Dusko Doder, how do you explain his apparent equanimity in the face of all this? DUSKO DODER: I think he's a very complex man whose exterior he hides quite a bit. You know, he comes from a broken home. Both of his parents committed suicide, which is a stigma in that society, at the time it was committed. His favorite uncle committed suicide, who was his role model, was a World War II hero -- and so that he has grown up with all kinds of complexes that stayed below the surface. He's also sick. He's got diabetes, which affects his process, his mental process, I think. And he's very much under the influence of his wife, who is also a very, very strange figure and a very forceful one. MARGARET WARNER: You also met with his wife, did you not? RON HATCHETT: Uh-huh, I did. MARGARET WARNER: Was it pleasantries, or - RON HATCHETT: No, we spoke about the issues. She was very much in tune with what is going on. In fact, of all the people I spoke with during the two weeks I was there, she had the best grasp, I think, on the political aspects of this. She's the one that says, "we're fighting two wars here. One is the bombing war. The other is the media war. And we have not really engaged in the media war. And I would like to see us, in particular, my husband, do more talking about our position on this. We can't just trust in God that we're on the right side," she said. MARGARET WARNER: Dusko Doder, that reminds me of something that seems strange to me if he's trying to keep public support - you always see him only in these TV shots. He's there meeting with some visiting dignitary. You never see him out on the streets. You don't see him visiting wounded in hospitals. How do you explain that? DUSKO DODER: No. I think this is a man whose feelings have been cauterized by his background, by his childhood experiences too, and thoroughly ruthless, and who doesn't show emotion. If you look at his face, it's a face of man who does not show any emotional coloration whatsoever. It's a mask. And I think that he's very controlled in these situations, but I don't think he has shed a tear about a single Kosovar or Serb, for that matter, being killed in this conflict. MARGARET WARNER: Warren Zimmermann, is that the man you knew? WARREN ZIMMERMANN: Margaret, I think the most important aspect of Milosevic is the cold ruthlessness that characterizes him. Look at the logic chain that caused him to cleanse Kosovo. He starts off saying he has to get rid of this guerrilla movement, the Kosovo Liberation Amy, which showed up, appeared in 1998. Then he decides, Well, to get rid of that, I really have to get rid of the people who support the KLA and protect them," so that means killing a lot of civilians, noncombatants. And then he says, "Well, maybe that won't be enough either, because the Kosovo Liberation Army is, after all, a product of the conditions I've imposed on the Kosovo Albanians, so why not get rid of all the Albanians? Why not expel them all out of Kosovo?" The ruthlessness of that kind of action could be explained if he were madman, but I don't think he's a madman. I think he is just somebody who has no basic human feelings at all. MARGARET WARNER: Let's talk a little bit about the sources of his support and whether there is any sign it's faltering. When you were there, Ron Hatchett, did you, for instance, let's take the military. And there have been different views of what's happening inside the military because of the bombing campaign. I don't know if you talked to military officers. I know you have in the past. What -- is there any sign that the military leadership might lean on him as the destruction gets greater? RON HATCHETT: Well, I don't have much insight into the thinking of the military as I do of the people. And this was one of the most phenomenal things to me, is the unity now that there is amongst the Serbian people. All of these demonstrations that you see are not contrived. The people genuinely are caught up emotionally in this, and I think it was one of the biggest misjudgments that this administration here in our country made about this situation, the degree to which the Yugoslav people, or the Serbian people as a whole, would be incensed over the idea of Kosovo possibly being taken away from them. MARGARET WARNER: And what about the military, Dusko Doder? DUSKO DODER: I think that Milosevic has never relied on the military. From my experience -- you know, when he came to power, it was the police force that was important. He had -- he has the largest police force in the world, because he has one policeman per 100 people. They're well-equipped, well- paid. They're the mainstay of him. However, militarily, I think what you have to take into account is that Yugoslav has a tradition of the people's army. Under Tito, this was a training program where everybody from high school on has to know how to fight, they have what is called "a people's defense." I think military is part of this people's defense, and I think I would agree that, you know, the sentiment -- this is a national sentiment. It's a mile wide, and maybe an inch thick, but in the conditions of bombing, the Serbs will support anybody who is in power, even a nasty and evil man such as Milosevic. MARGARET WARNER: Ambassador Zimmermann, what do you think of the prospects that either say the military elite or political elite within the government would ever put pressure on him to negotiate? WARREN ZIMMERMANN: Well, I don't think any of us can really know what's going on, because he has a very small body of friends and accomplices whom he trusts, and we haven't the vaguest idea what they're thinking. I do think that the military is now so deeply incriminated in what's going on in the atrocious actions that are going on in Kosovo that there is probably much less chance that a general would step in and stop Milosevic than there may have been at the beginning of the operation or even before it. And there is some evidence that back in the fall of last year, there was some military opposition to Milosevic, to the cleansing operation that he was preparing in Kosovo, and that the military chief of staffer was opposed to that, and that he purged the chief of staff, the military chief of staff who was opposed to that. MARGARET WARNER: So let me ask each of you, what do you think it would take, starting with you, Dusko Doder, to have Milosevic willing to negotiate on or agree to the terms NATO's demanding? DUSKO DODER: My personal view is that we should not negotiate with Milosevic. I think he should be declared a war criminal, but I think we should stop the bombing, may have a pause, create conditions where we could put the case before the Serbian people, have a - you know -- an interval where we could allow groups within the society actually to act and perhaps overthrow him. In the meantime, preposition troops and do the job, if you're going to do it, otherwise we shouldn't be there. MARGARET WARNER: By "do the job," you mean send in ground troops? DUSKO DODER: Yes. MARGARET WARNER: Into Kosovo. DUSKO DODER: Into Yugoslavia - MARGARET WARNER: Into Yugoslavia. DUSKO DODER: -- and from Hungary and from Kosovo. MARGARET WARNER: What do you think it would take, Ron Hatchett? RON HATCHETT: Well, I think that would be a disaster. I think they have 2.3 million people they can put into the field, and we could do it, but the cost would be very high. MARGARET WARNER: Well, go back to Milosevic. RON HATCHETT: Milosevic, I believe, is looking for a deal. In the hour and a half that I spent with him after the taping, he was very intently questioning me about what possibilities would be under these various main headings. For example, under autonomy, he says, "I'll go back to the autonomy that Kosovo had in 1989 when it was taken away, but I will not give them independence." Secondly he said, "I will accept back all refugees that want to return to Kosovo." And thirdly, in the taping he said he would accept an unarmed military force, but in our discussion, I made very clear to him that that was a completely nonstarter, and that if he was really looking for a negotiated outcome, it would have to be an armed military force, not necessarily NATO only, but at least an armed international force under the UN or maybe the OSCE. MARGARET WARNER: The bottom line, because I want to get to the ambassador before we go - are you saying - RON HATCHETT: Bottom line, he's looking for a deal. He's not looking to carry this to the extreme, I don't believe. MARGARET WARNER: Ambassador Zimmermann? WARREN ZIMMERMANN: I'm not at all sure of that. Milosevic is very good at making it seem as if he's looking for a deal. I think we should forget about negotiations now. The military situation has got to improve in NATO's favor a lot more than it has already, I think, in order for Milosevic to be prepared to make a serious compromise along the lines of the conditions that have been set forth by NATO. And I think all of these explorations by the Russians, by others, are simply premature. At some point there will be a time for negotiations, but it hasn't come yet because the military situation has not changed. NATO simply can't afford to lose, and I agree with Dusko that if it takes ground troops to ensure that NATO will prevail, then we need ground troops, at least in Kosovo, perhaps in Yugoslavia. But we're in a military phase now, not a negotiating phase. And that's got to continue for a while longer. MARGARET WARNER: All right, well thank you Ambassador Zimmermann, Dusko Doder, and Ron Hatchett. Thanks very much.