American officials took some pains to indicate that they were "not naive enough," as one put it, to expect a detailed settlement here.

"You don't want to have detailed settlement talks without Phil in the room because he's the one who really understands things," one person involved in the case said.

James P. Rubin, the State Department spokesman, said Mr. Ahtisaari would take with him a detailed settlement plan.

Now that a detailed settlement has been reached, NATO will rapidly complete its planning for the implementation force known as IFOR.

Two years of closed-door negotiations among farmers, Indian tribes, fishermen, conservation groups and government agencies had resulted in a plan to work toward a detailed settlement of Klamath water usage.

It is hard enough to face the need for a will, much less to plan a detailed settlement of journals, documents and photos, or to write letters to loved ones or an autobiography for descendants.

Because the companies had given the agency until next week to decide, government lawyers have been preparing a lawsuit to block the deal unless the companies agreed to a detailed settlement that would permit a small number of rivals to have nondiscriminatory access to Time Warner's cable system.