U.S. Deployment in Bosnia Begins : Balkans: As advance party starts arriving in embattled nation and neighboring Croatia, up to 3,800 reservists are told they may be needed. List includes 36 from California.

The Clinton administration on Monday began deploying an advance party for the 20,000-member U.S. ground force headed for Bosnia-Herzegovina and started calling up as many as 3,800 reservists for duty in Bosnia and at support bases in Hungary and Germany.

As Defense Secretary William J. Perry announced the initial troop movement at a news conference, some of the advance force of 1,465 U.S. military personnel began arriving in Bosnia and Croatia to help prepare for the main body of troops, which are expected to enter Bosnia on Dec. 15 or 16.

The 20,000 U.S. soldiers will serve with about 40,000 troops from elsewhere--mostly Britain, France, other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries and former Warsaw Pact nations--in a potentially dangerous mission to enforce the peace accord worked out in Dayton, Ohio, last month by the three warring Balkan factions.

The list of reserve call-ups includes 36 reservists from California: 34 from the 353rd Army Reserve Psychological Operations Battalion and two from the 7th Psychological Operations Group, both at Moffett Field near San Jose.

Psychological operations specialists will be assigned to help persuade civilians to cooperate with the peacekeeping forces, performing such tasks as distributing leaflets. They are expected to be on duty for about 270 days, the maximum allowed without Congress’ approval.

Perry said the U.S. soldiers will be going to the Balkans “to enforce a peace, not to fight a war.” He conceded that the deployment will be risky, but he warned that “the risks to the United States of the war restarting are even greater.”

Pentagon officials said not all the reserve units put on notice Monday may be called up. Monday’s action was simply to notify the reservists that they might be called to active duty so they can begin intensive training in cold-weather and land-mine operations.

The Defense Department also made public a list of 23 active-duty military units that may be sent to Bosnia, mostly for psychological operations and engineering and mine-disposal work. None on that list was from California.

The NATO peacekeeping force will have a mission that is simple in concept: separating the warring armies, establishing demilitarized zones between them and maintaining security.

Perry and other administration officials have expressed hope that dangers to the peacekeeping forces will be minimal because representatives of the three warring factions have endorsed the Dayton peace accord and have pledged to cooperate with NATO troops.

However, officials conceded that the operation will not be risk-free. U.S. and other NATO troops may have to confront terrorists and rogue paramilitary groups, as well as an estimated 6 million land mines--many of which are uncharted--and winter weather.

The 1,465 U.S. troops that began arriving in Bosnia and Croatia on Monday were part of a 2,600-member NATO team sent to set up headquarters facilities and communications and ready transportation hubs.

About half the 2,600 troops, including 735 of the Americans sent to the Balkans on Monday, will go to Bosnia, while the remainder will travel to neighboring Croatia, which will serve as a supply line for the peacekeepers.

The 60,000-member NATO-led peacekeeping force will be deployed over three separate districts: U.S. forces will run the peacekeeping operation in northeastern Bosnia, in the area around the city of Tuzla; the British will have charge of northwestern Bosnia, near Banja Luka, and the French will command the forces in southern Bosnia, including Sarajevo, the capital.

Each area has its own dangers. The U.S. sector is home to some Bosnian Serb paramilitary units. The British area has been the site of some of the heaviest fighting of the war. The French have the knottiest problem politically, with the divisions in Sarajevo.

Once the advance party completes its preparations, the next step will be for the representatives of the three warring Balkan factions to sign the peace accord formally in ceremonies in Paris on Dec. 14. U.S. and NATO peacekeepers are expected to deploy the next day.

The United States will have about 5,000 military personnel in Croatia, principally as logistics troops, and about 7,000 in Hungary and Italy, operating staging areas and, in Italy, the warplanes that will fly close air-support missions over Bosnia.

In addition, the Navy is expected to dispatch an aircraft carrier to the scene to assist in air-cover operations and bolster the small armada of U.S. and NATO warships that have been patrolling the Adriatic Sea off Bosnia for the last two years.

The peace accord provides a timetable for separating the warring factions, and policymakers here are hoping that the three sides will keep their pledges to follow it.

On the day after the pact is signed, the three factions are expected to begin withdrawing forces from the 2 1/2-mile-wide zones of separation that will partition Bosnia between the Bosnian government and the Serbs and to start removing land mines and marking boundaries.

Two days later, military units of the various factions are to shut down their air-defense systems, including radar equipment and missile batteries.

Thirty days after the accord is signed, the three sides are supposed to have expelled all foreign troops except NATO forces, including fundamentalist Muslim moujahedeen, or freedom fighters.

Forty-five days after the accord is signed, the three are expected to finish withdrawing forces behind the 2 1/2-mile-wide zones of separation. And six months after the signing, they are supposed to have finished talks on an arms-reduction pact.

On the surface, the peace accord gives NATO troops almost everything they need to deal with any trouble. Unlike the U.N. forces in Bosnia before them, the peacekeepers will be heavily armed and will be operating under rules of engagement that give them the right to shoot at any perceived threat.

Pine reported from Washington, Marshall from Brussels.

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Reserve Units on Call

The following Army Reserve and National Guard units have been notified to begin training for possible deployment to the European Theater to support U.S. forces that may participate in NATO operations in the former Yugoslavia. These units have been notified for training and possible participation only and may or many not actually be ordered to deploy.

(AR=Army Reserve)

(NG=National Guard)

Location: Texarkana, Texas

Unit: 755th AG Postal Company (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 32

****

Location: Moffett Field, Calif.

Unit: 353d Psychological Operations (PSYOP) Battalion (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 34

****

Location: Moffett Field, Calif.

Unit: 7th PSYOP Group (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 2

****

Location: Rome, Ga.

Unit: 209th Broadcast Public Affairs Detachment (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 27

****

Location: Forrest Park, Ill.

Unit: 49th Military History Detachment (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 3

****

Location: Arlington Heights, Ill.

Unit: 17th PSYOP Battalion (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 9

****

Location: Homewood, Ill.

Unit: 308th Civil Affairs Brigade (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: *

****

Location: Camp Dodge, Iowa

Unit: 186th Military Police Company (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 125

****

Location: Topeka, Kan.

Unit: 102d Military History Detachment (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 3

****

Location: Wichita, Kan.

Unit: 203d Mobile Public Affairs Detachment (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 18

****

Location: Baltimore, Md.

Unit: 29th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 18

****

Location: Plymouth, Md.

Unit: 126th Military History Detachment (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 3

****

Location: Taylor, Mich.

Unit: 210th Military Police Headquarters Detachment (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 74

****

Location: Taylor, Mich.

Unit: 1776th Military Police Company (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 125

****

Location: Kalamazoo, Mich.

Unit: 415th Civil Affairs Battalion (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: *

****

Location: St. Paul, Minn.

Unit: 329th AG Postal Company (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 32

****

Location: Clinton, Miss.

Unit: 114th Military Police Company (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 125

****

Location: Brandon, Miss.

Unit: 113th Military Police Company (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 125

****

Location: Springfield, Mo.

Unit: 1107th Aviation Classification and Repair Depot (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 11

****

Location: St. Louis

Unit: 10th PSYOP Battalion (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: *

****

Location: Kennett, Mo.

Unit: 1137th Military Police Company (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 125

****

Location: Manchester, N.H.

Unit: 114th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 18

****

Location: Fort Totted, N.Y.

Unit: 361st Press Camp Headquarters (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 28

****

Location: Bronx, N.Y.

Unit: 353d Civil Affairs Command (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: TDB

****

Location: Raleigh, N.C.

Unit: 130th Military History Detachment (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 3

****

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Unit: 326th Military History Detachment (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 3

****

Location: Pittsburgh, Pa.

Unit: 23d AG Postal Company (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 32

****

Location: Philadelphia, Pa.

Unit: 304th Civil Affairs Brigade (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: *

****

Location: San Antonio, Texas

Unit: 90th Military History Detachment (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 3

****

Location: Ft. Douglas, Utah

Unit: 358th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 18

****

Location: Green Bay, Wisc.

Unit: 432d Civil Affairs Brigade (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: *

****

Location: Moundsville, W.V.

Unit: 152d POW Information Center (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: 17

****

Location: Washington

Unit: 715th Public Affairs Detachment (AR)

Approximate # of personnel: 5

****

Location: Warwick, R.I.

Unit: 443rd Civil Affairs Battalion (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: *

****

Location: Salt Lake City

Unit: 19th Special Forces Group (NG)

Approximate # of personnel: *

****

Location: Birmingham, Ala.

Unit: 20th Special Forces Group

Approximate # of personnel: *

Source: Defense Department

* = To be determined