Dayton Shrugged: City Blase About Peace Talks : Ohio: Residents aren’t too excited about upcoming Bosnian parley. Serbia’s leader is likewise underwhelmed.

This quiet, staid Midwestern city may seem an unlikely site for the complex diplomatic talks that finally could end the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but in Dayton the Clinton Administration is getting everything it wanted: tight security and no distractions.

With only a few days to go before the talks open Wednesday, security has tightened visibly at nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where the parley will take place. Builders are completing work on a 12-foot chain-link fence that will surround the diplomatic compound.

Outside the gates, Dayton is, well, living down to expectations. Although locals take pride that the city has been selected for the talks, many are blase, even uninterested.

“I guess they had to have them somewhere,” Charles Remley, a retired truck driver, said with a shrug.

Except for an interdenominational service Monday at Christ Episcopal Church, there will be little to connect Dayton with the talks--no “Welcome, Peace Talks” signs, no big parade and no key to the city. So far, authorities say, no major demonstrations seem likely.

The idea is to provide negotiators with the kind of atmosphere they need to hammer out a peace accord without any disturbances.

“Whatever way we can help, we will,” Dayton Mayor Michael R. Turner said.

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Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic may have caught the spirit of the Administration’s scheme in choosing Dayton when he was quoted by a newspaper reporter as saying: “What? You are going to keep me locked up in Dayton, Ohio? I’m not a priest, you know.”

The State Department appears to be doing everything it can to maintain the separation.

The three principals of the talks--Milosevic, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman--will be housed in suites at Wright-Patterson usually reserved for four-star Air Force generals. Lower-level diplomats will stay in 40 less sumptuous rooms.

Although none of the officials will be under house arrest, they will be discouraged from wandering outside the gates.

The air base will provide negotiators with secure telephone lines they can use to call home for consultations.

All but a few U.S. officials will remain in Washington, and the media will not be allowed anywhere near the compound after the opening day of the talks.

The principals are slated to arrive here late Tuesday. The negotiations will open--apparently with ceremonial speeches--Wednesday.

To be sure, some Daytonians are more affected than others.

Mark Langdon, manager of the Holiday Inn conference center just across from the air base, said his rooms are booked for 30 days.

“We’re getting an obvious impact,” Langdon said. But few other hoteliers are.

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And for a handful of local families--recent Bosnian refugees who have come here for political asylum--the fact that the talks will take place in their adopted town has a special poignancy.

Zdenka Rasic, a Bosnian Serb mother of two who was routed from her home by Bosnian Muslims during a turnabout in “ethnic cleansing,” was amazed at last week’s announcement that Dayton would host the talks.

“I learned about it from a girlfriend, and I thought, ‘This is great!’ ” she said in an interview. “I’m very glad that they are coming, but it’s so strange that they are coming to Dayton.”

Dayton’s small but cohesive Central European ethnic community is keeping a close watch on the peacemaking effort. Helen Tonini, who serves as vice president of Old North Dayton’s Yugoslav Club, said interest is high among members of her organization.

Indeed, Tonini suggested that Bosnia’s three warring factions might learn something from communities such as hers. Although the Yugoslav Club includes ethnic Serbs, Croats and even some Muslims, she said, “we are strictly a social organization. We all love one another.”

They also might learn something about capitalism. Elinor Sluzas, owner of the Amber Rose, a restaurant specializing in Central European food, has told State Department officials that she will close her doors to help meet security requirements if negotiators want to eat at her place.

The Dayton Daily News noted that this is not the first set of peace talks the city has hosted. The treaty opening the Northwest Territory was signed here in 1795. Nearly 20 years later, Gen. William Henry Harrison made peace here with the Indians after the battle of Tippecanoe.

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Cheryl Brown, an administrative assistant in suburban Fairborn, mused that at least part of the reason Daytonians have not become caught up in the negotiations is that they haven’t known for long that the talks would be here.

The State Department managed to keep the location secret--even from Turner--until just before the announcement.

“I don’t think it’s really hit people yet,” Brown said.

When it does, she said, enthusiasm may pick up.

Turner cited another reason for the apparent nonchalance: The Bosnian conflict has seemed so remote, and confusing, that Americans have not been able to focus on it.

“There is a disconnectedness,” he said. “This has not been a war that has [produced] a rallying cry.”

Moreover, not everyone regards the event as a plus for the city. In a view shared by many Daytonians, Kay Munn, an airline ticket agent, worried that the negotiations could provoke terrorists to strike here.

“You think about something like a bomb,” she said.