Then there is a meeting with a foreign minister, a talk with the French military representative to NATO, and discussions with European and U.S. reporters. The calls continue after he arrives home to a nearby chateau, until 1 a.m. Clark gets input from a dozen different places, and one of the most important is NATO's Joint Operations Center. From Clark's private office, it lies down the hall and up one flight of stairs, next to the maintenance shop. Around the clock its 243 staff members monitor air operations over Yugoslavia, collect intelligence and watch political shifts within the NATO alliance.
Maps cover every wall.
Computer terminals fill the floor. In the operations room, officers track NATO peacekeeping troops, the military's refugee relief operations and the movement of every single aircraft that flies over the Balkans and every ship and submarine that sits off the Yugoslav coast. The JOC is headed by U.S. Army Col. Douglas A. Macgregor, a maverick who nearly lost his career for writing a book that advocates a radical restructuring of the Army's slow-moving force into one that could react with speed to crises around the world. Such as Kosovo. Top of his class at West Point and a Rhodes scholar, Clark is the recipient of a Purple Heart for combat wounds during the Vietnam War and 15 other top military honors.