Madeleine Albright, 1st Female Secretary of State, Dies at 84
Madeleine Albright, a child refugee from Nazi- and then Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe who rose to become the first female U.S. secretary of state, died Wednesday of cancer, her family said. She was 84.
A lifelong Democrat, Albright was chosen in 1996 by President Bill Clinton to be America’s top diplomat, elevating her from U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
As secretary of state, Albright was the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. She was not in the line of succession to the presidency, however, because she was born in what was then Czechoslovakia.
“We have lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend,” her family said in a statement.
Clinton called her “one of the finest Secretaries of State, an outstanding U.N. Ambassador, a brilliant professor, and an extraordinary human being.”
“Because she knew firsthand that America’s policy decisions had the power to make a difference in people’s lives around the world, she saw her jobs as both an obligation and an opportunity,” Clinton wrote.
“And through it all, even until our last conversation just two weeks ago, she never lost her great sense of humor or her determination to go out with her boots on, supporting Ukraine in its fight to preserve freedom and democracy.”
Former President George W. Bush said Albright “lived out the American dream and helped others realize it. … She served with distinction as a foreign-born foreign minister who understood firsthand the importance of free societies for peace in our world.”
President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were informed of Albright’s death as they were flying to Brussels for an emergency meeting of NATO leaders about Ukraine.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. envoy to the UN, honored Albright as a “trailblazer and a luminary” in remarks on the General Assembly floor.
“The impact that she has had on this building is felt every single day and just about every single corridor,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price, who once co-taught a class with Albright at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where Albright was a professor for decades before and after her time in government.
In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Albright the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Albright’s family fled Czechoslovakia in 1939 as the Nazis took over their country, and she spent the war years in London. After the war, as the Soviet Union took over vast chunks of Eastern Europe, her father, a Czech diplomat, brought his family to the U.S.
As secretary of state, Albright played a leading role in persuading Clinton to go to war against the Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic over his treatment of Kosovar Albanians in 1999. As UN ambassador, she advocated for a tough U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the case of Milosevic’s treatment of Bosnia and NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, which was eventually dubbed “Madeleine’s War.”
Albright helped win Senate ratification of NATO’s expansion and a treaty imposing international restrictions on chemical weapons. She led a successful fight to keep Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali from a second term as secretary-general of the UN. He accused her of deception and posing as a friend.
She once exclaimed to Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who would later succeed her as secretary of state, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”
In 1998, Albright played a key role in formulating the Wye Accords that turned over control of about 40 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians.
She also spearheaded an ill-fated effort to negotiate a 2000 peace deal between Israel and Syria under then-President Hafez al-Assad. She helped guide U.S. foreign policy during conflicts in the Balkans and the Hutu-Tutsi genocide in Rwanda.
As an outspoken Democrat in private life, Albright often joked that she had her “political instincts surgically removed” when she became secretary of state. She formed an unlikely friendship with conservative North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms to increase funding for the State Department and U.S. diplomacy.
Born Marie Jana Korbel in Prague on May 15, 1937, she was the daughter of a diplomat, Joseph Korbel. The family was Jewish and converted to Roman Catholicism when she was 5. Three of her Jewish grandparents died in concentration camps.
Albright later said that she only became aware of her Jewish background after she became secretary of state. The family returned to Czechoslovakia after World War II but fled again, this time to the U.S., in 1948, after the communists rose to power.
They settled in Denver, where her father obtained a job at the University of Denver. One of Josef Korbel’s best students, a young woman named Condoleezza Rice, would later succeed his daughter as secretary of state.
Among current officials who worked closely with Albright are Biden’s domestic policy adviser and former UN Ambassador Susan Rice, as well as Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and a host of others.
Albright graduated from Wellesley College in 1959. She worked as a journalist and later studied international relations at Columbia University, where she earned a master’s degree in 1968 and a Ph.D. in 1976.
She worked for the National Security Council during the Carter administration and advised Democrats on foreign policy before Clinton’s election. He nominated her as U.S. ambassador to the UN in 1993.
Following her service in the Clinton administration, she headed a global strategy firm, Albright Stonebridge, and was chair of an investment advisory company that focused on emerging markets.
She also wrote several books. Albright married journalist Joseph Albright, a descendant of Chicago’s Medill-Patterson newspaper dynasty, in 1959. They had three daughters and divorced in 1983.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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