In short, a rare man, who appears to be incapable of harming a fly but who, on the other hand, has unwaveringly risen to the most difficult military challenge this century. The only consolation he leaves his friends is the knowledge that the acts over which he now presides are not a blow from his heart, but a bad hand dealt by Lady Luck.

The other man, responsible for the technical execution of the adventure, is the North American General Wesley K. Clark -- the man who has the biggest army in the world under his command, first with the Southern Command in the US -- which until 1997 washeadquartered in Panama -- and then with Supreme Allied Command in Europe, in Brussels. He was born 55 years ago in Little Rock, Arkansas, also the birthplace of his friend President Bill Clinton.

Clark was first in his class at West Point Military Academy, class of 66, and went on to gain a Masters in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. He is an elegant man, who likes to stand on ceremony and his brothers-in-arms consider him a soldier of the old school, who shares bread and salt with the troops and who cannot live without knowing what other people think of him.

What few people realise is that behind the four stars and a mountain of insignia, is an irresistible urge to be recognised as a political intellectual and an ideolologue of social welfare. My friendship with Solana, good and fruitful for more than 20 years, was born out of work and sincerity. The way in which I made the acquaintance of Gen Clark, on the other hand, was one of the most unusual and surprising of my life.

It occurredthree years ago in Panama, when several Panamanian friends led by Chancellor Jorge Ritter invited me to see the amazing toy that is the mechanism controlling the locks of the Panama Canal, and what was left of the Howard Base in the zone still occupied by the US. We had barely passed through security control when a group of officials from the Southern Command barred our way. Only when we stepped off the bus -- practically with our hands up -- did they explain that Gen Clark was waiting for us in his office. We never did find out by what military intelligence he had discovered we would be passing his domain. But there he was, at the far end of the table of the US Army, a table brimming with every luxury you could wish to eat or drink. Surrounded by such largesse, dressed in the tropical uniform of the colonial commanders he seemed to have stepped off a film set. One could easily believe that it was not him but Robert Redford, perfectly cast as Gen Clark.

His proposition, expounded with rhetoric of thegleaming spires, and the easy tones of the direct descendants of Scarlet O'Hara, was to discuss with us his thoughts on the world. Hardly stopping for our response, he launched into a description of his experiences of the numerous military and political campaigns in which he had played a role, from Vietnam to Bosnia. They had, he believed, shaped his social conscience.

But at no point did he realise, at least from my point of view, that he had been mistaken in his choice of interlocutor. I do not have a talent for abstract ideas. I hardly dared explain to him that the preoccupations of novelists are sometimes as useful as academic sciences when attempting to break the spell of reality. The General, for his part, showed us that he understood such ideas well, even though his conception was somewhat coloured by his military training. Back in the bus, Ritter produced the only possible synthesis of that indecipherable hour-and-a-half: ``It was the essence of two diverse monologues.''

He understood, as wellas we ourselves, our cultural stumbling blocks and our political distances. We continue to exchange memories and greetings and each others' books through mutual friends. What we never imagined is that one of these would turn out to be Javier Solana. I must confess however, that when I learnt that they were working shoulder to shoulder in NATO, it seemed to be another of these mysterious coincidences that disturb novelists' dreams.

Today it is clear: Kosovo is not just another far-flung region in turmoil, but one of the world's nerve centres, and the aggression to which it has fallen victim presents a very real danger of escalating with unprecedented and terrifying consequences. Bad news for a man of letters who never thought he would be a soldier and for a soldier who dreams of being a man of letters, both now carrying the burden, the tremendous risk, of the third world war.

Taken from an article by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, first published in Spanish in Cambio

The Observer NewsService