PRESIDENT Clinton has chosen Gen Wesley Clark to become commander of all NATO forces and US troops in Europe, a senior Pentagon official said yesterday.
Gen Clark (52) speaks Russian and was a member of the US team that helped broker the 1995 Dayton peace accords on Bosnia. He is now based in Panama as chief of US forces in Latin America and would replace Gen George Joulwan who is retiring as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Europe (SACEUR) based in Mons, Belgium.
The Pentagon official, who asked not to be identified, confirmed a Washington Post report that an early announcement of Gen Clark's nomination, which would require approval from other Atlantic alliance countries, is expected.
"The job of SACEUR and of commander of US troops in Europe requires somebody to be both a soldier and a statesman, to deal not only with military officials but the leaders of governments and Russia," the official said.
"Clark fills the bill," said the official, adding that the US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, had recommended the general to Mr Clinton after interviewing more than a dozen potential candidates.
The job of SACEUR has been held by US military officers since the end of the second World War and Gen Clark, a West Point military academy graduate and former Rhodes scholar who attended Oxford, is expected to be approved by the allies, according to the Pentagon official.
Gen Joulwan will retire this summer and Mr Clinton's choice of Gen Clark to succeed him leaves the President with still another key military decision, that of replacing Gen John Shalikashvili as chairman of the Pentagon joint chiefs of staff when Gen Shalikashvili retires in October.
Gen Clark was the senior military member on the US team led by Mr Richard Holbrooke that brokered the Bosnia peace accords in Dayton, Ohio. The agreement stopped the fighting in Bosnia and set terms for the NATO led peacekeeping force of some 31,000, including some 8,000 US troops.
"He clearly knows the Bosnia situation and will be well placed to emphasise the importance of getting the country back on a firm economic and political track by mid 1998 before the troops are scheduled to pull out," the official said.
Gen Clark will also command some 100,000 US troops in Europe and oversee US military operations in Europe and North Africa. He previously headed the US army's National Training Centre at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and has also been director of strategy on the Pentagon's military joint staff.