SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC - SERBIA

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06569674
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: March 16, 2022
• Document Release Date: June 15, 2016
• Case Number: F-2016-01087
• Publication Date: July 2, 1996

Approved for Release: 2016/06/10 C06569674
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SERBIA
Slobodan MILOSEVIC
(Phonetic: meeLOHsheyeech)
President (since 1989)
Addressed as: Mr. President
Slobodan Milosevic--widely regarded as an ideologically and tactically flexible politician--has modified his
hardline Serb nationalist rhetoric and distanced himself from former ultranationalist allies in both Serbia and the
Bosnian Republika Srpska in an effort to burnish his image as a Balkan peacemaker and to reduce international
pressure on Serbia. Milosevic, prodded by the international community, has been working publicly and privately
to coerce the Bosnian Serb leadership to bow to demands for the resignation of their President, indicted war
criminal and former Milosevic prot� Radovan Karadzic. Nevertheless, he has been hesitant to pursue forcefully
the issue out of concern that he may lose his already limited influence in Pale and alienate his domestic
constituency In late June 1996, Milosevic sent Serbian State Security Service
Chief Jovica Stanisic to Pale to secure Karadzic's removal--a tactic that resulted in Karadzic's delegating his
powers to a Vice President, but not officially resigning.
Marginalizing Opponents at Home..
Virtually unchallenged as leader of Serbia and Montenegro, Milosevic has used his tight hold on the levers of
power and the disarray among his political opposition to sideline rival politicians and ultranationalists whom he
regards as impediments to his efforts to improve Serbia's image abroad
as president of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS--formerly the Communist party), he has a
broad network of political acolytes who maintain SPS political and financial control throughout Serbia at the local
level.
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Approved for Release: 2016/06/10 C06569674
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Persona
Rise to Power
Milosevic was born in Pozarevac on 20 August 1941. His father, an Orthodox priest, committed suicide; his
mother, a hardline Communist, also killed herself, according to press reports. Milosevic joined the Communist
party at 18. After graduating from the Law Faculty of the University of Belgrade in 1964, he held a series of
economic-related party positions. Milosevic joined a Belgrade firm, Technogas, in 1968 and became its director
in 1973. In 1978 he assumed the post of president of the Bank of Belgrade, one of Yugoslavia's largest financial
institutions He returned to full-time politics as Belgrade party chief in 1984 under
the tutelage of his mentor, then Serbian Communist party chief Ivan Stambolic. Milosevic took over as head of
the Serbian party in 1986
In April 1987 he captured international attention with his dramatic appearance at a
protest meeting of Kosovo Serbs, where he initiated an inflammatory campaign to right the wrongs they were
suffering and issued demands for rapid progress toward full democracy and a market economy, according to press
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Data
Milosevic has visited the United States more than a dozen times. Since becoming President, however, he has
made few international trips.
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Milosevic sneaks excellent though accented, English. His wife, Mirjana Markovic, has been describe (b)(1)
as his closest confidante and adviser; she has often used her bimonthly (b)(3)
magazine column to presage shifts in his official policy. The couple has a daughter and a son. (b)(3)
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Approved for Release: 2016/06/10 C06569674