The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, extended coverage of Yugoslavia's acceptance of a Kosovo peace plan. That includes a Newsmaker interview with Defense Secretary Cohen, and analysis by former top U.S. officials Zbigniew Brzezinski, Warren Zimmermann, and General George Joulwan. We'll have the other news of this Thursday at the end of the program tonight.

FOCUS - PEACE TALKS

JIM LEHRER: Yugoslavia accepted a Kosovo peace offer today, the 72nd day of NATO's air war against it. The announcement came from Belgrade after two days of talks between Yugoslav President Milosevic and Russian and Finnish diplomats. They had presented a plan to end the NATO bombing and return Kosovar refugees to their homes. Kwame Holman has our summary of the day's Yugoslavia-Kosovo developments.

KWAME HOLMAN: Minutes before Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari met with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic today, air raid sirens blared in Belgrade warning of possible NATO bombing. Despite the possibility of peace, NATO planes struck targets in Yugoslavia and Kosovo last night. Explosions could be heard in the background as Ahtisaari met with reporters after his first meeting with Milosevic.

PRESIDENT MARTTI AHTISAARI, Finland: We have just finished our discussions with our Yugoslav hosts. We have been informed that the federal government and the parliament have approved the plan, peace offer, that we made yesterday.

KWAME HOLMAN: The Serb parliament, which convened today for the first time since NATO bombing began March 24, approved a peace deal by a vote of 136-74. Vuk Draskovic is a member of the parliament and former deputy prime minister.

VUK DRASKOVIC: Today the parliament of the republic of Serbia accepted completely the document, the common document delivered to President Milosevic yesterday by Mr. Ahtisaari and Mr. Chernomyrdin. The Serbian parliament today declared the peace. According to the document we accepted today, our state forces start retreating from Kosovo, the bombarding would be stopped.

KWAME HOLMAN: Serb media said the accord calls for an end to the violence in Kosovo, a verifiable withdrawal of Serb troops from Kosovo within seven days, deployment of an international security force there acting under United Nations' authority with essential NATO participation, safe and free return of all refugees, and the establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo and a political process that leads to autonomy for the province. The proposed agreement also stipulates that Yugoslavia maintain its sovereignty, and calls for demilitarization of the Kosovo Liberation Army. In Washington this afternoon, President Clinton was not ready to declare the Kosovo conflict over.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: As you know, we have been working closely with President Ahtisaari and Mr. Chernomyrdin to try to achieve an agreement that would allow the refugees to go home with security, safety, and self- government. Movement by the Serbian leadership to accept these conditions established by NATO and the international community is of course welcome. But based on our past experience, we must also be cautious. First, we must have clarity that the Serbian leadership has fully accepted these conditions and intends to fully implement them. Until then, and until Serb forces begin a verifiable withdrawal from Kosovo, we will continue to pursue diplomacy, but we will also continue the military effort that has brought us to this point. In a few moments, I will meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to speak about the progress of our campaign and our planning for the force that would enter Kosovo when NATO's conditions are met. NATO and our military have been working hard to ensure that we can sustain our campaign and deploy KFOR quickly and effectively when that is necessary. We have worked to ensure that we can do this while maintaining our overall military posture around the world.

KWAME HOLMAN: At the meeting of European Union leaders in Cologne, Germany, today, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was encouraged by the Serb parliament's vote, but warned that Belgrade must accept NATO's specific demands.

TONY BLAIR: Obviously if this news is correct and the Serbian parliament and Milosevic's regime have accepted these terms, then that really is progress, and we must make it clear, however, that it's the acceptance of all the terms -- those terms aren't negotiable. They're there, they're set out, they're in full, and they have all to be accepted, and they have to be backed up by action.

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, Viktor Chernomyrdin, the man chosen by Russian President Boris Yeltsin to help broker peace, arrived back in Moscow to face criticism that he had encouraged Belgrade to bow to NATO's demands. Chernomyrdin told reporters Russian troops would be part of an eventual peacekeeping force, but would not take orders from NATO.

VIKTOR CHERNOMYRDIN: [Translated] The NATO troops will form part of the international peacekeeping force. Also there will be the troops from neutral countries and, on the special request from Yugoslav authorities, there will be the Russian contingent. All NATO troops will be under the NATO authority. I can't say anything about neutral countries. That is the business of their leaders. But when it comes to the Russian contingent, it will be taking orders from Russia and only from Russia.

KWAME HOLMAN: And speaking from California, where he was preparing to give a speech to the World Affairs Council, the Yugoslav Ambassador to the United Nations said the proposed peace deal was a compromise which protected Yugoslavia's interests.

AMBASSADOR VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: What matters most is that our sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected without any attempt to affect it, or to reduce it and that the peace be restored.

KWAME HOLMAN: Seventy-two days of bombing have inflicted vast damage on Yugoslavia. NATO said today it estimates 5,0000 Serb military personnel have been killed, 10,000 wounded in the conflict. NATO said 20,000 alliance soldiers stationed in Macedonia and Albania are prepared to move into Kosovo to enforce a peace agreement within 48 hours of a cease-fire. Refugees in the camps along the Kosovo border got the news of pending peace from reporters today. Many were skeptical about an end to the conflict and about when they finally could return home.

REFUGEE: [Translated] Maybe the Serb parliament has accepted this peace plan but I won't believe it until the Kosovo Albanian parliament accepts it. Also, this plan is not good for us Albanians or for NATO. I think this plan is destined for failure.

REFUGEE: This is very good news for Kosovar people. Maybe when this war is all finished, I will come back to my home and to my country Kosovo.

REFUGEE: [Translated] Every time that Milosevic has agreed to something like this, we end up in a situation like we are in now. We like the fact that he is agreeing for us to go back into Kosovo but the problem is we don't have anything to go back to anymore.

KWAME HOLMAN: Senior diplomats from the group of eight industrial nations are expected to meet tonight in Germany to draft a United Nations resolution to authorize a peacekeeping force to go into Kosovo. Meanwhile, Finnish President Ahtisaari arrived in Cologne to cheers and a smiling German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Ahtisaari then spoke about to reporters about his trip to Belgrade.

PRESIDENT MARTTI AHTISAARI:I presented, when we met last night, the document, which is two pages long, and read it through. I later on gave it to Mr. Milosevic. This is a document that we could in the trilateral discussion, agree between the delegations of Mr. Chernomyrdin, Mr. Talbott and myself. And what was good in the document was that it had everything there, if agreed, could start a process, would be a first step, but it could lead to a process after verifiable withdrawal of all armed forces of Yugoslavia police and paramilitary from Kosovo in an agreed timetable and properly verified fairly soon, when that process started, it could lead to the suspension of war activities -- in other words, pause in the bombing. My role was to answer questions on this document. And there were plenty of them. And I tried to do my best to clarify the contents of the paper. When I was asked whether it would be possible for them to suggest improvements, I had to say in no uncertain terms that I or Mr. Chernomyrdin, didn't have any authority to negotiate this paper. It was the bestoffer, and I had to be very candid and say so last night, that it was the best offer that the international community was in a position to make. And I think it was understood in our discussions. They knew that the Yugoslav leadership was taking this matter to the parliament for approval, the parliament meeting started around -- it was supposed to start at 10:30. It was a closed session, and we were warned that we would meet again around 1:00 o'clock. We met actually at ten past 1:00 this afternoon. I was in that meeting told that the Yugoslavia accepted the peace document I brought to Belgrade and that the session of parliament had also approved the document. And I was told that the same had taken place in the federal government meeting, the same morning. I think it was recognized that this was the first step in building peace. What follows from here now is that I hope that today there are contacts between the military leadership in Yugoslavia and NATO military setup in order to agree on the details that have been spelled out here, get the withdrawal process agreed, get it verified so that we can come to the suspension of military activity, as has been indicated. Bear with me -- if I am not jumping here with enthusiasm -- because there's a lot of hard work that needs to be done, as I have explained, a lot of issues still among the contributing governments to the international security presence carried out so that we can take care of the sensitivities of those that require that. But I believe that, as I said, that the first step in building peace has been made.

PETER NORMAN, Financial Times: Peter Norman from the Financial Times. I'm still a bit unclear how long it'll be before the hostilities end. I wonder if you can give us your estimate of that, and secondly, does the indictment of Mr. Milosevic as a war criminal complicate matters, and if so, how?

PRESIDENT MARTTI AHTISAARI: No. In theory, if there was an agreement tomorrow, I think one could expect that tomorrow-- tomorrow is Friday, I assume. Yes. I'm losing track of the days. So if -- much depends -- it's very difficult to give you a precise answer, but it would be in days and very few days, that I understand that the suspension of the war activities, in other words, the pause in the bombing, would take place. So you can calculate yourself. I'm in no position to say whether it's one day or two days or three days. But it's a very short period of time. One wants to be absolutely sure that it happens what has been agreed upon -- but not the whole process. I have no way of -- I think you better make the judgment call yourself, that the matter never came up in our discussions. No one referred to it. Let's put it that way, that I was positively surprised that during one trip, we could get the clear position. Of course I say that the proof of the pudding is in eating. And my own experience makes me very careful in approaching these issues, but I was mentally prepared to -- that I had to travel perhaps more than once there.

REPORTER: Mr. President, how -- could you explain a little bit more what -- how the atmosphere of the meeting with president Milosevic, what exactly -- what kinds of questions he was asking and how long this meeting went on and then really what your role was beyond simply spelling out, relaying the paper that you had.

PRESIDENT MARTTI AHTISAARI: First of all, you have to perhaps know that most of the people, at least half of the people on the other side of the table are people with whom I had been dealing when I was the chairman of the Bosnia Herzegovina working group. So they didn't meet as total strangers, so they know me and my habits. I think the atmosphere was very business-like. If you want to know, there were no voices raised in the discussion. I presented the case, as I said, I went through the paper, I tried to clarify on the issues that were raised. When you ask what questions were raised, the role of the U.N., the international security presence. My role -- now, in this case, I presented the plan -- if you ask to Belgrade and answered the questions from my U.N. experience because that's why I thought that I was brought into this, as an old U.N. hand.

KWAME HOLMAN: Ahtisaari will meet with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott in Helsinki tomorrow.

NEWS MAKER

JIM LEHRER: And back in Washington, we go to a newsmaker interview with Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who joins us now from the Pentagon. Mr. Secretary, welcome.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: Good evening.

JIM LEHRER: Is peace at hand, sir?

WILLIAM COHEN: Oh, I think it's too early to tell. This has been a very positive step certainly by the Serb parliament, but until such time as we see more details and an agreement that is implemented on their part, then I don't think that we should draw any conclusions that peace is at hand. We intend to continue our air campaign until such time as the forces, in fact, are pulled out of Kosovo pursuant to this agreement. And so we'll have to wait and see what the details are and whether there is a commitment to carry through on the part of the Serb government.

JIM LEHRER: What specifically are you looking for in the next few hours to test whether or not this is real?

WILLIAM COHEN: Well, there has to be a meeting on a military-to-military basis so that our military representatives can meet with theirs to work out the time frame, the sequencing, the logistics of removing their forces. And satisfy ourselves that we have the means to verify that removal of forces before there can be a cessation of the air campaign. And so all of that would have to be worked out. We would assume that that will be under way within the next day or two -- and serious efforts made to resolve those remaining issues.

JIM LEHRER: But are the efforts under way now to schedule such a meeting? Are you waiting for the phone call, or are they waiting for the phone call?

WILLIAM COHEN: I believe that there are efforts underway right now to set up such a meeting. I can't say what the time and place and date will be, but I would expect it will be in the next several days, and in the meantime, we will make preparations to try to accelerate our own deployment of K forces, the Kosovo peace implementation force, that we would want to have that in place in any event so that the enhanced KFOR force can be ready to move into Kosovo as quickly as possible to start moving the refugees back, should there be a commitment on the part of the Serbs to carry forward their agreement. If they don't, then we will continue the air campaign.

JIM LEHRER: But the next step from the United States' point of view and the NATO point of view, is that there has to be a meeting scheduled between NATO military commanders and Yugoslav military commanders, not diplomats?

WILLIAM COHEN: Well, we could have both. I think it would have to be both. But from a military potential of view, we would want to see that take place as soon as possible so that we could, again, arrive at some understanding in terms of what must take place in order to satisfy NATO that Milosevic and his forces are, in fact, prepared to pull themselves out of Kosovo and allow the refugees to return. So we will have to work out those mechanics, and that will take a conference between military representatives; there will be diplomatic initiatives and conferences taking place simultaneously.

JIM LEHRER: Do you know something that makes you extremely skeptical about whether or not, first of all, these meetings are going to take place, whether or not the Serbs are really -- really mean it this time or what?

WILLIAM COHEN: Well, I wouldn't use the word skeptical. I think the watchword of the day is "cautious." We must remain cautious to satisfy ourselves that there is substance behind the agreement at least that the Serb parliament has reached, that they have agreed to the terms set forth by NATO. So we remain cautious, we think it's a positive development, but we are not taking anything for granted. We're going to continue doing what we have been doing, and that is inflicting serious and substantial damage upon Milosevic's forces. And that will continue until such time as we are satisfied and we make a judgment that there has been a manifestation of an intent and coupled with movement of forces out of Kosovo so that we can satisfy ourselves that we can proceed with an understanding that they are all going out.

JIM LEHRER: Viktor Chernomyrdin told reporters in Moscow today that his understanding was that the bombing would stop within two or three days after Yugoslavia begins compliance. Does that make sense to you?

WILLIAM COHEN: I think the bombing will stop after we're satisfied that there is going to be full compliance. Again, that could come in a relatively short period of time, but much depends upon the movement of the forces out. And we will just have to see how that unfolds.

JIM LEHRER: But to make sure I understand -- I don't mean to nit pick here, but just to make sure I understand, they don't have to have completely implemented the compliance, in other words, all the Serb troops don't have to be out of Serbia before the bombing would end? You all would just have to have some feeling that they were beginning a serious attempt, is that correct?

WILLIAM COHEN: Right. We are not going to be satisfied with any sort of a small deployment of forces out of the region. We would have to see a significant commitment and movement of their forces out of Kosovo to satisfy ourselves that they, in fact, intend to do what they have pledged to do, and that is comply with the agreement. And we will watch that very carefully. We will make a judgment, and if we satisfy ourselves that they are in the process of removing their forces, we will do nothing to impede their removal and compliance with the agreement. But that's a judgment we'll have to make when it unfolds, when the time unfolds.

JIM LEHRER: The agreement itself, the piece of paper that the Serbian parliament said, "Okay, we buy this, we accept this," is that agreement all right from a NATO and U.S. point of view?

WILLIAM COHEN: The agreement on the part of the Serb parliament is to accept NATO's conditions, the five core demands that NATO has set forth from the very beginning, and to the extent that they have agreed to that and then they take steps to carry it out, to satisfy us that they intend to fully comply with that, then we would obviously welcome that.

JIM LEHRER: But the agreement its search is exactly what the United States and NATO wanted, is that correct?

WILLIAM COHEN: That's correct.

JIM LEHRER: So there's nothing -- there's no small print, no -- nothing to be worked out from the U.S. Point of view, is that correct?

WILLIAM COHEN: Mr. Ahtisaari indicated that he made it very clear to Mr. Milosevic what was contained in the presentation, what the understanding was, what Milosevic and his forces had to do. So he made it very clear there was no misunderstanding. There had to be all the Serb forces out, there had to be the refugees returned to their homes a safe, secure environment, a command-and-control structure that is under NATO and a restoration of autonomy to the Kosovar Albanians. All of that is contained in NATO's key demands, and that is what was presented to Mr. Milosevic. And according to Mr. Ahtisaari, there is no misunderstanding, there could be no misunderstanding. So to the extent that the Serb parliament has agreed to that and then takes steps to carry it out, there should not be a problem.

JIM LEHRER: Well, Chernomyrdin again said that the new wrinkle in this-- I paraphrase. He didn't say new wrinkle, but the new dimension to this was that the United Nations would play a to stronger role than had been originally proposed by NATO, is that correct?

WILLIAM COHEN: I don't know what his reference is to as far as the United Nations is concerned. The United Nations will play with a role as we envisioned before, that as far as civil implementation in dealing with the civilian aspects, then certainly the United Nations has an important role to play. But when it comes to the military operation, that is purely under NATO's command and control, and that we would continue to insist upon. There can be no misunderstanding about that. As far as the U.N.'s role on the civil implementation, that would be welcomed, but it has to be -- the military has to be under the command and control of NATO.

JIM LEHRER: But won't there be some Russian troops involved?

WILLIAM COHEN: Well, there could be. And hopefully there will be some Russian troops involved, but that is not a pre-condition to this agreement. We would hope that Russia would consider sending some troops, as they have done in Bosnia. They serve side by side with American forces as part of the NATO force. We think that would be important that they do so, as well. Should they choose not to do so, that really has no bearing upon this particular agreement or upon NATO's demands.

JIM LEHRER: But if Russia sends troops, they will serve under NATO or they will not serve?

WILLIAM COHEN: There has to be a single force under NATO command and control. There is an arrangement in Bosnia where they have a separate reporting structure, and that has worked out satisfactorily, but it's still under the overall control of NATO. And that will be the case here, as well. We cannot have separate command-and-control structures. And so to the extent that Russia participates, would I expect that it will be very much along the lines as they do in Bosnia.

JIM LEHRER: You don't anticipate any problems about this?

WILLIAM COHEN: Well, I don't know. They may decide that they don't wish to participate, and again I would point out that the forces that will make up NATO will be NATO countries and non-NATO countries. We've had indications from several Middle Eastern countries they wish to participate in the peacekeeping mission. We have a number of non-NATO countries who are eager to participate on a peacekeeping mission. So if Russia decides to do so, that would be welcomed. If they don't, that would be acceptable, as well.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, an old-fashioned war terms, should this be considered a surrender? Should we be saying tonight, we won?

WILLIAM COHEN: I don't think we have toengage in any chest pounding on this particular issue. What we have indicated is that these demands had to be met. A terrible thing has been done to the people of Kosovo. We've had almost a million refugees, if not more. We have three to four hundred thousand people who may still be internally displaced. There's been an horrific amount of damage done by Milosevic's forces, and I think the world will continue to be horrified as they learn more and more about the details. So what we have said is: This cannot stand, that this expulsion of refugees must be reversed. They have to go back. They have to go to a safe environment, and NATO must be in a position to ensure that. And we will do so. And the President indicated during our meeting with the Joint Chiefs today that we have to succeed, NATO will succeed, and by all means necessary. And so we intend to continue this campaign in the event that we don't see a fulfillment on the part of the Serb forces of this agreement.

JIM LEHRER: Speaking of details, Mr. Secretary, there was a report today that NATO finally has given a figure as to how many Serbian military troops have been killed in the 72 days of bombing, and the figure was 5,000. Is that -- does that ring true to you, sir?

WILLIAM COHEN: I have no way of verifying that. It could be much more. It could be less. The Serbs maintain that it's far less than that. I think, based upon the amount of damage that I have seen done in the last several weeks, that there is significant damage being inflicted and not only upon machinery, equipment, tanks, artillery pieces, but on forces in the field. And so I think that the damage has been significant, but I can't tell you what the numbers are.

JIM LEHRER: If this agreement today turns out to be real and it is implemented after 72 days of bombing, that's a little bit longer or somewhat longer than you and others expected it to take, is it not?

WILLIAM COHEN: Well, we really didn't have any way of measuring how long it would take. What we said was we had to be prepared to carry out this air campaign for as long as it takes. The weather has been a big factor. If you look at the charts, you will find that, out of the 70-plus days that this air campaign has been underway, roughly 15 or 16 days have been entirely clear weather where we didn't have to call back some of the forces that were being deployed. And so I think that the weather has been an impediment, and certainly there has been a robust air-defense system, which we had to degrade. But now we are in a position that we have clear air superiority over all of Serbia, and that is taking a toll on his forces. So we planned to carry this on as long as necessary, we went to the Hill to say we needed additional funding to make sure we could carry the air campaign clearly through the end of September and then begin a new fiscal year. And we were prepared to carry it all the way through to next year if necessary.

JIM LEHRER: And it's all been worth it?

WILLIAM COHEN: To the extent that we get the refugees back to their homes and we see the establishment of a situation where the people of Kosovo can have autonomy, substantial autonomy and peace and hopefully one day prosperity can be brought to that region, it certainly will be worth our effort.

JIM LEHRER: Do you plan personally, Mr. Secretary, to involve yourself in any discussions with Yugoslav defense figures over getting this thing moving quickly in the next few days?

WILLIAM COHEN: I think that will be left at the military level. To the extent that my services or my position will be required, I'd be happy to do that. But I think right now the details have to be worked out by our military experts and uniformed military. So I expect that that's what will take place in the next several days.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Secretary Cohen, thank you very much.

WILLIAM COHEN: My pleasure.

FOCUS - WILL IT WORK?

JIM LEHRER: Further reactions, and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And we get three additional perspectives on today's developments from Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to President Carter; General George Joulwan, who was NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe from 1993 to 1997 -- he commanded NATO forces when they moved into Bosnia in 1995 to implement the Dayton Peace Accord; and Warren Zimmermann, who was U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia during the Bush administration. Welcome, gentlemen.

Dr. Brzezinski, is this a good deal?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: It's too soon to say that it's a good deal. Everything will depend on implementation, but bear in mind what brought us here: One, allied unity, for which the Clinton administration deserves a lot of credit for maintaining; two, heavy bombing, which we only started about a month ago; and three, the growing possibility that we would deploy ground forces into combat. During implementation, the bombing probably will stop. The threat of ground troops being deployed for combat will recede and allied unity may be strained. So we have to be extremely watchful during implementation, insist on the tightest control, I believe deploy troops into Kosovo concurrently with the withdrawal of the Serbs and maintain the bombing until the very last moment.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you see it, General?

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN: Again, I think the devil's in the details. We haven't heard enough of those details. I would hope that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are giving the President very clear advice, unity of command, who's in charge, that's unresolved. What are the rules of engagement that you're going to have on the ground? All of those things need to be considered. We did that in Bosnia, it took some time, but it paid off in the end. And I hope that's happening now. But it's in the details, and we haven't seen those details yet.

MARGARET WARNER: Ambassador Zimmermann, Secretary Cohen agreed essentially with Jim when Jim asked him, if this deal is for real, is it exactly what the U.S. and NATO wanted? Is it? I mean, acknowledging we have to be cautious but just as the deal that we've all read, would that be a victory for NATO?

WARREN ZIMMERMANN: Well, the way Secretary Cohen described it, it certainly would be. But I'm a bit apprehensive that at least some of the language we've seen of this agreement doesn't quite tally with the very firm and very welcomed comments of Secretary Cohen. For example, what is the NATO role going to be in the force? Is NATO going to control or not? The Russians say not, they're not going to take orders from NATO. Those things, and I think General Joulwan is absolutely right, have got to be clarified because Milosevic, we all know, anybody who's dealt with him or watched him operate knows that agreement for him is about 10 percent of your way to an objective. The other 90 percent is implementation, and if there are any discrepancies in the agreement or any disagreements in how it's interpreted, he'll drive a truck through them.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're saying the way to make sure of this is not to stop the bombing, what, until --

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Not until he starts really withdrawing. And I would also prefer the deployment simultaneously of some NATO forces into Kosovo, for example, occupy Pristina Airport and the area around it.

MARGARET WARNER: So you'd have the Serb troops backing off, you'd have NATO troops coming in.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: And advance units moving in at the same time -- and not stop the bombing simply once he has agreed to all of the alleged details because during implementation, we'll probably not be bombing. Resuming the bombing would be very difficult.

MARGARET WARNER: You mean diplomatically.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Yeah, and the unity of the allies would be strained and he'd be playing on differences. And there are also issues in the agreement, which I want to echo warrants concern, which bother me, for example. There is a provision in the agreement for the return of Serbian personnel to maintain presence at key border crossing points. Do we really expect the Kosovars to come back and pass through Serbian checkpoints? I think that's incredible. So what are they going to be doing there? I think there are these details which are bothersome, but if the administration's definition of the agreement sticks, it is a success. But to make it a success, we have to preserve what is bringing us so close to a success.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. So go back to how we stop the bombing and what the relationship is between that and the withdrawal. How do you think it should work?

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN: Well, first of all, I would agree that we've got 12,000 to 15,000 NATO forces in Macedonia right now. They can move very quickly into Kosovo. And I would say it must be simultaneous withdrawal. You must verify. I counted the number of heavy weapons that were pulled out of the Sarajevo exclusion zone in order to stop the bombing in September of '95. You need that verification. And you need to get troops in there very quickly. But they can move in very quickly. The rapid-reaction corps is in Macedonia now and can move quite quickly if the political will is there to do that.

WARREN ZIMMERMANN: Speaking as a diplomat, I have to say that the only serious lever that NATO has is the use of force or the credible threat of force, and I think both of my partners on this program are absolutely right to stick on that because if we give that up out of euphoria or out of disunity, we won't ever get it back.

MARGARET WARNER: But then, General, what are you bombing? You want the Serb troops to leave. Are you going to continue bombing Serbia proper, are you going to bomb areas in Kosovo where the Serb troops aren't? What do you do as a practical matter?

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN: Those sort of targeting details need to be left to the experts, but I --

MARGARET WARNER: You're an expert.

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN: But my feeling will be they will still stick to strategic targets. But let me caution here-- and I'll leave it up to the diplomats and politicians-- but I think you're going to see some pressure from our European friends to stop the bombing sooner, rather than later, and I think we need to watch that very closely and feel that pressure from not only the NATO nations but also now from the E.U. And that needs to be balanced in all of this. And the United States, I think, has got to hold tough here as we go through it till we get the details that we want because Milosevic will see the cracks and he'll exploit those cracks.

MARGARET WARNER: You were on the show, Ambassador, the end of April, and we were talking about Milosevic, and you said you thought he had wrapped himself up in the Kosovo issue so completely, that he really almost maybe couldn't compromise and he might just go down and take his whole country with him. Why do you think he's done whatever it is he did today, why do you think he did it?

WARREN ZIMMERMANN: I think he did it certainly partly because he miscalculated on NATO's determination and on NATO's unity. I think he thought that after a couple of days of bombing, NATO would pack it in and would give up, and he was surprised when that didn't turn out to be true. But the other thing I think is, I think he sees something in this agreement that he can chisel us on, and that's why we have to be awfully careful to make sure the details are right.

MARGARET WARNER: So you pointed out one thing that it could be -- that the Serb troops can come back in border points. What else looks troublesome?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I have this text in front of me. Now, this is not the official text. This is a Reuters translation of what the Yugoslavs have released.

MARGARET WARNER: And we should say this is what the Serb parliament approved.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: That's right, which Milosevic himself has not yet accepted.

MARGARET WARNER: Or at least we don't know. I mean we don't know if this is what he's accepted.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: That's right. But for example, it talks about the stationing in Kosovo of an international military presence under a U.N. mandate. Now, a U.N. mandate -- I assume -- means Russian concurrence, it means Chinese concurrence. Now, suppose we don't get that concurrence. Is the agreement off? There will be a U.N. Security Council decision upon provisional administration. Is it subject to the veto again? And on whose side will the Russians be? We call them a mediator, but till now, the Russians-- and it was evident from Chernomyrdin's article in the "Washington Post"-- took a totally pro Yugoslav position. Who will supervise the return of the Kosovars? The Serbian border guards, at the border crossing points? There's talk about a meaningful agreement for a provisional political administration -- agreement between whom, with whom, with the Yugoslav government, will Milosevic be talking about it with us?

MARGARET WARNER: Does the U.N. role - because, as Jim pointed out, both the Yugoslavs and the Russians when they've gone home to their own audiences have pointed to this, well, the U.N.'s going to be reasserting its role here. Does that concern you?

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN: It does in one major point, and that is a lesson we learned in Bosnia, that I would hope this would not lead to some sort of dual-key arrangement that we had where the UNPROFOR --

MARGARET WARNER: This was the force in Bosnia.

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN: In Bosnia-- had a veto over the is use of force and had to at some point go all the way back to Boutros Boutros-Ghali before we could act. It's those sort of details that need to be clarified here. And I think the President's word of clarity is very important here, that we -- before we buy into something, we better make sure we understand what it is we're getting into and the details are important here.

MARGARET WARNER: So does that mean, in a way maybe, it would be good to have a U.N. mandate, which would lay out all of these things, or do you see potential trouble there?

WARREN ZIMMERMANN: Well, I think the U.N. has to be involved, not so much in the military as suspects, which really should be a NATO operation, whatever you call it -- but in the civilian operations -- but that's difficult, too, because the agreement talks about autonomy for Kosovo. If Kosovo is not going to have autonomy, there was no point doing there at all, if the Albanians are going to go back to have the Serbs run Kosovo, that's no good. We haven't fulfilled even the most basic of our conditions. Is that autonomy going to be a hostage to the vetoes -- possible vetoes of the Russians and the Chinese? That has got to all be clarified.

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN: If I could just add, I think on the U.N. role, it would be very useful for a very strong U.N. resolution here, and that resolution would then point toward hopefully NATO to implement this agreement. That would be extremely useful, to show the international community is behind this. But the clarity is there that NATO command and control will be the -- will be what will happen on the ground.

MARGARET WARNER: So -- go ahead.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Can I just add one more point to that? The agreement also talks about a very sensitive and difficult point; namely, the demilitarization-- that's the word-- of the KLA.

MARGARET WARNER: I was just going to ask about that.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Now, when will that happen? Will it happen as the Serbs are leaving? Will it happen after they have left? Suppose the Serbs at some point say, "Well, we're not satisfied; the demilitarization of the KLA is not happening fast enough. We're stopping our withdrawals." We have in the meantime stopped the bombing, we have obviously decided not to deploy ground troops for combat, and time will have passed for that. We'll have lost two of the three leverages, and will then NATO be united and the Russians and the Chinese might be saying, "well, NATO's violating the agreement." So there are a lot, a lot of loopholes. I think that the administration is to be commended for getting this far and for doing late in the game some of the things they needed to do. And I wish it well, but we have to be extremely careful because we're going to lose immediately two-thirds of our leverage and maybe all three elements.

MARGARET WARNER: Are you as confident as Secretary Cohen seemed to be when he talked to Jim that the KLA will essentially play ball?

WARREN ZIMMERMANN: I'm not sure, Margaret. I think it will all depend on, as the days go by, on whether we can get the kind of clarity in the agreement that meets the conditions that NATO and the United States have set forth. If we don't get that, then the KLA is going to tell the refugees, "Don't go back." And why should they go back if they don't get the conditions that we asked for -- so there's still a lot to be settled.

MARGARET WARNER: Let's go back to the Russian role now on the ground, and you heard what Chernomyrdin said -

committee

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: They're going to be -- Russians are going to answer to -- I can't find my notes here, but they're to take orders from Russians and only from Russians. Secretary Cohen says, "Oh, no, we have the Bosnia model." Explain how the Bosnia model worked and how do you interpret all this?

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN: What Secretary Perry and I negotiated with Minister of Defense Grachev was where I received as the supreme allied commander a three-star Russian deputy. I had what is called operational control of the force. Tactical control was by the division on the ground -- the U.S. division. That satisfied the unity of command issue. What Chernomyrdin is talking about is something entirely different where they're going to take their direct orders, if I heard him correctly, from Moscow. That is not unity of command. You cannot have a split command within a military organization, at least I would not recommend it.

MARGARET WARNER: So what is your take on what the Russian sort of motivations and intentions are? And I know I'm asking you to read their minds, but given their history and given their history in this conflict and -

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Well, in a way, we had very good indication of that in the Chernomyrdin article, and it's quite clear from the article that the Russians didn't want NATO -

MARGARET WARNER: The op-ed that he wrote -

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: The op-ed in the "Washington Post" about a week ago. It's quite clear that the Russians didn't want NATO to succeed, first of all, and Russian press has been very open on this. They have viewed this essentially as an exercise of what they call American hegemony. I don't believe that as of today all of a sudden they have an interest in this being a success for NATO and the United States. And this makes me very wary. They may have no choice and they may have to go along with us, but they're going to do everything they can during the implementation phase to reduce this in terms of it being a success and to complicate it if the Serbs and particularly Milosevic, chooses to complicate it. So we have to be extremely careful here and move step by step and be extremely precise about every step. When the Serbian troops begin to leave, I would like to see a simultaneous deployment of NATO forces that's in Pristina, in the airport, in the city, control a major hub of communications so that we're astride the Serbian roads of withdrawal, things of this sort.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you read the Russian intentions here?

WARREN ZIMMERMANN: I think the Russians are paying us back - the Russian agenda -- which has been a Yugoslav agenda, Serb agenda as Zbig says. I think they're paying us back for the expansion of NATO. They don't like NATO, they don't like the fact that it's expanded in their direction. So a lot of the posturing at the beginning of the war was the Russians doing that. But the other thing is the Russians want to be a player in the global sense, and so they were prepared to do a kind of a mediating role, even though they didn't drop their support for the Serbs. And I think we need to emphasize that aspect of it with the Russians. They're going to be a player in this. They're in and they're not going to get you out. We need to emphasize that aspect of it, but it's going to be tough because their agenda's not the same as ours.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, gentlemen, thank you all three very much.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: In the other news of the Thursday, First Lady Hillary Clinton will form a committee to explore running for the U.S. Senate from New York. The word came today from Harold Ickes, who's been coordinating Mrs. Clinton's potential candidacy. Creating an exploratory committee allows her to raise funds without formally declaring her candidacy. She would be seeking the seat of retiring Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In South Africa today, returns showed a landslide victory for President Nelson Mandela's chosen successor and their party, the African National Congress. We have more from Tim Ewart of Independent Television News.

TIM EWART, ITN: South Africa's new leader emerged triumphant today. Thabo Mbeki did not need to wait for the final results to claim an overwhelming victory. As party supporters cheered each success on the election scoreboard, Mr. Mbeki was anxious to strike a conciliatory note.

THABO MBEKI: Our people, both black and white, have mandated us to remain firm in the pursuit of our vision of a nonracial South Africa and the important goal of national conciliation.

TIM EWART: But as the ANC's votes piled up at the election center, opposition politicians were warning of a one-party state.

POLITICIAN: My concern is not so much what they will do in the short term about the constitution and everything. My concern is that the notion of one-partyism that might become ingrained in the minds of South Africans.

TIM EWART: To jubilant ANC supporters, such fears were an irrelevance. The ANC hasn't yet formally won the two-thirds majority it so badly wants in this election, but with or without it, Thabo Mbeki will be the man to run this country for the next five years.

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton said today he intended to renew normal favored nation trade relations with China. He said in a letter to Congress U.S. economic and security interests depended on it. He said it would be a mistake to isolate China. Mr. Clinton's decision came amid congressional investigations of alleged Chinese espionage at American nuclear laboratories, and on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The United States and Canada agreed to a treaty today on salmon fishing along the West Coast. Each has accused the other of taking too much of the catch. The deal reportedly set quotas and provided money for conservation. The last treaty expired in 1992. Investigators searched for clues today to the crash landing of an American Airlines jet in Little Rock, Arkansas. National Transportation Safety Board Spokesman George Black said the pilots had to contend with the worst grade of thunderstorm, a fact known only afterwards. But he said they were being given regular updates on wind speeds. The American Airlines jet wrecked late Tuesday on landing, killing nine of the 145 people on board.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: And to recap the major story of this Thursday, Yugoslavia accepted a Kosovo peace offer on the 72nd day of NATO's air war against it. The plan was endorsed by the parliament and President Milosevic. It calls for pulling Serb forces out of Kosovo and an end to NATO's bombing. It also maintains Yugoslavia's sovereignty over Kosovo. President Clinton and other western leaders said they were cautious about the deal. On the NewsHour tonight, Defense Secretary Cohen said Milosevic had to make a major withdrawal of forces if he's serious about implementing the accord.

ESSAY

JIM LEHRER: Before we go tonight, essayist Roger Rosenblatt considers the meaning of endurance.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: The family motto of Sir Earnest Shackleton, the subject of a remarkable exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, was, in Latin, Fortitudine vincimus-- "By endurance we conquer." But the theme of the exhibit really comes down to "endurance is conquest," especially when endurance is in the service of human life. What Shackleton attempted to conquer was Antarctica. In 1914, he set out with 27 men, scientists and crew, in a 300- ton wooden Barquentine called "The Endurance" in an effort to be the first to cross the Antarctic on foot. One day and a hundred miles short of reaching the Antarctic, the ship was locked in the sea by ice floes that surrounded it like polar animals, and held it fast for ten months. When the ice pack finally crushed "The Endurance," the men abandoned ship, and camped on the ice for five more months. Running out of time, Shackleton and a few crew members took a 22-foot boat, the "James Caird," and undertook an 800-mile ocean journey to South Georgia Island. Had their course been off but one degree, they would have missed the island. They endured 60-foot waves and 200-mile-an-hour winds. The temperature fell to minus-100 degrees Fahrenheit. When they landed, they then had to cross the island's mountains to reach a remote whaling station, where they organized a rescue party and returned to the ice camp. Shackleton saved every one of the men he had left behind. Impressed? Overwhelmed is more like it, which is undoubtedly why the museum created the exhibit, why Caroline Alexander curated it and wrote the book about the expedition, and why all those who see the exhibit ought to be brought to their knees. "By endurance we conquer." But Shackleton did not conquer-- at least he did not conquer the Antarctic. The exhibit, which consists of the "James Caird" itself, and photographs taken by the ship's photographer, Frank Hurley, a man who evidently was born fear-challenged, is a chronological account of the journey. Stark and cold in black and white, the pictures make endurance into art: The ship caught in the sudden, adamantine ice; the ship coated with frost at night, rising into blackness like a radio tower gone mad. One hears the ice groan, the timbers of the ship creak, the cracking as "The Endurance" keels over like a dying elephant -- and then the "James Caird," the boat they hauled to safety, which eventually saved them -- and to complete the picture, the magnificent faces of the men, the men who turned out to be the reason this journey was unforgettable, representatives of the species as it contends against ice as encroaching death, pitiless nature, silence. Where did all that endurance come from? It exists in other forms, of course, though it's not so dramatically visible. Scholars have the courage of endurance: Years, decades of work, the end of which is often not achieved-- the unfinished symphony, the unfinished medical research. Where the goal is not reached, one only has the unrealization, the unfinishing to go on, so that what is not done becomes what is done, and that, being done, becomes victory. Endurance is conquest. The true feat of Shackleton's expedition was his voyage to save his men. The 800-mile journey has been called the greatest voyage ever, because of the seamanship, to be sure, but also because it arose unexpectedly, and so was a test of human reflexes and the adjustment of human intelligence. Since Shackleton put the lives of his men first, it was a display of moral intelligence. "The Endurance" set out only days before the outbreak of World War I, that disastrous, purposeless killing spasm that set the entire 20th century on its killing course. But this ocean journey showed the other stuff that people are made of. Endurance is conquest. See the photograph of the men the "James Caird" left behind, standing on the ice and waving. They could not know if Shackleton would ever be able to return their lives to them. Yet he came back. I'm Roger Rosenblatt.

JIM LEHRER: We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening, with Shields and Gigot, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.