Diplomat offers home town hospitality in Libertyville

In his daily diplomatic duties as the U.S. Department of State’s number-two guy in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Jonathan Moore gets down to some serious business.

On Friday, the former area resident brought some work home, albeit of a less rigid nature, popping for craft beer and burgers at Mickey Finn’s in Libertyville.

Moore, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia, is to be in Washington next week for a meeting with fellow diplomats serving in Europe.

He arranged his schedule to be able to visit his parents just west of town, and connect with about 15 regional and national Bosnian police chiefs and law enforcement officials. They are in Chicago this weekend for the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference and Law Enforcement Education and Technology Exposition.

“He thought it would be a personal courtesy to give them a chance to see his home,” said his father, John Moore. His mother is Betty-Ann Moore, former Libertyville Township supervisor and a director on the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority board.

Jonathan Moore, a Balkan expert who is fluent in several languages including Serbian, said he has been on the receiving end of similar goodwill overseas.

“We have lots of different relationships with them. When I heard the IACP event was in Chicago, it made sense for me to join them for the convention and show them a little Libertyville hospitality,” he said.

The first stop was to Sava’s Serbian Orthodox Monastery Church, where King Peter II, the exiled king of the former Yugoslavia, is buried. The last stop was for cookies at his parents’ house.

Moore essentially becomes the person in charge of the 600-employee embassy when Ambassador Patrick S. Moon is gone.

Moore, 45, is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and became a U.S. diplomat in 1990. He has served in the former Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Namibia, Belarus and in several other capacities. He has served in Bosnia about two years.

The U.S. made a big commitment to peace in the war-ravaged region in 1995, Moore noted.

“We’re still invested very heavily to make sure the various ethnic groups who are at each others’ throats,” work together he said.

Besides learning best practices, IACP convention participants compare notes.

“One of our key interests in Bosnia is that it not become a breeding ground for terrorists,” according to Moore. “A more secure Bosnia means the more secure the United States.”