ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

Q: How were you received by the Serbs when you got to Belgrade?
PERINA: Within a week or so of my arrival, I received my first instruction to deliver a
demarche to Milosevic. I had never met him. We did not recognize him as president of
Yugoslavia since we did not recognize Serbia-Montenegro as the successor state to
former Yugoslavia. We did accept him as President of Serbia, and in that sense were
allowed to call him “President.” I was not an ambassador, and he knew that was done
intentionally so as not to recognize him as a head of state with any presentation of
credentials. I think Bob Rackmales had not seen him for quite a while before he left. So
Milosevic really had not met with an American diplomat for some time. I put in a request
to see him in order to deliver the message from Washington. Later in the same day, we
received a response that Milosevic would not receive me and that we should just send
over the message in written form. I knew if I did that, it would set a precedent and make
it difficult for me to ever get a meeting with him. I decided that we wouldn’t send the
message in written form. Instead, we sent back word that since I had been instructed to
deliver the message personally to him, I would have to report his refusal to see me back
to Washington and ask for new instructions. This was a bluff, of course, because
Washington had not instructed me personally to deliver the message and would have
accepted delivery of the message to him in any form. And I would have hated to tell the
Department that I delayed delivering the first message assigned to me. But I decided just
to tell Milosevic this and to wait 24 hours before sending the demarche in written form.
Well, the bluff worked. About three hours after we said that I would not deliver the
message in writing, word came back that he would receive me that afternoon. I went over
and I had my first meeting with Milosevic. Jim Swigert came along as the note taker. I
delivered the demarche orally and also left a non-paper with the talking points to make
sure he got the exact wording from Washington. This was the pattern I followed with all
subsequent demarches. In fact, this first meeting ended with him telling me that he would
receive me whenever I asked to see him. I never again had difficulty getting a meeting
with him. He clearly wanted to engage with the United States and concluded that he
could do so through me.
I cannot remember the exact content of that first demarche but it was along the same vein
as numerous other messages I delivered that first year—basically all warning him against
interference in Bosnia and sometimes warning him very bluntly that the U.S. would take
action if Serbia continued to support the Bosnian Serbs militarily. I probably had well
over a dozen meetings with him that first year. On the first few, I took Jim Swigert along
but then I started seeing him one-on-one because he spoke more openly. His English was
fluent so there was no need for interpreters. As I got to know him, the bizarre thing was
that he was actually rather engaging. I think Dick Holbrooke found this later as well. It
was quite intentional on Milosevic’s part. He wanted to engage the U.S. because he knew
that we were key to Western policy in the region. Dealing with him was very informal
and completely unlike dealing with some stuffy head of state. In the meetings, he loved to
drink Johnny Walker Black just straight on the rocks. He was a chain smoker and smoked
these cigarillos, not cigarettes but sort of small cigars. For a few months that first year, he
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