Clinton's Sarajevo Stopover

SARAJEVO: Less than a week after saying he was "prepared to take a hit for being wrong" over reneging on his promise to bring the boys back from Bosnia, President Clinton delivered the bad news in person Monday. But his one-day holiday stopover with the 8,500 troops enforcing the Dayton peace accords seems to be going smoothly thus far, as Clinton makes a characteristic bid to be as conciliatory as possible. To pacify Republican opposition, he brought Bob and Liddy Dole and to keep the G.I.s happy, he brought Chelsea (who had apparently been a big hit with the troops back in '96).

If it was at all a tough sell, there were some major rewards for the President and his policy such as the face of Sarajevo itself, bristling with new cafes and businesses just two years after it was torn apart by a siege. "These are good people and this is a good thing we're doing," Clinton said he was told by one of the troops in a Virginia unit he encountered. Making the folks back home see it the same way is a battle the White House will have to fight another day.