Madeleine's War

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Business done, she switched from CEO mode to professor. It's important to keep in mind Russia's complex history with Serbia, she lectured, leaning back in her seat and propping her glasses atop her head. There are long-standing cultural and religious ties, but Tito broke with Stalin and even supported the liberals in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968. Our fight with Serbia has dangerously alienated Russians, she noted, and it would be useful to allow them to be the ones to help solve it.

As soon as she arrived at the Petersberg conference center, a castle overlooking Bonn, Albright held a private meeting with Russia's Ivanov. It was planned with three aides for each side, but they decided to do it one-on-one, without even interpreters (each understands the other's language). They wrestled over the wording he would accept in the G-8 statement, which would be Russia's first public endorsement of an international force for Kosovo. Albright proposed calling it a "military force." Ivanov replied that he would agree only to calling it a "presence."

"You have to agree to the word security," Albright said. "Igor, will you make me happy and just say yes to that?"

"Yes," he answered, with the hint of a smile, "but when will you make me happy? I keep waiting for my turn."

Ivanov took a piece of paper and sketched out the possible composition of a security arrangement, using circles to represent the role various forces would play. Albright used her pen to show how NATO had to be involved, but Ivanov didn't agree. "This isn't for the two of us to do," she finally said. "We ought to leave it to our experts to start work on this."

As she left the Ivanov meeting with half a triumph, Albright was handed a phone. Christopher Hill was at a villa outside Rome with Rugova, who wanted to speak to her. Yes, Rugova told her, he would support NATO's bombing and negotiating positions in his public statements. "I'm glad to hear that," she replied. "We've been concerned about where you stood ever since your appearance with Milosevic on TV." Albright was relieved: if he had opposed the NATO mission, it would have been a public relations fiasco. In the grand solarium of the Petersberg center, the formal meeting of the G-8 went as planned. Over fish and fruit, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Albright teamed up on Ivanov for one last attempt to push him to accept something stronger than "security presence." Albright persuaded him to accept the added adjective "effective." Cook suggested adding the phrase "including a military force" in parentheses. Ivanov wouldn't go that far. "I'm sorry," he said. "This is all I can do today."

For Albright, it was enough, the culmination of a month of nudging the Russians to call publicly for an international force as part of any solution. Each of the key allied ministers stepped up to microphones afterward to stress that NATO had to play a core role. Gore, Talbott and Albright encouraged Chernomyrdin to go to Belgrade to see if he could negotiate with Milosevic an agreement based on the G-8 statement. Russia's concurrence also opened the way for a resolution in the U.N. Security Council endorsing a security force.