Thursday, March 27 1997 

The Man Who Would Be Serbia's King 

Born in Exile, Crown Prince Awaits Duty's Call

Washington Post Foreign Service 

LONDON -- At first blush, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia could pass easily for a moderate Republican congressman. Chunky, polished and gleaming with good health at 51, he is a former army ski champion with three handsome sons, a second wife, firm handshake, white teeth, Hermes tie, dark blue double-breasted suit, black tassled wingtip loafers and occasional flights of rhetorical passion. 

But then there is his plummy mid-Atlantic accent, the portrait of his father, King Peter II, in epaulets and full military regalia on the wall behind his desk, the swanky office address in London's Mayfair district and a gold Audemars Piguet watch, a gift from a Greek shipping tycoon -- the sort of accessories that might raise an eyebrow or two on Capitol Hill. 

All doubts dissolve: You are in the presence of royalty. 

London, of course, is littered with washed-up European royals -- exiled princes, forgotten counts, playboy dukes. What sets Alexander apart is that after a lifetime spent in Britain and America as an army officer, businessman and commoner, he may stand a chance of going "home" to Yugoslavia as king, and soon. 

Opposition leaders in Belgrade, who have shaken the regime of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic with street demonstrations all winter, suggest they may restore Alexander and the pre-World War II monarchy if they manage to take power in elections later this year. Last month, after they forced Milosevic to give up control of city councils in 14 of Serbia's (and therefore Yugoslavia's) largest towns, the three main opposition leaders made a beeline to London, where they met with the crown prince and plotted strategy. 

Alexander himself, a prosperous international business consultant who's made his money in banking, shipping, insurance and finance, is more than willing to entertain the idea of starting a new life as a monarch. In fact, he lives for it. 

Since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, Alexander has devoted much of his time to preparing for his eventual return as king. He's brushed up his rusty schoolboy Serbo-Croatian, opened his own home page on the World Wide Web, met a steady stream of movers and shakers in the Serbian opposition and in Washington and Western Europe and made three triumphant trips to Yugoslavia. 

"My life started changing after the collapse of the Evil Empire," he said in an interview. "I kind of got caught up with this whole crazy business." 

He sees his potential role as a constitutional monarch in the style of his distant cousin, King Juan Carlos of Spain, who shepherded his country back into the fold of European democracies after decades of Franco's dictatorship. Alexander, whose great-grandfather King Peter I, a benevolent dictator, consolidated Serbia's Karadjordjevic family dynasty, aspires to be a symbol of hope, healing and democracy for a country devastated by the effects of nearby war. 

"We need someone who can [represent] a neutral meeting point, continuity and unity -- not the ruler but the symbol" of nationhood, he said. "I've had the pleasure of living my life in democracies. And I'd be very sad if people in Yugoslavia lost the opportunity for a change and continued on for a few more decades of madness and new weapons." 

In contrast to many of his Serbian countrymen, he has taken a generally moderate, non-nationalist and even pro-Western line. Although an ethnic Serb, he suggests he supported the NATO bombing of Bosnian Serb military positions in 1995 as a necessary evil that brought the war in Bosnia to a speedier end. These days he favors the arrest of all indicted war criminals, including Serbs, and opposes taking revenge against the Communists who took power at the end of World War II. 

At the same time, he seizes every opportunity to denounce Milosevic, pouring scorn on him as an enemy of democracy bent on "bringing the whole country down." And he has urged unity on the various parties in the opposition, which he considers "the best hope for democracy." 

"Milosevic must go," he said. "He's incapable of understanding democracy, compromise and tolerance. He has fired up religion and nationalism in the worst possible way." 

Milosevic, in turn, has given signs that he is beginning to take the threat of Alexander's return seriously. Serbia's state television has taken to disparaging him subtly. When the opposition leaders met with him in London, for instance, Serbian TV reported the meeting was held in a bar. In fact, it took place in a suite at Claridge's Hotel, one of London's most elegant addresses. 

The fact that Alexander is now being discussed as a plausible monarch for Yugoslavia is a surprise even for him. For despite his ancestry and birthright, his real connection with Yugoslavia has been tenuous all his life -- even from the moment of his birth. 

He was born in 1945, in Suite 212 of Claridge's, heir to the Yugoslav throne as the first son of King Peter II. But there was a catch: The heir had to be born on Yugoslav soil. And Alexander's family, flushed out by Nazi bombs and barred by the Communists from returning home after Belgrade's liberation, was living in exile in London. 

Not to worry, said the British government. For the occasion of Alexander's birth, the Home Office declared the family's suite in Claridge's to be sovereign Yugoslav territory. 

Still, Yugoslavia seemed a world away during Alexander's boyhood and adolescence. The Communist dictator Tito, who had abolished the monarchy in 1945, remained in power and, after breaking with Moscow in 1948, was building a socialist state independent of the Soviet Bloc and supported by the West. 

After his father died in the United States in 1970, Alexander decided not to take the title of king. ("Can you imagine walking into Woolworth's or a Giant supermarket and signing your name as king?" he asked.) However, he never renounced his right to the throne. 

"Should the moment come, I'm there and I'm it," he said. 

He was educated in England, Switzerland and the United States, graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, England's West Point, and was commissioned a British army tank officer in 1966. 

He spent seven years in the army, serving in the Middle East, Italy and West Germany, before quitting to go into business, marry and start a family. Living for 12 years in the United States, including Washington, he tried his hand as an advertising executive and insurance broker, gaining experience and connections he says would benefit Yugoslavia should he return as king. 

In the meantime he leads an odd triple life in London. First, there is his regular job as an international business consultant, a career that has afforded him an affluent lifestyle in fashionable Knightsbridge and family ski holidays abroad. 

Although he has no bodyguards, his life is not anonymous. As godson to Queen Elizabeth and a great-great grandson of Queen Victoria, he is a regular at Buckingham Palace social events, a friend of Prince Charles and a cousin to half the royalty in Europe. 

But most of his time in recent years has been devoted to Yugoslav affairs, of which he is a serious student. On his visits to Yugoslavia, he was greeted by thousands of cheering supporters. He visited hospitals, toured the countryside, gave small speeches in Serbo-Croatian and absorbed the human toll of the deeply destructive Balkan war. 

"It's quite tragic," he said. "No jobs, 60 percent unemployment, foreign reserves at $40 million, $16 billion in debts. Factories are idle . . . , schools are out, universities are out. It's a monumental disaster. . . . The country needs some psychic healing."