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Famous host Larry King, who died at the age of 87, interviewed numerous celebrities during his lifetime. From Yasser Arafat, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump to Paul McCartney, Beth Davis, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando and Madonna, King has conducted more than 50,000 interviews, according to CNN. spent half of his fifty-year career.
And in her long list of interlocutors, there were also figures from Serbian public life, who was also mentioned in conversations with some US officials.
King interviewed Slobodan Milosevic, former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and basketball ace Vlade Divac, while our country’s name was mentioned in interviews with former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Donald Trump, the former US President.
Slobodan milosevic
A live interview with Milosevic took place on December 22, 1994, when King spoke about the war in the former Yugoslavia and the armistice brought about by former US President Jimmy Carter.
– Is President Milosevic right? Will this end the violence in neighboring Bosnia? – King asked, according to the transcript published on the Unconqueredbosnia.tripod.com portal.
Milosevic said his meeting with Carter was “very good” and expressed hope that hostilities will end and the peace process will continue.
– Do you have hope or do you anticipate it? The host asked him.
– Well, I’m very optimistic. I can say that I predict it – answered Milosevic.
– What’s different this time?
– Well, if you hope for the best, you can hope for no reason. But if you anticipate something, then you know that things are ripe for a positive evolution. I think that is the case here.
King asked the former president what his goal is for Serbia.
– He has many goals. The first objective is the first national interest of all Serbs and all citizens of Serbia and Yugoslavia. That is peace in the region. Then, of course, successful development – said Milosevic.
When asked if he would like to see the assimilation of the Bosnian Serbs into Serbia, the former president replied that we are “one people and, in any case, we are already united.” Milosevic revealed to King that the fact that the world does not know is that “Serbia was from the beginning for peace and the preservation of the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia.”
When King referred to war crimes, Milosevic said that “Serbs are neither angels nor demons.”
– There are no innocent parties to that civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. All sides are guilty, only citizens are innocent, they suffer regardless of their nationality – he said.
– Then the Serbs are more guilty than all the others – continued the host.
– That is not true due to the fact that the war was imposed on Serbia – Milosevic replied, to whom King thanked the “rare interview granted”.
Milosevic also denied that Serbia was acquiring arms for the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that its objective was a “Greater Serbia”. Another interesting question was how he and Radovan Karadzic get along.
– Are things better between you? King asked.
– I do not understand you.
– How do you and the Bosnian Serb leader agree?
– I don’t agree with him at all. We do not agree – he replied.
Vlade Divac
Five years later, on March 24, King called our basketball ace Vlade Divac, who spoke about the NATO bombing of Serbia, and the conversation was broadcast live.
– I am sad about everything that is happening in my country. You know, the American people are deluded about what is happening in Yugoslavia. It’s awful. I try to talk to my family, I can hardly make contact. My brother called me an hour ago. It’s a bombing. It’s horrible – said Divac.
When asked if NATO was wrong, Divac said: “Absolutely. Serbia is a sovereign country.”
– I feel sorry for all the victims, both Serbian and Albanian, if that means innocent people died. The problem is innocent people who pay the price because politicians on both sides work. I’m trying to get my brother’s baby out of Serbia. “It is sad that he is in the shelter,” said, among other things, Divac, adding that the situation is “terrible.”
King also asked him if he was loyal to President Milosevic.
– Milosevic is not a problem here, the problem is innocent people who pay the price for politicians who are trying to achieve their goals behind their backs – Divac replied.
Medlin olbrajt
Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave an interview to King on April 7, 1999, when she spoke about the bombing of Kosovo and the FRY. She denied saying “it will take a couple of bombings and Milosevic will come crawling.”
“Absolutely not,” Albright said, adding that the Bill Clinton administration wanted a diplomatic solution.
After saying that the American people, “once you find out what our national goals are in Kosovo, please support our action,” noting that Americans “cannot bear to see what they see, refugees, children and elderly who have lost their homes” . , The host asked why Kosovo.
“I think you objected to going to Rwanda and helping the people there,” he added.
“I didn’t really object, I tried really hard,” Albright responded, according to a record in the files of the US State Department.
He claimed that the Balkans are not “just an addition to Europe, but a big part of it.”
– With the entry into the 21st century, we are trying to have a whole and free Europe for the first time in history. “We cannot allow the entire peninsula of southeastern Europe to be devastated by the corrupt leadership in Serbia, which is creating instability in the Balkans,” Albright said.
She noted that she lived in Belgrade as a child “so she knows the Serbs.”
– I love Serbs. I think that what Milosevic is doing to them without allowing them to discover the truth, that they have completely succumbed to propaganda at this stage – he said.
– I think Americans, who are the most generous and humane people in the world, who have very correct values not to see evil, how children die for no other reason than to be Albanian and not a real ethnic mix for Serbs. something the Americans will not tolerate – said Albright, adding that “it is not their war, but America’s fight for its values.”
Donald Tramp
Donald Trump also mentioned Serbia in an interview with Larry King on October 7, 1999, and what he said delighted many in our country. Trump criticized the NATO bombing, saying it only brought “ruin, chaos and terror to Kosovo.”
– I don’t know if they consider it a success, because I don’t consider it a success. They fiercely bombed the country and the entire area, everyone is fleeing in all possible directions and no one knows what is happening. And there are thousands of deaths – said Trump.
When King asked him if he would do the same in Kosovo as Clinton, he replied that he would “do a little bit differently.”
– I know it would sound terrible, but look at the devastation they caused in Kosovo. We can say that we have lost few people. Of course, when we had planes dropping bombs from about 23 kilometers. But look at what we did in that land and those people and the deaths that happened because of us. So there were no losses to us and the allies, because we were all the way up, on the planes, Trump said at the time.
However, the now former president, who in an interview with King hinted at a possible run for the White House in the 2000 elections (which happened 16 years later), did not oppose the intervention itself.
– At some point you have to send ground troops so that nobody can cross the border and everything else. Now would people die? Maybe. Maybe more. But at least we would have far fewer deaths and you would not have the devastation and chaos that you have now, Trump noted.
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