COLUMN ONE : The Voice of Serbian Zealotry : Slobodan Milosevic has gained an almost hypnotic power over many Serbs. Ethnic attacks, effective propaganda and mass violence have raised cries of war crimes.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — If there was a single, galvanizing moment in the life of Slobodan Milosevic when a vista of power and glory opened to lure him from mediocrity, it was April 24, 1987, and the scene was Kosovo Polje.

There, amid crumbling apartment blocks and wind-tossed rubbish, the pudgy, cigar-smoking banker-turned-Communist Party bureaucrat glimpsed a path to greatness.

Rousing a dormant sense of injustice over Serbia’s perceived obscurity in the Yugoslav alliance, Milosevic embarked on a campaign to revive Serbian nationalism and restore his people as rightful rulers of the Balkans.

The mission--wildly successful, if measured by the world attention that Serbia commands today--has ensured Milosevic a place in the hearts of many countrymen as the savior of Serbdom and a place in history as an ingenious zealot who sacrificed peace for personal power.

Trembling with emotion as he faced 15,000 Serbs protesting their status as a minority in predominantly Albanian Kosovo, Milosevic uttered the words that were to mobilize Serbs for a succession of battles.

“No one is allowed to beat you,” he told the demonstrators being pushed back by police, irrevocably placing his fellow Serbs above the law.

It was the flame that ignited a nationalist brush fire that has swept across Yugoslavia, consuming vast areas of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and threatening to spread to the Serbian medieval heartland of Kosovo.

Milosevic has gained an almost hypnotic power over many of his people by manipulating raw emotional wounds from World War II, when hundreds of thousands of Serbs were slaughtered by Croatian fascists.

He has demonized ethnic rivals, effectively used propaganda and induced masses into nationalist actions that many here say are destined to be judged as war crimes.

But at the same time, the reclusive Milosevic exudes an aura of modesty, credibility, intelligence, even charm. Those who know him describe Milosevic as a dangerous combination of articulate statesman and accomplished liar. He is seen as both a sly and confident politician and a deeply troubled man haunted by a family history of suicide.

Milosevic has reaped political rewards for ensuring the unity of all Serbs after multinational Yugoslavia unraveled after the 1980 death of Marshal Josip Tito and the collapse of communism, the binding forces of the Balkan federation.

Older Serbs who recall the butchery committed by Croats during World War II were only too eager to see the score settled in the fight Milosevic waged with Croatia last year. Today, one-third of Croatia is in the hands of Serbian warlords.

There is also a flush of nationalist pride on the faces of many younger Serbs who have been convinced by state-controlled media that fighting in newly independent Bosnia is an honorable battle against the encroachment of Islam. Slavic Muslims have for decades been the largest ethnic group in Bosnia, but only since Milosevic came to power have Serbs viewed the religious moderates as a threat.

The president owes his popularity to his skill at activating suppressed emotions, like Serbs’ fervent attachment to Kosovo and their long-smoldering resentment of Croats who were never made to pay for siding with the Nazis during the last war.

Milosevic appeals to the masses, one Belgrade businessman says, because he has made Serbia a formidable power again. “The majority of the people are poor and backward. Maybe they think Milosevic has made some mistakes, but they see he is winning and they are attracted to that,” the Serb explains. “When they see him on television, they see a big man who has amassed power for them.”

But Milosevic’s deadly drive to build Greater Serbia under the guise of a new Yugoslav state has also cast his people in the role of international pariah. His arming and instigating of proxy warlords in Croatia and Bosnia have cost more than 15,000 lives and created militant forces no longer under his control.

Most dangerous for his political future is the economic disaster brought on by the war, as massive money-printing has been necessary to bankroll the conflict. Living standards that were until two years ago the most comfortable in Eastern Europe have tumbled amid hyper-inflation now running at 100,000% a year. Workers who last year earned the dinar equivalent of $2,000 per month now consider themselves lucky if that salary buys goods worth $100.

In efforts to conquer the most coveted territories, Serbian forces have had to destroy them. Damaged spoils and nearly 2 million refugees flushed from their homes in the war zones are giving some Serbs pause to ponder the wisdom of Milosevic’s land grab. But the majority, especially in the countryside, have remained fiercely loyal to the first strong Serbian leader in their lifetimes.

The question in the minds of many who have watched Milosevic steer his country toward economic ruin and international scorn is what he intends to do when he reaches the inescapable end of social chaos.

“He should not be dismissed as stupid or insane,” warns Jurij Bajec, a Belgrade economist who once served beside Milosevic in the Serbian presidency and Communist Party but has left the leadership in protest of its nationalist bent.

Bajec describes Milosevic as a political chameleon capable of changing ideologies and priorities as quickly as public opinion demands it.

“In politics, you can’t do the same thing all the time. You have to change your policies to match popular sentiment,” Bajec says. “I’m not sure (Milosevic) is such a brilliant strategist, but he proves over and over that he is a very good tactician.”

Milosevic has carefully masked his involvement in the Serbian revolts in Croatia and Bosnia by channeling weapons, funding and strategy through local extremists, with whom he can later deny having anything to do.

That has allowed the Serbian strongman to hold up clean hands before Western accusers and profess innocence amid accusations that he is responsible for disturbing the Balkan peace.

“He is a little bit caught by surprise” by the blame laid at his doorstep, says Zeljko Simic, a senior adviser to Milosevic whose savvy with public relations matches that of his boss. “He is not frightened by this. I think a better word would be puzzled. He doesn’t see any evidence of his guilt.” Demanding evidence rather than denying the growing accusations, Simic seems to flaunt Milosevic’s ability to cover his tracks.

Diplomats who know Milosevic say the reasonable image is part of a carefully executed act.

“He’s a very shrewd character who doesn’t hesitate to lie if it suits him,” observed a Western ambassador who met often with Milosevic before leaving Belgrade last month, when most European countries recalled their envoys to protest the Bosnian blood bath.

Shayna Gluck, a Los Angeles woman who met with Milosevic a week ago and was assured of his every assistance in locating her two children who were kidnaped in 1989 by their Serbian father, says of the Serb leader, “He seems so charming and sincere. I was completely sold on him.”

Milosevic told her his personal investigators had determined the children were living with their father in a hotel in Dachau, Germany, encouraging her to go there and track them down. Instead, she got German police to investigate and learned her children were not and never had been in that city.

“It was a complete red herring. He just wanted to get rid of me,” Gluck said. “I guess I’m one of an elite group of people who has received a personal empty promise from Milosevic.”

Another senior diplomat who has spent long hours with Milosevic describes him as a master of improvisation. “Principally, he is in this for his own survival, and he’s a very smart guy,” the diplomat said. “He is a great tactician and can probably keep bobbing and weaving to keep this going for a very long time.”

While international pressure mounts against Milosevic and even some senior members of his party have abandoned his side, he has shown no sign of worry. On the contrary, he has masterfully used the Western outcries as evidence of a devious plot by foreign powers to do him in.

State-run media, like the Belgrade newspaper Politika, have ridiculed U.N. sanctions against Serbia as a doomed attempt to force Serbs to overthrow their leader. “External threats cause the people to close ranks under the regime’s banner, while its opponents are branded as degenerates in foreign pay and traitors to national interests,” the latest issue of Politika’s International Weekly observes.

Just such a circling of the wagons has occurred in Serbia, as evidenced by the collective shrug Serbs have given U.N. sanctions imposed May 30.

Belgrade-based diplomats predict Milosevic’s days in power are numbered, as widespread social unrest can be expected once the consequences of world isolation become clear. But because Serbia is self-sufficient in food production and has ample electricity supplies, most expect the bite will not be felt for months.

The 50-year-old president, who grants interviews sparingly, projects the image of an eminently reasonable man in his well-choreographed public appearances.

As television cameras have whirred at brief exchanges with the press after talks with foreign mediators, Milosevic has insisted, with a touch of anguish, that he deplores the violence racking Bosnia. He has claimed no federal army or Serbian forces remain in that republic. He has appealed to the warring factions to lay down their arms. He has even said he would resign if that would help resolve the conflict.

But neither his supporters nor Serbia’s fractured and disorganized opposition believe Milosevic will ever willingly step down.

“He likes being in power. We will not get rid of him easily,” says a Belgrade intellectual, who, like most Serbs who dare criticize the leadership, did not want his identity disclosed. “To get him out, I fear, will mean a lot of innocent victims.”

Opposition politicians have moved cautiously in their attempts to rouse a revolt against Milosevic, fearing that an open challenge would provoke Serb-versus-Serb civil war.

“Among politicians in Serbia, he still has the greatest support. We may consider this unjust, but it is the reality,” says Zoran Djindjic, executive committee chief for the opposition Democratic Party. “To depose him would mean a civil war.”

Serbian Renewal Movement leader Vuk Draskovic has publicly accused Milosevic of driving Serbia to destruction. But he, too, has avoided confrontation with a president whose forces include one of Europe’s largest standing armies, a vast network of secret police agents and bands of criminals reportedly paid off and kept loyal with Croatian war spoils.

What Milosevic hopes to gain from the ever-escalating crisis remains a mystery. Many fear he doesn’t expect to survive it and will go the way of Adolf Hitler or Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was deposed and executed in a violent 1989 revolution.

Little is known of Milosevic’s early years except that his father, a Serbian Orthodox Church cleric, abandoned the family and killed himself when his two sons were still children. Milosevic’s mother also took her own life, as did an uncle.

Milosevic studied law at Belgrade University and married an ardent Marxist, Mirjana Markovic, now a prominent figure in the hard-line League of Communists-Movement for Yugoslavia. They have a daughter training to be a journalist and a teen-age son.

The family is reclusive and security-conscious. Their spacious home in the suburb of Dedinje is surrounded and obscured by a black steel wall. When forced out in public, Milosevic moves in a thick cordon of armed guards.

Before entering the Communist Party hierarchy in the late 1970s, Milosevic worked as a banker, including a posting in New York, where he gained an impressive command of English.

In a recently published book, “How He Came to Be Leader,” author Slavoljub Djukic documents Milosevic’s ruthless climb to power from the political chaos following Tito’s death.

According to Djukic, Milosevic remained silent when fellow Communists denounced a 1986 secret memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences that vented anguish over the loss of Serbian prestige and influence during the 35-year rule of Tito, who was half Slovene and half Croat.

His pointed silence engendered support from Serbs who felt they suffered under the federal system. That grievance was most pronounced among Serbs in Kosovo, a wretchedly poor province that Tito granted virtual autonomy under the 1974 constitution.

Ethnic Albanians have for decades made up the majority of Kosovo’s 2 million residents, but their high birthrate and a tendency of Serbs to migrate north resulted in a 90% Albanian majority in the province by the late 1980s.

Though the poorest region in Yugoslavia, Kosovo is revered by Serbs because it was the scene of their most valiant fight, the 1389 Battle of Kosovo Polje at which Serbia lost its independence to the Turks but succeeded in slowing the Ottoman advance on Europe.

Milosevic visited Kosovo Polje to launch a campaign against what he said was Albanian separatism, stirring near hysteria among Serbs throughout Yugoslavia. Belgrade media followed up the visit by churning out invented tales of rapes, murder and plunder by Albanians until a virtual police state was imposed and Kosovo was stripped of its autonomy.

In the clearest demonstration of his thirst for power, Milosevic betrayed his lifelong friend and benefactor, Serbian Communist Party boss Ivan Stambolic, to replace him as republic leader. Within a few months of his watershed Kosovo visit, Milosevic had edged out his patron by accusing him of failing to protect the rights of Serbs.

After subjugating Kosovo and the largely Hungarian province of Vojvodina, Milosevic trained his sights on Slovenia and Croatia, painting the two most prosperous republics as economic exploiters of the Serbs. That helped stir Serbian outrage and support for the federal army assaults on Slovenia and Croatia when those republics declared independence last June.

Milosevic’s propaganda outlets have more recently justified the aggression against Bosnia by portraying the Muslims, who make up 44% of the republic, as fanatics seeking a European foothold for Islamic fundamentalism.

With the risk of Serbian attention settling on the devastated economy, some Western diplomats fear Milosevic will seek to stay in power by provoking a succession of military distractions.

There is a restive Muslim majority in the southern Serbian region known as the Sandzak that Milosevic may decide needs quelling in the near future, or he could indulge the most extreme nationalist fantasy of militarily sweeping the Albanians out of cherished Kosovo.

Since the province was stripped of its autonomy, police and federal army troops have subjected Albanians to unrelenting repression, including the closure of Albanian-language schools and hospitals.

Kosovo Albanians voted in late May to declare their province independent, a standing invitation for a Serbian crackdown.

“Rationally there is nothing to be gained and a lot to lose for Milosevic if he triggers the time bomb of Kosovo. But he has not always acted rationally,” one Western diplomat says. “The Kosovo card is the last one to play. It’s the suicide card.”

With his troubled family history and a Serbian obsession with martyrdom, a suicidal drive across the fields of Kosovo may be the end that Milosevic envisions.