U.S. to Keep Bosnia Point Man on Call as Trouble-Shooter

This was supposed to be Richard Holbrooke’s last weekend in government--a characteristically high-profile farewell tour of Europe before returning to New York and private life Wednesday.

Instead, he is still trying to patch up the Bosnian peace accord that U.S. officials admit is “on the edge of crisis.”

He still plans to leave the State Department next week, but officials said he will be called back whenever necessary to deal with Balkan “crunch points.”

President Clinton obtained Holbrooke’s promise to continue in the trouble-shooter role before agreeing to accept his resignation as assistant secretary of state for European affairs, an administration official said.

The decision to keep Holbrooke’s hand on U.S. policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina demonstrates not only the fragility of the peace agreement that Holbrooke cajoled the Balkan presidents into approving in November but also his rare abilities as a diplomat--qualities that have created a cult of personality that is unusual for a second-level bureaucrat.

From the start, the process required extensive hands-on attention from U.S. officials.

Officials have long known that the accord agreed to in Dayton, Ohio, left a number of loose ends.

With matters threatening to come apart, administration officials said there was really no alternative to the decision to convert Holbrooke into something of a diplomatic rapid-reaction force.

But as an unintended consequence, that move undercuts the three officials who will take over day-to-day management of Washington’s approach to one of the world’s most explosive trouble spots.

Replacing Holbrooke will be John Kornblum, his successor as assistant secretary for Europe, who will handle bilateral relations with each of the governments and will coordinate military matters with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Robert L. Gallucci, an ambassador-at-large dealing with police, reconstruction and other civilian matters; and John Shattuck, assistant secretary of state for human rights, who will manage Washington’s efforts to track down accused war criminals.

Although officials insisted that the agreement is not facing imminent collapse, they said it is coming under increasing pressure from all sides.

The Muslim-Croat federation that is at the heart of the process is unraveling, the emotional question of war crimes is unresolved, and the threat of terrorist attacks by any of the armed factions is growing.

With about 20,000 U.S. troops committed to the NATO-led peace force, a breach in the accord could result in U.S. casualties and turn public opinion strongly against continued U.S. involvement in the conflict.

It is not clear that Holbrooke can settle any of those disputes. But the administration clearly has decided that he is the person in the best position to try.

“Holbrooke has established a relationship with the key players,” one official said. “He was the chief negotiator at Dayton. He will be brought back when need be.”

But some nongovernmental experts say that it will be difficult for Holbrooke to maintain his edge as a part-time performer. Without doing the day-to-day work, these experts say, no one can keep well enough informed to be an effective trouble-shooter.

“You have to be on the job 24 hours a day to be effective,” said Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a former State Department and White House expert on European policy who is now a scholar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

In Rome this weekend, Holbrooke will be meeting with the three presidents who signed the Dayton accord: Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia.

Even if Holbrooke obtains an agreement by the presidents to repair the peace accord, there is no certainty that they can deliver.

Milosevic and Tudjman do not exert direct control over, respectively, the Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat factions that are two of the three parties to the conflict.