61.   Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, the propaganda maestro of the Balkans, rarely appears on state television.

62.   Serbian leaders in north Mitrovica broke with the bishop over his willingness to do that, but still seek the political prestige that will attach to any successful return.

63.   Serbia is one of two republics that remain in Yugoslavia, and Milosevic was previously the Serbian leader.

64.   Serbian leaders in Kosovo were not convinced.

65.   Serbian leaders who are apparently about to be prosecuted by the United Nations are very unlikely to grow more accommodating.

66.   Similarly, with the Serbian leader now taking on the United States and much of the Western world, a defeat in Kosovo has an almost delicious political upside.

67.   So for the time being, the United States is stuck with a Serbian leader it neither likes nor trusts.

68.   Still, it is evident that the Western view of the Serbian leader has changed radically.

69.   State Department officials expressed confidence that the Serbian leader would resolve the impasse.

70.   That complicating prospect was avoided, a NATO spokesman said, by an arrangement that insured that the Serbian leaders would not be present at the meeting.