If only life were as simple for Richard Holbrooke as it is for the Natural Law Party.
On Friday morning, the capital of staged events included a bevy of gabfests on the mess in Kosovo.
Indeed, during one 90-minute period you could drop by a “Kosovo–Possible Peace or a Wider War?” forum, then check out a briefing by a major U.S. relief official and, finally, hear word of an “Immediate Resolution to the Kosovo Crisis.”
The handy-dandy proposed solution may have lacked either United Nations or Good Housekeeping seals of approval but was intrepidly offered by the Natural Law Party. It outlined a “new peace technology that can quell violence within 48 hours,” namely a mix of transcendental meditation and Yogic flying technique.
I did not attend, having been grievously disappointed by the party during a related, murderous crisis, the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It had held a similar gathering back then and, in all seriousness, the party’s presidential candidate urged the deployment of 2,000 TM practitioners as a way of inducing “conflict-free politics.”
Things are relatively quiet these days in Bosnia, but a mix of battle fatigue and armed UN peacekeepers would appear the reason, not the urgings of a fringe political party that favors organic farming, energy conservation and preventing crime partly through reduction in municipal stress levels.
Matters are rather more complicated for Richard Holbrooke, globe-trotting investment banker and foreign policy troubleshooter.
“Can you hold on just a second?” he asked when I reached him here Friday by phone. “I’m on the phone with the State Department.”
It was no surprise either that Holbrooke was doing a characteristic juggling act. Having attended a White House dinner for China’s premier the evening before, he was hanging out in a hotel room and trying to alternately write a new epilogue for his critically praised “To End a War,” an account of the Balkan conflict and the 1995 Dayton peace accord for Bosnia he helped fashion, as well as talking to the State Department and, thankfully, being solicitous to a reporter with a column to fill.
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No American has been as involved in the Balkan conundrum as Holbrooke, the grandson of German Jews who fled Hitler. A foreign service career began in Vietnam in 1962 and prompted his authorship of one volume of the famous Pentagon Papers. He was at the side of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the Paris peace talks on ending the war.
His resume is lengthy, with tours of duty as a Peace Corps director in Africa, managing editor of the respected Foreign Policy quarterly, a big-shot State Department official on Asia and the U.S. ambassador to Germany. He’s a vice chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston in New York City and, of course, a special envoy in dealing with the madness of Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic.
(Oh, in this age of People magazine, I would be remiss in not including the pro forma mention that he is married to author Kati Martin, an ex of TV anchor Peter Jennings. I can hereby attest that his wife displayed substantial tolerance given several lengthy phone calls I made to their hotel room Friday.)
The NATO bombing did not commence until Holbrooke was allowed to give diplomacy one last shot last month. But the die was cast as Milosevic opened the talks with a public statement to his citizens in which he pilloried America and its fighting chums.
Holbrooke, a hero of the Dayton peace talks, came away empty this time and, soon, it was bombs away.
When it comes to how Milosevic has since responded, Holbrooke said Friday, the world should not have been so surprised that “a man whose activities lay behind the previous brutalities should do it again.”
But there was a difference between repeating brutalities against the Albanians in Kosovo and a forced exodus out of the country.
“That the government would do a Nazi-like enforced exodus, re-creating `Schindler’s List’ in color, was unexpected.”
He concedes that the United States and NATO “were caught by the speed and severity” of the Serbians’ moves in Kosovo, though the ability of the intelligence community to predict “does run out of steam at a certain point.” Still, he does cite certain CIA estimates and maintains that the intelligence community did predict our actions would “intensify the refugee flow.”
Holbrooke has in the past agreed with the characterization of Milosevic as part arsonist and part fireman, namely part of both the problem and the solution. Does he still feel that way?
“He has already proved to be the arsonist, and it will be very hard for him to be the fireman. I think it is extraordinarily difficult for him. He has made a spectacular mistake and will have to live with its consequences.”
As for the bombing, he said, “This will go on. Get ready for protracted war. He thinks he can Saddam Hussein us. I don’t know if he will be at the table (for any negotiations).”
But what will Milosevic do now?
Holbrooke, who has been criticized by some for helping to needlessly legitimize Milosevic, doesn’t venture a guess. But as for the larger impact of what is playing out, Holbrooke verges on the unequivocal.
“Milosevic is the most disruptive force in Europe in half a century,” he said. “You can argue whatever you want about the diplomacy leading up to this. Historians will know the ending.
“What Milosevic has done to Europe is undeniable. NATO had to confront him.”
Holbrooke is an internationalist who a year ago complained to me about the seeming growth in isolationist sentiment on Capitol Hill, especially among a new generation of Republican politicians.
“Americans understandably hoped the end of the Cold War would allow us to reduce our international involvement. But history did not end in 1992 and the end of the Cold War did not mean the end of our vital national interests abroad,” Holbrooke said.
“With our economy increasingly global, a country which views itself as the only superpower cannot ignore its responsibility for helping, along with our close allies, and maintaining stability and peace,” he said.
Somehow, it reminds him of Chicago.
“I am particularly struck by the way our greatest continental city, Chicago, now has become a great international city. When I go to Chicago now I find as great an involvement in international issues as in New York, Washington or Los Angeles.”
I remind him that Chicago has a significant Serbian population, one that has been unhappy with coverage of the conflict and the role of the United States, which also means unhappy with Holbrooke.
“I am regularly sent letters and phone calls from Serbs and Serbian-Americans, asking why we are bombing the same people who fought with us in two world wars, who saved so many American pilots who were shot down by the Germans in World War II and had such a long history of friendship with the U.S.,” Holbrooke said.
“I have tried to point out that no one should believe in the collective guilt of an entire people,” he said. “That would be tantamount to repeating the very ethnic hate crimes of the Nazis.
He noted how Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, part of whose childhood was spent in Belgrade, has broadcast messages to Yugoslavia in Serbian making this point: “We are not anti-Serbian but must stand up against the actions which have taken place, based on ethnic hatred.”
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Of course, Serb TV also derided everything from Albright’s dress to her actual words in reporting her speech, exhibiting a venom and penchant for caricature that resembled a good “Saturday Night Live” skit.
It may explain why Holbrooke, who knows the scene as well as anyone, is loath to predict what may come next.
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James Warren and Michael Tackett of the Tribune’s Washington bureau are hosts of “Unconventional Wisdom” at 7:05 p.m. Sunday on WGN-AM 720.