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TIME has learned from several sources that just days before U.S. Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady was rescued from the Bosnian woods, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Robert Frasure got from Milosevic the first news that the flyer was alive-and assurance of his safety. Frasure had been in Belgrade trying to negotiate a deal in which sanctions could be suspended in return for Yugoslavia's recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In saying goodbye to Milosevic one afternoon, he told the President that Washington feared the pilot was dead. Not so, replied Milosevic: "We know he is alive." He told Frasure that searchers had found a used parachute as well as other equipment apparently abandoned by the pilot, and that he had instructed the regional military commander that O'Grady should be protected and, if found, sent immediately to Belgrade, where he would be released. Milosevic told a friend that he had plotted the pilot's exact coordinates for Frasure and instructed local commanders to refrain from shooting at planes sent to the rescue. Frasure sent a flash message to Washington relaying his conversation with the President, but the information remained in diplomatic channels and did not reach U.S. intelligence officials until two days later. By that time, the rescue was about to get under way.
The O'Grady shoot-down came in the midst of the U.N. peacekeepers' hostage crisis, and sources told TIME that here too Milosevic proved his usefulness. Following two NATO air strikes, the Bosnian Serbs had detained more than 370 U.N. peacekeepers and taken them to various locations, chaining some to potential targets of further air attacks. On the morning of June 2, Milosevic told Frasure that, while his action had nothing to do with the sanctions negotiations, he had acted to "save the national pride of Serbia." According to notes of the meeting, he declared that "taking hostages ... is like shooting someone carrying a white flag." Milosevic said that he had sent his chief of state security to Pale, the Bosnian Serb stronghold, to tell Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, and General Ratko Mladic, his military commander, that they would be arrested-and worse-if every one of the hostages was not freed, healthy and rearmed. As the day wore on with little news of progress in Pale, Milosevic fretted about Karadzic's word "meaning nothing." Said he: "I would not pay five cents for their promises before they are fulfilled." He told Frasure that food, drink and medical supplies had been sent in for the hostages' trip out by convoy, and that he had dispatched his own Serb commandos to provide security for the handoff and the journey to safety. Quipped Frasure: "Just make sure, Mr. President, that there is plenty of cold beer at the end of the trip." When word came that the first releases would not be made until late in the evening, Milosevic became visibly enraged. "Those bloody liars," he said of the leaders in Pale. "They are a disgrace, those bloody bastards. I told them I would kill them all if they betray me on this. I will get the hostages out if it's the last thing I do, Mr. Frasure, believe me." And so he did.