Accident Cut Short Peacemaking Careers : Diplomats: U.S. trio who died in Bosnia had done stints throughout world. Frasure spent last year in the Balkans.

WASHINGTON —  Robert Frasure, the 53-year-old senior U.S. diplomat who died Saturday in Bosnia-Herzegovina, had become a familiar figure in the hazardous capitals of the former Yugoslav federation.

His assignment was to find peace, but so far he had found only humiliation and refusal. Ironically, analysts said they believed he was closer than ever to peace when his vehicle crashed on the Mt. Igman road.

Frasure died alongside Joseph Kruzel, 50, a deputy assistant secretary of defense and former professor of international security, and Col. Samuel Nelson Drew, 47, an Air Force officer assigned to the National Security Council in the White House.

A former ambassador to Estonia, decorated for his role in helping to end the civil war in Ethiopia in 1991, Frasure in the past year had been assigned the arduous, frustrating job of trying to persuade all parties to reach a settlement in Bosnia. As American mediator, he represented Washington at the meetings of the Contact Group--the United States, Britain, France, Russia and Germany--that assigned itself the task of hammering out proposals for a settlement.

But Frasure never could win sufficient cooperation from the Serbs. In April, in fact, the Bosnian Serbs threatened to shoot down all entering and departing planes if he attempted to move from the airport into the capital, Sarajevo. Frasure had to give up and fly on to Croatia.

In May, Frasure appeared close to persuading Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to recognize the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a step that would have put pressure on the Bosnian Serbs to come to terms with the government in Sarajevo.

On behalf of the Contact Group, Frasure, conferring with Milosevic in the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, pledged to suspend U.N. sanctions on Serbia for 200 days if Milosevic accepted the proposal.

But Milosevic insisted on an immediate and permanent lifting of sanctions. Since this would amount to rewarding Milosevic even before he had fulfilled his promise, Secretary of State Warren Christopher ordered Frasure to break off the talks and return to the United States.

Some analysts, especially in the Clinton Administration, believe the chances for a peaceful settlement have improved significantly because of the recent Croatian offensive that drove the Serbs out of the Krajina region. Frasure was part of a team rushing to Sarajevo to put the latest proposals before Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic.

With roads, airports and towns subject to shelling and sniping, Bosnia has become one of the most dangerous areas on Earth. Soldiers, civilians, U.N. peacekeepers, journalists, government officials and now diplomats are among the many casualties.

But it was not the first dangerous assignment for Frasure. Working alongside Assistant Secretary of State Herman Cohen in 1991, he played a significant role in forging the formula that sent Ethiopia’s Marxist dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, into exile as advancing rebels came to power. Paul B. Henze, a RAND Corp. specialist on the Horn of Africa, attributed much of the success of the Ethiopian settlement to Frasure, who “met repeatedly with rebel leaders and persuaded them to pursue their campaigns with a sense of balance and statesmanship.”

Kruzel, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for European affairs and NATO policy, was long active in both university and government work. Associated Press diplomatic writer Barry Schweid described him as “an unassuming fellow with a robust sense of humor, who also was open and straightforward.”

Secretary of Defense William J. Perry regarded Kruzel as a close personal friend. “He will be missed greatly by all of us who knew and admired him,” Perry said in a statement.

In 1985, when Kruzel was a professor of political science at Ohio State University, he served as a member of then-President Ronald Reagan’s disarmament negotiating team in Geneva. It was the first serious disarmament negotiation during the Reagan Administration.

“A serious approach to arms talks,” he wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “does much to dispel the impression among our allies that the Reagan Administration is unconcerned about the danger of nuclear war and more eager for confrontation than compromise.”

Col. Drew was awarded a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Virginia in 1986. Since then, he had occupied a number of policy jobs in the Pentagon and overseas. He served in Belgium, Germany and South Korea. He is survived by his wife, Sandy, and two children.

Frasure, a native of Morgantown, W. Va., held a doctorate from Duke University and master’s and bachelor’s degrees from West Virginia University. He was married to German-born Katharina Witting, and they had two teen-age daughters. In a long Foreign Service career, he served in Switzerland, Germany, Britain, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Estonia.

Kruzel, a native of Goldsboro, N.C., graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1967. He had a doctorate from Harvard. He taught at Harvard, Duke and Ohio State and was a frequent contributor to defense journals. He served as an intelligence officer in the Vietnam War. During the Jimmy Carter Administration, he was a special assistant to Secretary of Defense Harold Brown. Kruzel and his wife, Gail, had two children.