Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright
64th United States Secretary of State
In office January 23, 1997 – January 20, 2001
President	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	Warren Christopher
Succeeded by	Colin Powell
20th United States Ambassador to the United Nations
In office January 27, 1993 – January 21, 1997
President	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	Edward J. Perkins
Succeeded by	Bill Richardson
Personal details
Born	(1937-05-15) May 15, 1937 Prague, Czechoslovakia
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Joseph Medill Patterson Albright (1959-1982) (divorced)
Profession	Diplomat

Madeleine Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Korbelová on May 15, 1937) was the first woman to become United States Secretary of State. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996 and was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate 99-0. She was sworn in on January 23, 1997.

Personal information

Marie Jana Korbelová IPA: [ˈmarɪjɛ ˈjana ˈkorbɛlova:] was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) and raised as a Roman Catholic by her parents, who had converted from Judaism in order to escape persecution. She has a brother, John, who later became an economist. "Madeleine" was the French version of "Madlenka", a nickname given by her grandmother. Albright adopted the new name when she attended a Swiss boarding school. Albright is the daughter of a diplomat—her father, Josef Korbel, served in the Czech diplomatic service. Her brother said, "Madeleine had a special relationship with our father, partly because she followed so closely in his footsteps." Later in life, she joined the Episcopal Church in the USA.

From 1936 to 1939 the Korbel Family lived in Belgrade, and in 1939 the Korbel family fled to London. Many of her Jewish relatives in Czechoslovakia were killed in the Holocaust, including three of her grandparents.

She and her parents fled again when the Communists assumed power over Czechoslovakia, moving to the United States in 1948. Once settled there, Josef became the founding dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Korbel later taught future Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In Madam Secretary, Albright wrote of how her mother told her that Rice was her father's favorite student. At Josef's funeral, Rice gave the family a planter shaped like a piano in the memory of Korbel.

Albright attended school in Switzerland and in Denver at Kent Denver School, and later majored in political science on a scholarship at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She became a US citizen in 1957. After Wellesley graduation in May 1959, she married Chicago newspaper journalist Joseph Medill Patterson Albright, whom she had met working a summer job with the Denver Post.

They had three daughters, twins Anne and Alice, and Katie. When the twins were born six weeks prematurely, Albright took a course in Russian as a distraction. By the end of their hospital stay, she was fluent in the language. While raising her family, she earned a PhD in Public Law and Government from Columbia University.

The couple divorced in 1982.

Albright is multilingual, being fluent in English, French, and Czech in addition to Russian, with good speaking and reading abilities in German, Polish and Serbo-Croatian.

After her retirement, Albright published her memoir, Madam Secretary (2003) ISBN 0-7868-6843-0 and The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (2006) ISBN 0-06-089257-9.

Academic and public career

Madeleine Albright graduated from the Kent Denver School in 1955. Awarded a BA from Wellesley College with honors in Political Science, she studied at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, received a Certificate from the Russian Institute at Columbia University, and her Master's and Doctorate from Columbia University's Department of Public Law and Government. She was also awarded Honorary Doctors of Laws from the University of Washington in 2002, University of Winnipeg in 2005 and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007.

From 1976 to 1978, she served as Chief Legislative Assistant to US Senator Edmund Muskie. From 1978 to 1981, as both a staff member of the White House and the National Security Council, Albright was an important Carter administration official responsible for the formulation of foreign policy legislation.

From 1981 to 1982, Secretary Albright was awarded a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution following an international competition in which she wrote about the role of the press in political changes in Poland during the early 1980s.

From 1981 to 1982, she also served as a Senior Fellow in Soviet and Eastern European Affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, conducting research in developments and trends in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

In 1981, she co-founded the Center for National Policy. She also served as President of the organization.

In 1982, Albright was appointed Research Professor of International Affairs and Director of Women in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. She taught undergraduate and graduate courses in international affairs, US foreign policy, Russian foreign policy, and Central and Eastern European politics, and was responsible for developing and implementing programs designed to enhance women's professional opportunities in international affairs. She was voted "best teacher" four times. Before becoming Secretary of State, Albright served as US Ambassador to the United Nations in President Clinton's Cabinet. Today, Secretary Albright is once again a professor at Georgetown.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations

Albright gained recognition as a foreign policy adviser to vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and to presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988. Although both were defeated, she emerged as a key adviser to Democrats on foreign policy. Albright was appointed ambassador to the UN, her first diplomatic post, shortly after Clinton was inaugurated, presenting her credentials on February 9 1993. During her tenure at the UN, she had a rocky relationship with the United Nations Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. She did not take action against the genocide in Rwanda. Albright later remarked in PBS documentary Ghosts of Rwanda that "it was a very, very difficult time, and the situation was unclear. You know, in retrospect, it all looks very clear. But when you were [there] at the time, it was unclear about what was happening in Rwanda."

In 1994, in her role as the United State's UN permanent representative she led efforts to deny declaring the massacres in Rwanda genocide . The State Department instructed the White House press secretary to avoid using the words "genocide" and to substitute the terms "acts of genocide". She also led resistance to a new mandate to a new UN mission towards "ensuring" stability and security in the provinces of Rwanda .

She was also criticized for defending the sanctions of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and for answering a loaded question while doing so. In 1996, she made highly controversial remarks in an interview with Lesley Stahl on CBS's 60 Minutes. When asked by Stahl with regards to effect of sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it." She expressed regret for this remark in her 2003 autobiography, where she wrote,

I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. … As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong. … I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one’s fault but my own.

When asked about it in 2005 she said "I never should have made it, it was stupid," and that she still supported the concept of tailored sanctions.

Both Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright insisted that an attack on Hussein could only be stopped if Hussein reversed his decision to halt arms inspections. "Iraq has a simple choice. Reverse course or face the consequences," Albright said.

The lawyers of Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali, convicted in the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, used Albright's 60 Minutes comment in an attempt to save the terrorist from the death penalty.

Also in 1996, after Cuban pilots shot down two small civilian aircraft flown by the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue into Cuban territory, she announced, "This is not cojones. This is cowardice." The line reportedly endeared her to President Clinton. Boutros Boutros-Ghali's spokesperson Sylvana Foa said of Albright, "She's no shrinking violet. She can be biting."

Secretary of State

When Madeleine Albright was confirmed as the 64th Secretary of State of the United States, she became the first female United States Secretary of State and the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States government. Not being a natural born citizen of the United States, she was not eligible as Presidential Successor and was excluded from nuclear contingency plans. As Secretary, Dr. Albright reinforced America’s alliances, advocated democracy and human rights, and promoted American trade and business, labor and environmental standards abroad.

During her tenure, Albright considerably influenced American policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Middle East. She incurred the wrath of a number of Serbs in the former Yugoslavia for her perceived personal anti-Serb position and her role in participating in the formulation of US policy during the Kosovo War and Bosnian war as well as the rest of the Balkans. But, together with President Bill Clinton, she remains a largely popular figure in the rest of the region, especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Croatia. According to Colin Powell's memoirs, Albright once argued for the use of military force by asking, "What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about, if we can’t use it?"

As Secretary of State she represented the United States at the Handover of Hong Kong on 1 July, 1997. She boycotted the swearing-in ceremony of the China-appointed Legislative Council, which replaced the elected one, along with the British contingents.

According to several accounts, the American ambassador to Kenya, Prudence Bushnell, repeatedly asked Washington for additional security at the embassy in Nairobi, including in an April 1998 letter directly to Albright. Bushnell was ignored. In "Against All Enemies," Richard Clarke writes about an exchange with Albright several months after the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in August 1998. "What do you think will happen if you lose another embassy?" Clarke asked. "The Republicans in Congress will go after you." "First of all, I didn't lose these two embassies," Albright shot back. "I inherited them in the shape they were."

In 1998, at the 50th anniversary NATO summit, Albright articulated what would become known as the "three Ds" of NATO, "which is no diminution of NATO, no discrimination and no duplication—because I think that we don't need any of those three "Ds" to happen."

In 2000, Secretary Albright became one of the highest level Western diplomats to ever meet Kim Jong-il, the communist leader of North Korea, during an official state visit to that country.

In one of her last acts as Secretary of State, Albright on January 8, 2001, paid a farewell call on Kofi Annan and said that the United States would continue to press Iraq to destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition of lifting economic sanctions, even after the end of the Clinton administration on January 20, 2001.

Post-2001 career

Following Albright's term as US Secretary of State, many speculated that she might pursue a career in Czech politics. Czech President Václav Havel talked openly about the possibility of Albright succeeding him after he retired in 2002. Albright was reportedly flattered by suggestions that she should run for office, but denied ever seriously considering it. She was the 2nd recipient of the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award presented by the Prague Society for International Cooperation.

Albright currently serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Board of directors. She is also currently the Mortara Distinguished Professor of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC. On October 25, 2005, Albright guest starred on the TV drama Gilmore Girls as herself.

In 2003, she accepted a position on the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange. In 2005, Albright declined to run for re-election to the Board in the aftermath of the Grasso compensation scandal, in which the Chairman of the NYSE Board of Directors, Dick Grasso, had been granted $187.5-million dollars in compensation, with little governance by the board on which Albright sat. During the tenure of the interim chairman, John S. Reed, Albright served as chairwoman of the NYSE board's nominating and governance committee. Shortly after the appointment of the NYSE board's permanent chairman in 2005, Albright submitted her resignation.

On January 5, 2006, she participated in a meeting at the White House of former Secretaries of Defense and State to discuss United States foreign policy with George W. Bush administration officials. On May 5, 2006 she was again invited to the White House to meet with former Secretaries and Bush administration officials to discuss Iraq.

Albright currently serves as chairperson of National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and as president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation. She is also the co-chair of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor and held the Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders Women's Ministerial Initiative up until November 16, 2007, succeded by Margot Wallström.

In an interview given to Newsweek International published July 24, 2006, Albright gave her opinion in United States' current foreign policy. Albright said: "I hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy—worse than Vietnam."

In September 2006, she received the MiE Award, with Václav Havel, for furthering the cause of international understanding.

Albright has mentioned her physical fitness and exercise regimen in several interviews. She has said she is capable of leg pressing 400 pounds.

She has endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for the President of the United States and supports her campaign for the White House. Albright has been a close friend of Sen. Clinton and serves as her top informal advisor on foreign policy matters.

On May 13, 2007, two days before her 70th birthday, Albright received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Stolen art controversy

Madeleine Albright's father, Josef Korbel, allegedly appropriated artwork which belonged to German industrialist Karl Nebrich, who owned a Prague apartment later given to Korbel after World War II. Like most other German-speakers living in Czechoslovakia, Nebrich and his family were expelled from the country under the postwar Beneš decrees. The claim is being pressed by Philipp Harmer, the great-grandson of Karl Nebrich.

External links

• Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Madeleine Albright from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Portrait of Madeleine Albright – Madeleine Albright interviewed by Ulysse Gosset on France 24 - The Talk of Paris Show
• Official biography at State Department site
• Biography at National Women's History Project
• Sample chapter and audio interview about The Mighty and the Almighty (Official publisher web page)
• Summary Biography from Global Leaders
• 1997 commencement speech, Mount Holyoke College
• 2003 commencement speech, Smith College
• 2007 commencement speech, Wellesley College
• Listing at Marquis Who's Who in the World
• Chapter excerpts and audio interview about foreign policy (Official publisher web page)
• Audio recording of Albright's talk, "The Mighty and the Almighty," as part of the University of Chicago World Beyond the Headlines series.