Madeleine Albright
| |
| Order: | 64th Secretary of State |
| Term of Office: | January 23, 1997 - January 20, 2001 |
| Predecessor: | Warren Christopher |
| Successor: | Colin Powell |
| Place of Birth: | Prague, Czechoslovakia now the Czech Republic |
| Spouse: | Joseph Medill Patterson Albright |
| Profession: | Diplomat |
| Political Party: | Democratic |
Madeleine Korbel Albright née Marie Korbel (born May 15 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, now in the Czech Republic), American diplomat, served as the 64th United States Secretary of State.
Madeleine Albright was nominated by President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996 as Secretary of State. After being unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate, she was sworn in as the 64th Secretary of State on January 23, 1997. Albright was the first female Secretary of State, which in turn made her the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government (Condoleezza Rice has since become the second female Secretary of State).
Personal information
Madeleine Albright was born Marie Jana Korbel on May 15, 1937 in Prague. Madeleine was the French version of "Madlenka", a Czech nickname given by her grandmother. Albright adopted the new name when she attended a Swiss boarding school. She and her parents moved to the United States in 1948 having fled their homeland for a second time when the Communists assumed power. The Wellesley College student became a citizen in 1957.
In May 1959 she married newspaper journalist Joseph Albright, with whom she had three daughters. They divorced in 1982.
Albright is multilingual, being fluent in English, French, and Czech, with good speaking and reading abilities in Russian, German and Polish.
Before and during World War II, her father Josef Korbel and her family sought refuge in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where they had been on a diplomatic mission from Czechoslovakia. That may have saved her life, while many of her numerous Jewish relatives in Czechoslovakia were killed in the Holocaust. Albright has stated that she did not know she was Jewish until she was an adult.
After her retirement, Albright published her memoir, Madam Secretary (2003) ISBN 0786868430.
Academic and public career
Madeleine Albright graduated from Kent Denver high school in 1955. Awarded a B.A. 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 Masters and Doctorate from Columbia University's Department of Public Law and Government.
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 1976 to 1978, she served as Chief Legislative Assistant to Senator Edmund Muskie.
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, U.S. 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.
Before becoming Secretary of State, Albright served as a member of President Clinton's Cabinet.
Ambassador to the UN
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 UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. In 1994, she oversaw the US and UN's failure to intervene in the Rwandan Genocide.
Secretary of State
As Secretary of State, Albright incurred the wrath of many Serbs in the former Yugoslavia because of her role in participating in the formulation of US policy during the Kosovo and Bosnia wars as well US policy in the Balkans. From Bosnia, international news reports and video footage showed Bosnian men detainees in concentration camps down to skin and bones. John Fox, a US State Department specialist told Peter Jennings of ABC News that he was told to not tell the truth: "We could not continue to confirm the existence of concentration camps." He said the order came from a very senior official "on the seventh floor of the State Department." ABC News executive producer David Gelber told Jennings: "Imagine that the US government knew there were concentration camps in Bosnia and wouldn't confirm it because they didn't want political pressure put on them to do something about it."
Albright made highly controversial remarks during an interview on the 60 Minutes CBS television program on December 5, 1996. When asked by correspondant Leslie Stahl about the effect of US economic sanctions against Iraq and their effect on the health of children she replied:
- 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.
In 2000, Secretary Albright became one of the highest level Western diplomats to ever meet Kim Jong-il, the reclusive leader of North Korea.
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