Clark's accomplishments as a hustling problem solver again and again drew the attention of top civilian policymakers, from Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr. during the Nixon administration to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and national security advisor Samuel R. Berger during the Clinton administration.
In dealing with the Balkans crisis, Clark was "the best partner we could have had," Albright enthused in her autobiography. Top Clinton foreign policy officials continue to praise him.
Yet in 1999, there were bitter disagreements between Clark and his Pentagon bosses about what was probably the most important military judgment of his career -- how to drive Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic and his troops out of Kosovo.
NATO leaders broadly agreed that the effort should rely on a high-altitude bombing campaign, rather than a ground war that would risk major casualties -- and a public backlash. Clark pushed for weeks to use ground troops, in the face of resistance from President Clinton, Defense chief William S. Cohen and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Clark's desire to bring in low-flying Apache attack helicopters alarmed top Army officials, who argued that the Apaches would be vulnerable because they would lack the essential cover that long-range artillery could provide. "This wasn't according to Army doctrine," one retired Army colonel said.
In the end, Milosevic caved and withdrew his troops from Kosovo, after a longer-than-expected 78 days of bombing -- but without the use of Apaches or NATO ground troops. Victory was achieved without any U.S. combat deaths.
"Once we were on the ground, it [would have been] a much more difficult situation," former security advisor Berger said in an interview last week. "And, by the way, the strategy worked."
But if Clark's ground troops weren't proved to be necessary, many analysts believed the threat that NATO might escalate was key in persuading Milosevic to give up.
Clark's critics in the Pentagon have long accused him of trying to get ahead by cultivating important civilian leaders.
On one 1998 trip to Washington, Clark met with White House officials to discuss the possible air campaign in Kosovo, without first stopping at the Pentagon -- drawing a warning that he needed to share his itinerary with Joint Chiefs Chairman Henry Hugh Shelton and Cohen.
