Warren Zimmermann, Was Last Ambassador To Yugoslavia
Bill Schenley
http://www.realcities.com/mld/inquirer/news/obituaries/7877283.htm
Warren Zimmermann, 69, the last U.S. ambassador to
Yugoslavia before its breakup and civil war, died Tuesday of
pancreatic cancer.
Mr. Zimmermann, a career Foreign Service officer, was named
ambassador to Yugoslavia in 1989 by President George Bush.
At the time, the former communist country was breaking up
into warring factions, and Mr. Zimmermann led the
administration's efforts to keep the state together. Bush
recalled him in 1992 to protest the outbreak of civil war.
The war lasted until 1995 and pitted the country's Muslims,
Orthodox Christian Serbs and Catholic Croats against one
another. The war killed 260,000 and forced 1.8 million to
flee their homes.
Mr. Zimmermann resigned from the Foreign Service in 1994
over what he felt was President Bill Clinton's refusal to
intervene forcefully in the Bosnia war. Clinton eventually
persuaded NATO to bomb Bosnian Serb artillery positions and
later brought together the leaders of the warring parties in
Dayton, Ohio, to negotiate the peace deal that ended the
bloodshed.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Mr. Zimmermann
ranked among the finest U.S. career ambassadors.
Describing him as an eloquent defender of human rights,
Powell said in a statement: "Ambassador Zimmermann's passing
is a great loss to American diplomacy and to our State
Department family."
Mr. Zimmermann, who grew up in Haverford and attended the
Haverford School in the 1940s, served in several other
overseas posts, including two stints in Moscow, 1973-75 and
1981-84, and was ambassador to the Conference on Security
and Cooperation in Europe from 1986 to 1989. He received the
Sharansky Award from the Union of Councils of Soviet Jews
for his support of Jewish emigration from the former Soviet
Union, as well as several State Department citations.
After leaving the Foreign Service, he taught at the Johns
Hopkins School of International Affairs and Columbia
University.
His books include Origins of a Catastrophe, about his
experiences in Yugoslavia, and First Great Triumph: How Five
Americans Made Their Country a World Power, about U.S.
involvement in the Spanish-American War.