madeleine albright essay

Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright became the first woman to represent the United States in foreign affairs as the Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton.

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(1937-2022)

Quick Facts

Educational achievements, adviser and educator, leader in world affairs, recent years and book, who was madeleine albright.

As a child, Madeleine Albright moved with her family to the United States. After studying at Wellesley College and Columbia University, Albright entered politics at the urging of a former professor. In 1993, Albright became the American ambassador to the United Nations, and three years later, she was appointed the Secretary of the State in the Clinton administration, making her the first woman to ever hold the position. Albright served in that capacity for several years before leaving in 2001 to pursue other projects.

FULL NAME: Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright BORN: May 15, 1937 BIRTHPLACE: Prague, Czechia SPOUSE: Joseph Albright (m. 1959–1982) CHILDREN: Alice Patterson Albright, Katherine Medill Albright, Anne Korbel Albright

Albright was born Marie Jana Korbel in Prague on May 15, 1937. When she was only a toddler, she and her family fled their native Czechoslovakia shortly after the country was invaded by the Nazis at the start of World War II, settling in England for the duration of the war. Although Albright was raised Catholic, she would later learn that her parents had converted to the Christian faith from Judaism and that three of her grandparents had died in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

After briefly resettling in Czechoslovakia, in 1948 the Korbels again took flight when the communists came to power. They settled in Denver, Colorado, and Albright's father, Josef, who had worked as both a journalist and a diplomat, became a distinguished professor at the University of Denver. Albright grew up learning much about world affairs from her father. Among others who would benefit from Josef Korbel's instruction was one of his favorite students—future secretary of state Condoleezza Rice .

A bright student, Albright earned a scholarship to Wellesley College in Massachusetts. There she edited the school's newspaper and pursued her passion for politics. One summer, she landed an internship at the Denver Post , and she soon fell for a fellow intern, publishing heir Joseph Albright. She graduated with honors from Wellesley in 1959, and she and Joseph married shortly thereafter.

Over the next several years, the couple moved to various cities while Joseph pursued his career as a journalist. Albright began studying Russian and international relations while also raising the couple's three daughters, twins Alice and Anne (born in 1961) and Katherine (born 1967). Madeleine completed her education at Columbia University, earning a certificate in Russian studies in 1968 and her M.A. and Ph.D. in public law and government in 1976.

While still a student, in 1972, Albright first entered the political arena as a legislative assistant to Democratic senator Edmund Muskie. Four years later, she was hired by national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski (one of her former professors at Columbia), to work for the National Security Council during the administration of President Jimmy Carter . However, when the Democrats fell from power in the early 1980s, Albright moved to the private sector, working for various Washington nonprofits and becoming a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, where she won its Teacher of Year Award four times.

Also around this time, Albright and her husband divorced after he left her for another woman. "It was a shock," she later told The Washington Post . But she refused to let heartbreak put a damper on her career or her social life, hosting numerous gatherings at her townhouse, where the Democratic elite gathered to discuss the issues of the day. On matters of foreign policy, Albright quickly became one of the party's leading lights, and among other distinctions, she served as an adviser to Michael Dukakis during his 1988 presidential bid.

In 1992, president-elect Bill Clinton tapped Albright to handle the United States' relationship with the United Nations. She officially assumed the role of the United States' permanent representative to the United Nations in January 1993, and quickly distinguished herself as a force to be reckoned with. During her four years in the post, she became an advocate for "assertive multilateralism," telling The New Republic in an interview that "U.S. leadership in world politics and in multilateral organizations is a fundamental tenet of the Clinton Administration." Among other endeavors, Albright lobbied for the United States to expand its military involvement in the Balkans during its prolonged conflicts in the 1990s—a move over which she would publicly clash with Colin Powell —and also pushed for U.S. intervention in the Haitian coup of 1994.

In December 1996, Clinton once again looked to Albright for her expertise in foreign policy, nominating her for secretary of state. When she was sworn in to the position the following January, she became the 64th secretary of state and the first woman to ever hold that position. In her new role, Albright quickly lived up to her reputation as a strong-willed and outspoken problem-solver, engaging with a broad range of issues.

During her tenure, Albright advocated for increased human rights and democracy throughout the world and fought to halt the spread of nuclear weapons from former Soviet countries to rogue nations such as North Korea. A champion of NATO, Albright also sought to expand the organization's membership and in 1999, pushed for its direct military intervention during the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo. As a diplomat, she was closely involved in work to normalize U.S. relations with countries such as China and Vietnam, and in 1997, was a major player in a peace mission to the Middle East, during which she brokered negotiations between Israel and various Arab nations. In October 2000, Albright made history again when she became the first American secretary of state to travel to North Korea.

Although she left her post in 2001, for Albright life after government has been anything but quiet. She has authored several New York Times best-selling books, including Madam Secretary: A Memoir (2003) , The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs (2006) , Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat's Jewel Box (2009), and most recently, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 (2012) . In 2007, Albright put her international expertise to use when she launched the private investment fund Albright Capital Management, which seeks to make long-term investments in emerging markets for its clients. Albright also serves as the co-chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and chair of the advisory council for The Hague Institute for Global Justice.

Albright has received numerous honors for her contributions to diplomacy, democracy and world affairs, including honorary degrees from several universities, and in 2012, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Despite this impressive résumé, it's not just "all work and no play" for Albright, who has always displayed a fine sense of humor. In October 2014, she engaged in a good-humored Twitter war with late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien over their respective Halloween costumes, and in February 2015 she appeared in an episode of the popular comedy series Parks and Recreation , offering friendly advice to Amy Poehler 's character, Leslie, over waffles.

Albright died on March 23, 2022, from cancer. She was 84 years old.

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Madeleine Albright (born May 15, 1937) is a Czech-born American politician and diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997, and as the first woman to hold the cabinet post of U.S. Secretary of State , serving under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. In 2012 Albright was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama . 

Fast Facts: Madeleine Albright

• Known For: American politician and Diplomat, First female U.S. Secretary of State
• Also Known As: Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (full name), Marie Jana Korbelová (given name)
• Born: May 15, 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia
• Parents: Josef Korbel and Anna (Spieglová) Korbel
• Education: Wellesley College (BA), Columbia University (MA, Ph.D.)
• Select Published Works: The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs and Madam Secretary
• Key Accomplishments: Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012)
• Spouse: Joseph Albright (Divorced)
• Children: Anne Korbel Albright, Alice Patterson Albright, Katherine Medill Albright
• Notable Quote: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

Early Life and Education

Madeleine Albright was born Marie Jana Korbel on May 15, 1937, in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to Josef Korbel, a Czech diplomat, and Anna (Spieglová) Korbel. In 1939 the family fled to England after the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia. Not until 1997 did she learn that her family was Jewish and that three of her grandparents had died in German concentration camps. Though the family returned to Czechoslovakia after World War II , the threat of communism drove them to immigrate to the United States in 1948, settling in Great Neck, on the North Shore of Long Island, New York.

After spending her teen years in Denver, Colorado, Madeleine Korbel became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1957 and graduated from Wellesley College, in Massachusetts in 1959 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. Shortly after graduating from Wellesley, she converted to the Episcopal Church and married Joseph Albright, of the Medill newspaper-publishing family. 

In 1961, the couple moved to Garden City in Long Island, where Madeleine gave birth to twin daughters, Alice Patterson Albright, and Anne Korbel Albright.

Political Career 

After receiving a master’s degree in political science from New York’s Columbia University in 1968, Albright worked as a fundraiser for Sen. Edmund Muskie during his failed 1972 presidential campaign and later served as Muskie’s chief legislative aide. In 1976, she received a Ph.D. from Columbia while working for President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. 

During the administrations of Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the 1980s and early 1990s, Albright regularly hosted and strategized with key Democratic politicians and policymakers in her Washington, D.C., home. During this time, she also taught courses in international affairs at Georgetown University.

Ambassador to the United Nations

The American public first began to recognize Albright as a rising political star in February 1993, when Democratic President Bill Clinton appointed her U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Her time at the U.N. was highlighted by a tense relationship with U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali over the 1994 Rwanda genocide . Criticizing Boutros-Ghali for “neglect” of the Rwanda tragedy, Albright wrote, “My deepest regret from my years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt these crimes.” 

After Cuban military aircraft shot down two small, unarmed civilian planes flown by a Cuban-American exile group over international waters in 1996, Albright said of the controversial incident, “This is not cojones. This is cowardice.” An impressed President Clinton said it was “probably the most effective one-liner in the whole administration's foreign policy.” 

Later the same year, Albright joined Richard Clarke, Michael Sheehan, and James Rubin in covertly fighting against the reelection of an otherwise unopposed Boutros Boutros-Ghali as U.N. Secretary-General. Boutros-Ghali had come under criticism for his failure to act after 15 U.S. peacekeepers died in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu , Somalia. In the face of Albright’s unswerving opposition, Boutros-Ghali withdrew his candidacy. Albright then orchestrated the election of Kofi Annan as the next Secretary-General over the objection of France. In his memoirs, Richard Clarke stated that “the entire operation had strengthened Albright's hand in the competition to be Secretary of State in the second Clinton administration.”

Secretary of State

On December 5, 1996, President Clinton nominated Albright to succeed Warren Christopher as U.S. Secretary of State. Her nomination was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on January 23, 1997, and she was sworn in the next day. She became the first female U.S. Secretary of State and at the time, the highest-ranking woman in U.S. government history. However, not being a native-born U.S. citizen, she was not eligible to serve as president of the United States under the line of presidential succession . She served until January 20, 2001, the day Republican President George W. Bush was inaugurated.

As Secretary of State, Albright played a key role in shaping U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While a strong supporter of democracy and human rights, she remained a proponent of military intervention, once asking then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Colin Powell, “What’s the point of you saving this superb military, Colin, if we can’t use it?” 

In 1999, Albright urged NATO nations to bomb Yugoslavia to end the “ ethnic cleansing ” genocide of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo . After 11 weeks of air strikes referred to by some as “Madeleine’s War,” Yugoslavia agreed to NATO’s terms.

Albright also played a key role in early efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program . In 2000, she traveled to Pyongyang, becoming one of the first high-ranking Western diplomats to meet with Kim Jong-il, the then-leader of communist North Korea. Despite her efforts, no deal was made. 

In one of her last official acts as Secretary of State on January 8, 2001, Albright made a farewell call to Kofi Annan to assure the U.N. that the U.S. would continue President Clinton’s demands that Iraq under Saddam Hussein destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction, even after the beginning of the George W. Bush administration on January 8, 2001.

Post-Government Service

Madeleine Albright left government service at the end of President Clinton’s second term in 2001 and founded the Albright Group, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm specializing in analyzing the effects of government and politics on businesses. 

In both 2008 and 2016, Albright actively supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns. During the tumultuous 2106 campaign against eventual winner Donald Trump , she came under criticism when she stated, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other,” a belief she had memorably expressed for years. While some felt she was implying that gender should be the only reason for voting for a particular candidate, she later clarified her comment, stating, “I absolutely believe what I said, that women should help one another, but this was the wrong context and the wrong time to use that line. I did not mean to argue that women should support a particular candidate based solely on gender.”

In recent years, Albright has written several columns on foreign affairs issues and served on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations . A few of her best-known books include "The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs," "Memo to the President Elect," and "Fascism: A Warning." Her books "Madam Secretary" and "Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War," 1937–1948 are memoirs. 

Sources and Further Reference

• “ Biography: Madeleine Korbel Albright .” Office of the US Secretary of State.
• Scott, A.O. “ Madeleine Albright: The Diplomat Who Mistook Her Life for Statecraft .”  Slate (April 25, 1999).
• Dallaire Roméo. “ Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda .” Carroll & Graf, Jan 1, 2005. ISBN 0615708897. 
• “ Albright’s Personal Odyssey Shaped Foreign Policy Beliefs .” The Washington Post. 1996.
• Albright, Madeleine. “ Madeleine Albright: My Undiplomatic Moment .” New York Times (February 12, 2016).
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Author Interviews

Remembering madeleine albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state.

Terry Gross

Appointed by President Clinton in 1997, Albright advocated for the expansion of NATO into the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe. She died March 23. Originally broadcast in 2003 and 2018.

Hear The Original Interviews

Madeleine Albright Warns: Don't Let Fascism Go 'Unnoticed Until It's Too Late'

Former secretary of state madeleine albright.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Today we remember Madeleine Albright, who became the first woman to serve as secretary of state. She died of cancer Wednesday at the age of 84. She was appointed secretary of state by President Clinton in 1997 in his second term. In his first term, she became the ambassador to the U.N. Among the things she's remembered for is advocating the expansion of NATO into the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe. Some of the other issues and crises she contended with during the Clinton years include the war in the Balkans, the genocide in Rwanda, the terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, the suspension of weapons inspections in Iraq, Middle East peace talks and the start of the second intifada and the impeachment trial of President Clinton.

A little later, we'll hear the interview I recorded with her in 2018 during the Trump presidency after the publication of her book, "Fascism," in which she wrote about the growing threat of fascism in Eastern Europe and sounded the alarm about the growing threat of authoritarianism in the U.S. We'll start with our 2003 interview recorded after the publication of her memoir, "Madam Secretary." She was born in Czechoslovakia, where her father was a diplomat. During World War II, the family fled to England just before Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. After the war, they returned to their country only to flee again, this time in 1948, as the Communists were taking over. We started the interview by talking about being the first woman to serve as secretary of state.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: You write in your memoir, (reading) I am often asked whether I was condescended to by men as I traveled around the world to Arab countries and other places with highly traditional cultures. I replied, no, because when I arrived somewhere, it was in a large plane with the US of A emblazoned on the side. Foreign officials respect that. I had more problems with some of the men in my own government.

What are some of the problems you had with some of the men in your own government?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think that, especially when I started at the United Nations - and I was a member of what is called - the so-called principals committee, which is a small group that includes the national security adviser, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs and the director of the CIA and the ambassador to the U.N. in our case because every administration can change the grouping of the principals. So I was a part of this group. And I had very strong opinions, especially about Bosnia. And I really was condescended to by the national security adviser who had - who has been a very good friend of mine and kind of made me feel as if my opinions were overly strong, or to use a word that's often used against women, emotional, mainly because I felt very strongly about it.

Also, the thing that I found, and this is the hardest part, is that even men that are very good friends and very nice people and have wives and daughters don't often understand that some way - something that they say or the dismissiveness of their tone makes you feel that your views are not welcome. And I think for the most part, many of them don't know they're doing it. It just gets pretty irritating.

GROSS: Tell me if you feel like you ever had to deal with this in your career as somebody who is very high-powered and having to fly around the world talking with heads of state. A lot of women, particularly women who are, like, in their 40s and over feel like they were brought up to be - socialized to be liked, to please and, you know, to accommodate. And sure, there's a certain amount of pleasing an accommodation that's a part of diplomacy, but there's also the necessity of, you know, of being tough, of saying no, of holding your ground no matter what. Do you feel like in your career you ever had to overcome that impulse to accommodate, to be nice, to be liked?

ALBRIGHT: Oh, my goodness. Yes. I can't tell you how many times. First of all, I do think that most women want to be liked. And they don't want to have face-to-face personal arguments. It was even larger in my case, because as I write in the first part of my book, having come to the United States as a foreigner and having constantly been moving around, I really wanted to be part of a group. And I did want to be liked. I still want to be liked. So I think that it's something that's very much a part of me and a part of women.

Now, the other thing that I learned, and I learned it very quickly when I got to the United Nations, is that you can't do the kind of normal women thing, which is to wait a while to get a sense of what a meeting is like, you know, kind of get the tenor of the room, who says what. And I was - went to my first meeting of the security council and kind of thought I'd take my time. And all of a sudden it dawned on me; I couldn't take my time. I was the United States. If I didn't speak, then the United States would not - our views would not be heard. And so I got over that very quickly.

The part that I think is very hard, and I think I probably speak for other women in this, is men are capable of having strong policy disagreements or arguments about a subject and then walk out of a room and go and play golf or have a drink or something. And I think women do take it more personally. And I don't think we like to have face-to-face confrontations. But I sure learned that it was essential to state my views very clearly and not care whether I was liked or not. And it took me a while to learn it. But I think others will testify to the fact that I did learn it.

GROSS: What is it like to fly to a country like Saudi Arabia to practice diplomacy knowing that in that country women have to be shrouded? Women can't drive. And granted, they understand you're a woman from a different culture. But you're still a woman.

ALBRIGHT: Well, first of all, you really do think about the fact that you're going into this kind of a country where sisters have a very different lifestyle. And I find it appalling. Nevertheless, I had to carry on my duties as secretary of state. And I did not wear any covering on my head when I spoke to the ministers or the king or the crown prince. So I did not take any particular action of that kind. And in my first meeting with what's known as the Gulf Cooperation Council - those are the ministers from all the Gulf States - we had a very serious conversation, and at the end of it I said to them, you may notice that I am not clothed exactly the way my predecessors were. And I thank you very much for your great courtesy and kindness. And next time we'll talk about women's rights. And they were a little surprised.

On the other hand, one of the foreign ministers said, you know, I think we, in fact, might have a foreign minister as a woman in the period of the length of our history - 'cause they're relatively new countries - that's shorter than it took the United States to have a woman secretary of state. That same foreign minister then invited me to his home and introduced me to his daughters who had American educations and I think were probably going to end up having quite a different life from some of the other people. But it's - there's no question that it's a touchy issue and that it creates a certain level of difficulty, but not when you are representing the United States. I must say that I had the greatest respect from those leaders, especially - well, all of them. But I had a very good relationship with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Abdullah.

GROSS: Your first position in the Clinton administration was as U.N. ambassador. Your father was a diplomat. Your father had served as U.N. ambassador from Czechoslovakia. How do you think that, you know, being from Czechoslovakia influenced your feelings about Bosnia and Kosovo and your stand that there should be military intervention?

ALBRIGHT: Well, first of all, my - everybody has their baggage. And mine clearly was Munich, an agreement made in September 1938 by the so-called Western powers, excluding the United States, to give away a piece of Czechoslovakia to Hitler - in other words, to appease aggression. And that was kind of a signal moment in the history of Czechoslovakia and something that my parents talked about a lot, that if you don't stand up to an aggressor, that, in fact, the aggressor will only take more.

The other parts that affected my life was that I clearly understood the horrors of not standing up to Hitler in other ways with the Holocaust and understanding that you could not permit ethnic cleansing to go unanswered. During the Second World War, a lot of people legitimately could say that they had no idea what was being done in terms of ethnic cleansing. We did know what was going on in Bosnia because of obviously a whole revolution in information.

I also knew a lot about Yugoslavia from the fact that my father had been ambassador there. And while I had only been of the ages from 8 to 11, I grew up learning about the problems of Yugoslavia. So those were all the reasons why I thought it was important to stand up to Milosevic.

GROSS: Shortly after becoming secretary of state, The Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs came to you with information that your family was actually Jewish, not Catholic, and that three of your grandparents were victims of the Holocaust as well as at least one of your cousins. You write about this a little bit in your book and about how people couldn't believe you didn't know and that it made it - they made it seem like you had covered it up. You say, I was made to feel as if I were a liar and that - my father was portrayed as a heartless fraud. You never knew about it till Michael Dobbs told you?

ALBRIGHT: Well, I - no, I didn't. I mean, what happened was that - I think I explained in the first part of the book that my parents talked a great deal about their lives in pre-World War II Czechoslovakia and about generally history and that when we returned after the war - I was 8 years old - and that my grandparents were not alive. And I was told that they died of old age. And I had no - this is a very tragic part of everything I have to say. I mean, I didn't know any grandparents, so they never were real people for me. So I didn't kind of absorb that at all.

But I grew up as a practicing Catholic, actually a pretty good one. And I - there were no holes in the story of my life. And - but what happened - when I started being in the news, I would get letters from people saying that they knew something about my family. There were hints of things, but it didn't all come together until actually - in December 1996 as I was being named to be secretary of state, I got a letter that seemed to have all the facts together. And so when I was being vetted by the White House lawyers, I told them that I had reason to suspect that my family was of Jewish background, and they basically found that very uninteresting. I thought it was fascinating, and I really wanted to look into it more.

And then Michael Dobbs called me during the transition period and said he was going to do a profile of me. And I gave him a bunch of addresses of people in Yugoslavia and in Czechoslovakia. And then he's the one who came up with the fact that three of my grandparents had died in concentration camps, which is quite different from finding out that you're of Jewish background. And it was the horror of finding out about the horrible death of my grandparents that truly was the great tragedy.

And in addition to the divorce chapter, this was the hardest chapter to write. And I tried to really lay it out and try to explain why it was so difficult and how hurtful it was to have my father, whom I adored, be accused of trying to hide the facts when, from everything that I knew about my parents, all they ever did was try to figure out ways to protect us.

GROSS: What do you think their motivation was? Not only in - I mean, I guess the motivation for changing their religion is fairly obvious, to survive during the Nazi era. But what do you think their motivation was to never tell you?

ALBRIGHT: Well, again, it's hard to try to figure out motivation, but I think the following thing, again - that you have to put yourself back into the period. They had gone through having to leave their country twice. They came to the United States in 1948, '49, and it - and then in the '50s when we were getting our citizenship. And I think they just thought that it was safer not to tell.

By the way, I have the highest respect for Harry Truman and think he's one of the great American presidents. But if you read what has recently been revealed about what he said about Jews, then I think one can understand why my parents, coming to a new country from a country where Jews have been exterminated, might have thought that it was wiser not to tell us. Why they didn't tell me later, I don't know the answer.

GROSS: If you don't mind my asking, I'm wondering if you practice any religion now. Now, you grew up Roman Catholic. At your husband's request, when you got married, you joined the Episcopal Church and then found out later in life that your family is really of Jewish descent. So where are you now (laughter) in terms of faith?

ALBRIGHT: Well, I have written actually that it's confusing. I mean, it's a little hard to be 66 years old and be unclear about something like this. I was raised a Christian, and I am a - I don't see myself not being a Christian. I find it very difficult to assimilate all of it. And I don't know. I mean, I go to an Episcopalian church when I go, but many of my beliefs are very Catholic because I grew up a Catholic. And I respect Judaism, but I don't see myself practicing it. So it - you know, I have to honestly admit that it's sad in many ways to be this old and to be unclear about something that is so basic.

GROSS: We're listening to the interview I recorded in 2003 with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She died Wednesday at the age of 84. A little later, we'll hear the interview we recorded in 2018 during the Trump presidency after the publication of her book, "Fascism," in which she warned about the growing authoritarianism in parts of Eastern Europe and sounded the alarm about the threat of authoritarianism in the U.S. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU TRIO'S "BEATRICE")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the 2003 interview I recorded with Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state. President Clinton appointed her in his second term after she served in his first term as U.N. ambassador.

GROSS: Now, you married Joe Albright, who was from a very wealthy family, the family that owned the newspaper Newsday. Did you suddenly find yourself in a much more privileged world than the world you had traveled in? I know your father had been a diplomat, probably knew a lot of very important and powerful people. But still, was this a different world for you?

ALBRIGHT: Well, it was a completely different world. But the truth is that when my father had been ambassador, you know, we lived in an embassy and had a chauffeur and a maid and a cook and a butler and various other accoutrements of a privileged life. But then when we came to the United States, we were, as was known at the time, displaced persons and arrived in Denver with nothing beyond this green Ford coupe that my parents had bought. And so people lent us furniture, and we bought some junky furniture and lived in university rental housing. So life was quite different, physically, never different intellectually or emotionally because my parents were very clear that our life would go on in a respected way. But when I did marry into Joe's family, it was quite different. It is - it's a family that had many houses and servants and a lot of privileges.

GROSS: You write in your book that your husband divorced you in 1983. He told you that he'd fallen in love with a woman who was a reporter, who was considerably younger and beautiful. And you say that you hope that he was just being noble and brave because he was really diagnosed with a brain tumor (laughter) and was just trying to spare his family the pain of watching him suffer. Well, unfortunately or fortunately, whatever, that wasn't the case (laughter), and he was just leaving you for another woman. You say that when he did leave you, it left you with no confidence in your looks. Did you get over that? And as a woman who spent her life in the limelight, in front of cameras, but not in a beauty pageant, in diplomatic positions, in secretary of state - you know, in the position of secretary of state, did looks matter to you? How important was that?

ALBRIGHT: Well, you know, all I have to do is look in the mirror to know I'm no raving beauty, but it does help if you feel good about yourself. And so I think that if you go around moping or, you know, you decide one day you're never going to wear makeup, it doesn't work. I do think that you have to remember that you are representing your country. And it's very interesting. I actually don't think I wrote this in the book, but before I went up to the U.N., I met with Jeane Kirkpatrick, one of my predecessors and obviously also a woman and a professor. And Jeane Kirkpatrick, we probably disagree a lot on policy, but our lives are not dissimilar because we both taught at Georgetown. And what she did was ask me to come in and talk to her - or we had lunch. And she said - she was very funny. She said, Madeleine, get rid of the professor clothes, and buy yourself some good clothes because you really do need to look good for this job. So Jeane and I agree on those particular issues. And it does matter how you look.

GROSS: It matters why?

ALBRIGHT: Because I think not so much, I mean, if you're beautiful or not, but if you look confident and you look put together, I think it does play a role in how you present your case. And I tell one story in the book where we had had all-night negotiations on a resolution to do with Haiti, and I had done real retail diplomacy, gone around and talked to every one of the Security Council members. And I looked exhausted, and, you know, I'd rumpled my hair, and all the makeup was off of my face. But I - we were going to have time between what I was doing and the final vote. So I went back to my apartment, started all over, put on a blue linen dress that I thought I looked good in, came back, looked a lot better than all my colleagues, who were unshaven, and I think it looked as though I had confidence. We won the vote. I don't think because of my blue dress, but I think it does help to look good.

GROSS: My interview with Madeleine Albright was recorded in 2003. She died Wednesday at the age of 84. After a break, we'll hear the interview we recorded in 2018 during the Trump presidency, after the publication of her book, "Fascism," in which she warned about the growing threat of authoritarianism in parts of Eastern Europe and the threat to democracy in the U.S. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JULIAN LAGE'S "ROGER THE DODGER")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Today we're remembering Madeleine Albright, who became America's first woman to serve as secretary of state. She was appointed by President Clinton during his second term and served as U.S. ambassador during his first term. Albright died of cancer Wednesday. She was 84. The second interview we recorded was in 2018 during the Trump presidency. She had just published her bestselling book, "Fascism," in which she wrote (reading) we should be awake to the assault on democratic values that has gathered strength in many countries abroad and is dividing America at home.

The book examined how fascism took hold in Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. Then she warned about how authoritarianism was taking hold again in several Eastern European countries and was already well in place in Russia and North Korea. One chapter was devoted to Trump and the alarming threat of authoritarianism in the U.S.

GROSS: Madeleine Albright, welcome to FRESH AIR. This book is a very personal one in a lot of ways because you fled fascism twice. Your family is from Czechoslovakia, where you were born. Your father was a diplomat. The family fled fascism when you were a child, first, from Hitler. You moved to England. And then after World War II, you returned to Czechoslovakia but fled again when the Communists were taking over and came to America. What is the warning you want to send to Americans about what is happening here?

ALBRIGHT: Well, first of all, I'm delighted to be with you. But let me say, the reason that I wrote the book and the warning is, as you've pointed out, it's something that I saw or have certainly heard about from my parents. And part of the reason for writing it is to say that, in fact, this can happen in countries that have democratic systems, that have a population that's interested in what is going on, that is supportive, because so many of the things that have happened and happened in Czechoslovakia were steps that came as a result of ethnic issues with the German minority, but mostly steps that seemed not so terrible that there couldn't be a deal made. And so that's what's so worrisome, is that these - fascism can come in a way that it is one step at a time and in many ways then goes unnoticed until it's too late.

GROSS: One step at a time within the system.

ALBRIGHT: Within the system, and partially because it is a way of undermining democracy and the democratic institutions that are the basis of democracy or criticizing the press or thinking that there are those that are enemies of the people and are the cause of distress or bad economic situation. And it kind of works on the fear factor rather than the hope factor.

GROSS: And with your father, for instance - he was a diplomat. He was close to the president of Czechoslovakia. And so when your father sensed that the Communists were taking over, the president of Czechoslovakia was saying, no, it's going to be fine. Don't worry about it. And your father left in spite of those reassurances. You know, the whole family left in spite of those reassurances. And you were lucky that you did. You write your father would have been put in prison had the family stayed in Czechoslovakia - so another example of how when fascism or authoritarianism or Communism is coming, not everybody sees it.

ALBRIGHT: And that's absolutely true, because part of it, both with the fascism and with the Communism - there really was not enough pushback from the people and, to some extent, the authorities there at the time. Or there's an outside power that doesn't support. So, for instance, what happened when the fascists took over was the period that is known as appeasement that, in fact, was carried out by friends and allies, like the British, who gave in to what this group that was organized to help Hitler in what is known as Sudetenland, the small part of Czechoslovakia that was occupied by a German minority. And people thought, well, if we give in on this, nothing else will happen. And that's - is exactly what did happen. One step led to another. And if you are trying to feed the beast and the beast is a fascist, then it makes it very hard to push back.

GROSS: Your book starts with a quote from Primo Levi. Every age has its own fascism. What are you trying to say by using that quote? Are you saying, don't expect fascism to look like it - exactly like it did with Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin?

ALBRIGHT: Well, that's exactly - because one of the reasons that I wrote the book was to show the different ways that fascism has penetrated a lot of our societies now. And each one is a little bit different. And certainly, eras are different. And so one has to look at what some of the signs are but not expect a total replication that everything is exactly the same because - both the situations in the country, the international situation, what is happening with technology, how people see their lives. So it's very hard. And frankly, Terry, the hardest part in the book was really coming up with exact definitions because it's always slightly different.

GROSS: Let's talk about what's happening in the United States. I want to read a passage that you write in your book, "Fascism: A Warning," a passage about President Trump. You write, (reading) we've never had a president, at least in the modern era, whose statements and actions are so at odds with democratic ideals. Trump has spoken harshly about the institutions and principles that make up the foundation of open government. In the process, he has systematically degraded political discourse in the U.S., shown an astonishing disregard for facts, libeled his predecessor, threatened to lock up political rivals, bullied members of his own administration, referred to mainstream journalists as enemies of the American people, spread falsehoods about the integrity of the U.S. electoral process, touted mindlessly nationalistic economic and trade policies and nurtured a paranoid bigotry toward the followers of one of the world's foremost religions.

Do you think that President Trump has the instincts of an authoritarian leader?

ALBRIGHT: I think that he is the most antidemocratic president that we have had in modern history and that his instincts are really in that direction. And I think that that's what's worrisome. And the passage that you read really does show that what he's trying to do is undermine the press - and has disdain for the judiciary and the electoral process and minorities. And I think that his instincts are not ones that are democratic. And he is interested basically in, I think, exacerbating those divisions that I talked about. And so I am very concerned. And basically, this is - you know, I've written the book because I have picked up that phrase, see something, say something. And I am seeing some things that are the kinds of things that we've seen in other countries. And so I'm saying not only should we say something, but we have to do something about it.

GROSS: President Trump, when he was campaigning, when he talked about NATO, he'd talk about how America was, like, spending too much and European countries are spending too little when it came to dues. And he seemed to see NATO as being about, like, some kind of business arrangement where America was being played. We were being taken advantage of because we were paying more. You were secretary of state when NATO opened its doors to Eastern European countries, in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary. They entered NATO in 1999 when you were secretary of state. So NATO was very important during your tenure in in that position. I mean, the shape of NATO changed. And now we've seen Brexit, and we've seen President Trump having this kind of changeable, ambivalent position about NATO. How does that feel personally? Because you were so - like, NATO was such an important part of your professional life as secretary of state.

ALBRIGHT: Well, I see it as the most unbelievable step backwards because I do believe that the United States is stronger when we have friends and allies to deal with the various issues, whether they are in-area, as we say, members of NATO itself or out-of-area, whether it's in the Balkans or Afghanistan, that the Europeans and NATO are really part of this incredible alliance that we've had. And I always say, as a European who has spent her life in the United States, I see the Euro-Atlantic alliance as one of the most important bulwarks of our society. So seeing this go on, I find appalling. And what is the issue, again, it's this lack of understanding of what this alliance is about. It is not somebody coming to rent hotel rooms to see if they can get the best price or - it's not transactional. It is something that is basic to our system.

And so I think one of the parts, though, Terry, is that he's gone back on certain things, so that he generally has now said that he is supportive of NATO. So one of the parts that's a little bit confusing, what is he really for? What is he against? Is it one of those things where the last person that speaks to him has all the influence? But I do think that what is going on with Europe and our relationships with Europe are part of the very - you know, are really a big part of the problem in terms of a lack of understanding about America's role.

And then one other part I think that is really part of this story is that what Trump is doing is making America seem like a victim. Everything is somebody else's fault. Countries are taking advantage of us. The Mexicans are sending drug dealers. Countries are not paying their dues. The trading system is unfair. And by making Americans seem like victims all the time, it then is able to again make the divisions stronger in terms of who's with us, who's not with us and is totally anti-American foreign policy. And so I think it's very, very worrisome in terms of this victimhood. I don't see America as a victim. I see America as the most powerful country in the world that has a role to play standing up for democratic ideals and human rights across the board.

GROSS: We're listening to the 2018 interview I recorded with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She died Wednesday at the age of 84. We'll hear more of the interview after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BILL FRISELL'S "LISTEN")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state. She died Wednesday at age 84. Let's get back to the interview we recorded in 2018 after the publication of her book, "Fascism," in which she warned about authoritarianism in several Eastern European countries and sounded the alarm about the assault on American democracy.

GROSS: Let's talk about Russia. We have evidence now that Russia interfered in the presidential election. We don't know what their plans are for the midterms. If you were secretary of state, would you see a role for yourself now in dealing with future Russian interference in our democracy?

ALBRIGHT: Well, from everything that I have read, I think that it is a dereliction of duty not to see what the Russians have been doing and that this really requires a whole of government approach to it, where the president directs the various parts of the government to do what they have to do to figure out what the Russians are up to and how to prevent them from doing more during the midterm election and all the time, frankly. And then also - and as secretary of state, the other part that would be important is to point out what the Russians are doing in other countries. We know, for instance, what has been happening in Europe. Then they have, in fact, undertaken a lot of propaganda and false information throughout Europe. There are even those who think that they were involved in the Brexit vote. So as the secretary of state, what you try to do is to look at what are the effects of Russia's behavior among our friends and allies? Who needs help? How do we share intelligence? And what do we do to make sure that our democracies are not undermined? And that's the role of the secretary of state.

GROSS: You met with Vladimir Putin when you were secretary of state. What was his position at the time?

ALBRIGHT: Well, it was interesting. The first time I met him was when he was still kind of acting president in an APEC meeting that took place in New Zealand. And he was in a a stage of his life where he seemed to want to be very ingratiating to everybody and wanted to kind of pretend - or was, in fact, kind of a small figure. Then, when I went back to prepare for the summit that President Clinton had in the summer of 2000 - and I have to say, I was very impressed with how smart Putin was. And when he met with President Clinton, he - Putin - was able to talk without notes, as President Clinton was, and also took notes and really was very smart. I think that he is a smart man. He has played a weak hand very well. And he is a former KGB officer. And we can never forget that.

GROSS: You wrote down your impressions of him after your first meeting. And you wrote, Putin is small and pale, so cold as to be almost reptilian. Putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness. That kind of holds up.

ALBRIGHT: Well, it does. And part of it, I have to say, is that in '91, when I - before I went into the government, I did this survey of all of Europe after the end of the Cold War. And we did a lot of questionnaires, but also focus groups. And I will never forget a focus group outside of Moscow where this man stands up and says, I'm so embarrassed; we used to be a superpower, and now we're Bangladesh with missiles. And so what Putin has done is identify with that kind of loss of national pride that the Russians have had, and he has restored it from - in their eyes. And so he is popular, and it has something in terms of restoring Russia's position. And as I say, he has played a weak hand very well.

GROSS: So an interesting anecdote in your book - and this takes place in 2003, when you were speaking in Turkey. And, you know, as we've been saying, like, identity is such a big issue in this era of, like, nationalism and anti-immigration feelings. So you're in Turkey. You're giving a speech. And then during the Q&A, you're asked your opinion of whether women should wear headscarves. And there's women with headscarves in the audience and women without them. And you say, well, that's easy; it should be a woman's personal choice. And you say that everybody in the room hated you after that. (Laughter) That was, like, an incredibly unpopular response. What's the moral of that story?

ALBRIGHT: Well, I think the moral is that we cannot think that everybody wants to be like American women. I have - again, to go back on this survey that I did in the '90s, a lot of women that had lived under communism had basically been liberated to work twice as hard. So one of the questions that we asked in that was, do you want to have a marriage where you stay at home and take care of the children, or do you want to have a job? And I can't remember the exact numbers, but most of the women wanted to be at home with their children.

And so I think we do have to be careful not to think that everybody wants to be like us. And so I believe that we need to be helpful where we can, where women in countries want to have support from outsiders, and be supportive of women running for office, and try to figure out how to end domestic violence and a variety of different things. But the issue there - and it really did surprise me, I have to say - was that I gave a typically American answer. I mean, I always think that for women, the best word for us is choice. We need to be able to choose what we do with our bodies, and our lives and how we generally operate. And I was surprised that I had given a typical American answer that didn't suit anybody. And it continues to trouble me because I think we have to be careful not to mirror image. On the other hand, we need to be helpful.

GROSS: Well, Madeleine Albright, it's been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much.

ALBRIGHT: Thank you.

GROSS: My interview with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was recorded in 2018 after the publication of her book, "Fascism." She died Wednesday at the age of 84. I'm Terry Gross. And this is FRESH AIR.

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Madeleine Albright, First Woman to Serve as Secretary of State, Dies at 84

She rose to power and fame as a brilliant analyst of world affairs before serving as an aggressive advocate of President Bill Clinton’s policies.

By Robert D. McFadden

Madeleine K. Albright, a child of Czech refugees who fled from Nazi invaders and Communist oppressors and then landed in the United States, where she flourished as a diplomat and the first woman to serve as secretary of state, died on Wednesday in Washington. She was 84.

The cause was cancer, her daughter Anne said.

Enveloped by a veil of family secrets hidden from her for most of her life, Ms. Albright rose to power and fame as a brilliant analyst of world affairs and a White House counselor on national security. Under President Bill Clinton, she became the country’s representative to the United Nations (1993-97) and secretary of state (1997-2001), making her the highest-ranking woman in the history of American government at the time.

It was not until after she became secretary of state that she accepted proof that, as she had long suspected, her ethnic and religious background was not what she had thought. She learned that her family was Jewish and that her parents had protectively converted to Roman Catholicism during World War II, raising their children as Catholics without telling them of their Jewish heritage. She also discovered that 26 family members, including three grandparents, had been murdered in the Holocaust.

With her father, a diplomat, probably facing execution, the family’s odyssey from a Europe on the brink of World War II to safety in America took 10 years and two escapes to London. The first came as Nazi troops invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, and the second came after the family’s postwar repatriation, when Czech Communists with Soviet support overthrew the government of Czechoslovakia in 1948.

In America, Madeleine Korbel was a gifted student, married into the wealthy Albright-Medill newspaper family and wrote many books and articles on public affairs. She also climbed the ranks of the Democratic Party to pinnacles of success as a counselor to President Jimmy Carter and as a foreign policy adviser to three presidential candidates: former Senator Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota in 1984, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts in 1988 and Mr. Clinton in 1992. She was also the campaign foreign policy adviser to Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run for vice president.

She was largely unknown until Mr. Clinton took office as president in 1993 and named her chief delegate to the United Nations. Over the next four years, she became a tough advocate for the global interests of the United States. But she and Mr. Clinton clashed repeatedly with Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali over peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Rwanda and the Bosnian civil war.

Mr. Clinton had heartily endorsed humanitarian and peacekeeping operations when American troops entered Somalia in 1992 to feed starving victims of civil war. But when 18 American troops were slain by the forces of a Somali warlord in 1993 and the nation saw television images of a dead helicopter pilot dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Mr. Clinton retreated from politically risky United Nations missions.

Thus the U.S., like most other member states, held back from aiding a small force of U.N. peacekeepers when Rwanda descended into genocide and rape in 1994. As many as a million people were killed. Ms. Albright put the onus on Mr. Boutros-Ghali, calling him “disengaged.” But Mr. Boutros-Ghali said he had been rebuffed when he tried to see the president to seek support.

Years later, Mr. Clinton apologized for America’s inaction in Rwanda. In a 2003 memoir, “Madam Secretary,” Ms. Albright wrote, “My deepest regret from my years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt these crimes.” It was a regret she repeated, in much the same words, in an interview for this obituary.

Mr. Boutros-Ghali’s frustration over the Clinton administration’s pattern of voting for tough Security Council resolutions and then refusing to support actions on the ground was most notable in the 1992-95 civil war in Bosnia, a conflict of ethnic and religious differences that led to displaced populations, massacres, rapes and “ethnic cleansing” campaigns against Muslims and other minorities.

The Security Council deplored the atrocities, but its peacekeepers were unable to subdue the fighting. Aside from limited airstrikes, the United States did not substantively intervene, although the Clinton administration eventually mediated the conflict.

In 1996, the Security Council voted overwhelmingly to give Mr. Boutros-Ghali a second term. But Ms. Albright, in her last days as the American delegate, cast a decisive veto, her prerogative as one of the five permanent Council members. Mr. Boutros-Ghali called the veto an assault on his integrity and said he had been hounded out of office by Mr. Clinton for election-year political gain.

Days after beginning his second term, Mr. Clinton nominated Ms. Albright as secretary of state. She was unanimously confirmed by the Senate (99-0) and soon made her first official trip, not to a foreign capital but to Texas, where she spoke at Rice University — determined, she said, to take United States foreign policy straight to the American people.

“As secretary, I will do my best to talk about foreign policy not in abstract terms, but in human terms and bipartisan terms,” she said. “I consider this vital because in our democracy, we cannot pursue policies abroad that are not understood and supported here at home.”

She then embarked on a nine-nation world tour, with stops in Rome, Paris, London, Brussels, Bonn, Moscow, Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing. It was a getting-to-know-you circumnavigation that showed off her grasp of issues, her language skills and her centrality as Mr. Clinton’s chief foreign policy maker and spokeswoman. She generated excitement everywhere, and appeared to have a wonderful time.

“Everybody has their own style, and mine is people to people,” she said on a walk in Rome. “I’m trying mine, and I am enjoying it.”

A Test in Iraq

As Mr. Clinton’s top diplomat during relatively peaceful years, Ms. Albright dealt with regional conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Haiti, Northern Ireland and the Middle East, but no wide wars. She promoted the expansion of NATO into the former Soviet bloc nations of Eastern Europe and defended continued economic sanctions against Iraq.

A crisis on Ms. Albright’s watch developed in late 1997 and early 1998, after Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, blocked the access of United Nations inspectors to sites where Iraqi chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction were believed to have been hidden, in violation of a Security Council resolution passed at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

After months of warnings and an American military buildup in the region, Ms. Albright and Mr. Clinton threatened to launch devastating aerial attacks on Iraq unless the sites were reopened to inspection. “Iraq has a simple choice,” Ms. Albright said in a public warning to Hussein. “Reverse course or face the consequences.”

In an 11th-hour move to prevent war, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan , carrying final terms drawn up by Ms. Albright, flew to Baghdad and secured the Iraqi leader’s agreement to restore unrestricted access to the sites by U.N. weapons inspectors and diplomatic chaperones. In December 1998, the United States and Britain bombed scores of Iraqi military targets and research installations to degrade Iraq’s ability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction.

Ms. Albright championed NATO bombings in Kosovo that halted attacks on ethnic Albanians by Yugoslavian forces in 1999. She also promoted ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. But American diplomats in Africa said she had failed to heed warnings that foreshadowed truck bombings in 1998 that killed 224 people at the American Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Throughout her tenure, Ms. Albright opposed the proliferation of nuclear weapons in rogue states. But on a visit to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, in October 2000, she was unable to strike a deal to limit his country’s ballistic missile program before Mr. Clinton left office.

Still, her performance as secretary of state won high marks from career diplomats abroad and ordinary Americans at home. Admirers said she had a star quality, radiating practicality, versatility and a refreshingly cosmopolitan flair. She spoke Czech, Polish, French and Russian.

Unlike her immediate predecessor, Warren Christopher, a reserved foreign policy wonk who saw his role as Mr. Clinton’s diplomatic lawyer, Ms. Albright was an aggressive advocate of Clinton policies. Conscious of television cameras but remarkably natural in public, she strolled through crowded capitals (with discreet security guards) like a tourist with free time on her hands.

She was a diminutive presence with an assured style: impeccably tailored and perfectly coifed, with touches of gold or pearl in her brooches, an amused smile for the cognoscenti and eyes that missed nothing. In meetings with foreign diplomats, colleagues said, she was firm but flexible, prepared to move beyond her talking points and to engage her counterparts in frank oval-table bargaining.

“So often in diplomacy, it’s all set pieces,” an aide told The New York Times . “You say this and I say that and the meeting ends and nothing happens. But she engages. And in contrast to nearly all her predecessors, she doesn’t hide policy differences, but brings them out, and speaks very directly of them, saying things like ‘Here’s what we agree on, here’s what we don’t. Let me tell you what the real problem is.’”

She courted the public, too, with speeches that made arcane foreign policy seem exciting and even meaningful to Americans, whose anxiety about a Soviet nuclear attack had faded, although the age of terrorism was right around the corner. Coming after decades of Cold War tensions, her relaxed pitches made many Americans feel prouder, or at least better, about their nation’s role in the world.

After Ms. Albright stepped down as secretary of state in 2001, there was speculation that she might pursue a political career in the Czech Republic. Vaclav Havel, the writer and former dissident who was the republic’s first president from 1993 to 2003, suggested publicly that she might succeed him. Ms. Albright said she was flattered but not interested.

In 2008, Ms. Albright supported her longtime friend Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, and then supported Barack Obama, who won the nomination and the presidency, appointing Mrs. Clinton as his first-term secretary of state.

In 2016, Ms. Albright again supported Mrs. Clinton for the presidency. At a campaign stop for the New Hampshire primary, Ms. Albright told a crowd, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” The line went viral. She had used it previously without objections. But some voters now found it offensive, taking it as a rebuke to younger women who supported a Clinton rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

An ardent feminist, Ms. Albright apologized in an opinion article in The Times. “I did not mean to argue that women should support a particular candidate based on gender,” she wrote. “But I understand that I came across as condemning those who disagree with my political preferences. If heaven were open only to those who agreed on politics, I imagine it would be largely unoccupied.”

Fabricated Memories

Madeleine Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelova in Prague on May 15, 1937, the oldest of three children of Josef and Anna (Speeglova) Korbel. Her father was a press attaché in the Czech Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and had worked for Czechoslovakia’s first democratic president, Tomas G. Masaryk, who retired in 1935, and his successor, Edvard Benes.

Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland and his later invasion of Czechoslovakia forced Benes to flee to London. After 10 days in hiding, Mr. Korbel, targeted for execution by the Nazis, followed with his family and worked for the Benes government-in-exile.

He and his wife had two more children, Katherine and John. Like millions of Londoners, the family endured the Luftwaffe air raids of 1940-41. Ms. Albright recalled nights in shelters and hiding under a steel table at home as bombs fell.

With the outcome of the war in doubt and the fate of Jewish families in a postwar Nazi Europe too horrifying to contemplate, the Korbels, in a wrenching decision, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1941. They had their children baptized, observed Catholic rites and holidays and, to preserve their assumed identities and possibly their lives, fabricated a family history of Christian memories.

“My parents talked about how they met, and how they were high school sweethearts,” Ms. Albright recalled decades later after learning the truth. “They talked about getting ready for various holidays, for Easter and Christmas.” She recalled being “a very serious Catholic” who loved the Virgin Mary and “played a priest — I was already playing male roles.”

After the war, the Korbels returned to Prague. Mr. Korbel became the Czech ambassador to Yugoslavia, and his family joined him in Belgrade. Ms. Albright recalled her first diplomatic experiences, when she was 8 and accompanied her father to the Belgrade airport to meet visiting dignitaries.

“I was a little girl in Czech national costume when foreign visitors came to Belgrade,” she said in the obituary interview. “I greeted them and gave them flowers.”

Worried about exposing their daughter in Belgrade state schools to Marxist indoctrination, however, the Korbels sent Marie to a private school in Switzerland and changed her name to Madeleine.

When Communists seized power in Prague in 1948, Mr. Korbel was forced to resign and again became a wanted man. Unwilling to return to Prague, he joined a United Nations commission and sent his family first to London and then on to America. The family was reunited in New York, was given political asylum and settled in Denver, where Mr. Korbel became a professor at the University of Denver.

At the Kent School for Girls, Madeleine Korbel founded an international relations club and graduated in 1955. At Wellesley College, she studied political science, edited the school newspaper and graduated with honors in 1959. She also became an American citizen in 1957.

On a summer internship at The Denver Post, she met Joseph Medill Patterson Albright, the grandson of Joseph Medill Patterson, who founded The Daily News of New York, and the nephew of Alicia Patterson, the founder and editor of Newsday on Long Island.

In 1959, Ms. Korbel married Mr. Albright and converted to Episcopalianism. The couple had three daughters, the twins Alice and Anne and Katie, and were divorced in 1983. In addition to Anne, Ms. Albright is survived by her other two daughters, along with her sister, Kathy Silva; her brother, John Korbel; and six grandchildren. She lived in Washington.

Introduction to Politics

In 1962, Ms. Albright began postgraduate work at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, a Washington-based division of Johns Hopkins University. At Columbia University, she earned a Russian certificate and a master’s degree in international affairs in 1968 and a doctorate in 1976.

She got into politics in 1972, raising funds for the losing presidential campaign of Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, a family friend, who named her his legislative aide. After Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential victory, Zbigniew Brzezinski became national security adviser and recruited his former Columbia student, Ms. Albright, as congressional liaison for Mr. Carter’s National Security Council.

In 2001, she founded what is now the Albright Stonebridge Group, an international consulting firm, and in 2005 she founded Albright Capital Management, focusing on emerging markets. For years, she lived in Georgetown and taught at Georgetown University and was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Besides her 2003 memoir, Ms. Albright wrote “The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs” (2006), “Memo to the President-Elect: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership” (2008), “Read My Pins: Stories From a Diplomat’s Jewel Box” (2009) and “Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948” (2012). Her last book, “Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st-Century Memoir,” written with Bill Woodward, was published in 2020.

Her book “Fascism: A Warning” (2018, also with Bill Woodward) put President Donald J. Trump among the world’s autocrats. In a review for The Times , Sheri Berman wrote, “Democracy’s problems can, Albright assures us, be overcome — but only if we recognize history’s lessons and never take democracy for granted.”

In the ’90s, Mrs. Albright began receiving letters from Europe with sketchy information about her family background. Then, in 1997, The Washington Post published a profile of the new secretary of state reporting that her parents had been Jews who converted to Catholicism and created a fictional past to protect their children from the Nazis.

She accepted the evidence as the truth and told The Times : “I think my father and mother were the bravest people alive. They dealt with the most difficult decision anyone could make. I am incredibly grateful to them, and beyond measure.”

Alex Traub contributed reporting.

An earlier version of this obituary referred incorrectly to Ms. Albright’s book “Fascism: A Warning,” published in 2018. It was not her last book; her “Hell and Other Destinations” was published in 2020.

An earlier version of this obituary misidentified the high school in Denver that Ms. Albright attended. It was the Kent School for Girls, not the Kent Denver School. (The Kent School for Girls merged with Denver Country Day School to become the Kent Denver School in 1974.)

How we handle corrections

Robert D. McFadden is a senior writer on the Obituaries desk and the winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting. He joined The Times in May 1961 and is also the co-author of two books. More about Robert D. McFadden

William Blum

Madeleine albright, ethically challenged.

By William Blum

1) “Asked if it is not hypocritical to punish Burma for human rights violations while refraining from sanctions on China for similar actions, Albright replied, ‘We have consistent principles and flexible tactics’.” 1

The same “flexible tactics” (English translation: hypocrisy) are evident in the policies embraced by Albright toward Cuba, Libya, Iraq, et al, as opposed to the policies toward Turkey, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia.

2) Television interview, “60 Minutes”, May 12, 1996:

Lesley Stahl, speaking of US sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And – and you know, is the price worth it?” Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.” 2

At the Town Hall in Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 18, 1998, Ms. Albright was moved to declare: “I am willing to make a bet to anyone here that we care more about the Iraqi people than Saddam Hussein does.”

Though her logic may escape us, she may yet have some DNA molecules for compassion. On May 21 she signed an agreement between the U.S. and six Latin American countries to protect dolphins, declaring: “This is one of the strongest agreements ever negotiated to conserve marine life.”

3) Albright in Guatemala, talking to a group of impoverished children: “Why would [ I ] and the United States care about what is happening here? The reason is we are all one family and when one part of our family is not happy or suffers, we all suffer.” 3

Thus speaketh the leading foreign policy officer of the country directly responsible for bringing more than 40 years of poverty, torture, death squads, massacres and disappeared people to Guatemala, without even a hint of apology or restitution, ever.

4) “To a student who asked [Albright] whether the United States was not spending too much of its resources on being the world’s policeman and too little on more pressing domestic concerns, Albright asked him in return to estimate what share of the federal budget goes to foreign policy. When he guessed 15 or 20 percent, Albright pounced. ‘It’s 1 percent, 1 percent of the entire budget,’ Albright said.” 4

Her reply was conspicuously disingenuous. At best, she was referring to the budget of only the State Department, concealing what everyone knows, even the teenage student she browbeat – US foreign policy expenditures must include the Defense Department, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and a host of other government agencies. Together they consume more than 50 percent of the budget.

5) In February 1996, as UN ambassador, Albright reacted with righteous indignation against the Cuban pilots who expressed satisfaction after shooting down two planes of Cubans from Florida which were headed toward Cuba. “This one won’t mess around any more,” one of the pilots is reported to have exclaimed.

“I was struck by the joy of these pilots in committing cold-blooded murder,” Albright said, accusing the Cuban pilots of “cowardice”. 5

What, one may ask, does she think of the American pilots who, while bombing and strafing helpless retreating Iraqis in 1991, exclaimed: “we toasted him” … “we hit the jackpot” … “a turkey shoot” … “shooting fish in a barrel” … “basically just sitting ducks” … “There’s just nothing like it. It’s the biggest Fourth of July show you’ve ever seen, and to see those tanks just `boom’, and more stuff just keeps spewing out of them … they just become white hot. It’s wonderful.” 6

6) On October 8, 1997, in announcing the designation of 18 additional foreign political organizations as terrorist-supporting groups, Secretary of State Albright declared that she wanted to help make the United States a “no support for terrorism zone”. It could be suggested that if the Secretary were truly committed to this goal, instead of offering her usual lip service, she should begin at home – the anti-Castro community in Miami, collectively, is one of the longest-lasting and most prolific terrorist organizations in the world. Over the years they’ve carried out hundreds of bombings, shootings, and murders, blown up an airplane, killing 73 people, fired a bazooka at the United Nations, and much, much more. But Madame Albright will not lift a finger against them.

The State Department designates Cuba as one of the states which harbors terrorists. The United States can well be added to that list.

7) At the fabricated “Town Hall” meeting (in which the officials came not to listen, but to tell) held in Columbus, Ohio, February 18, 1998, concerning Iraq, Albright was heckled and asked critical, and perhaps uncomfortable, questions. At one point, her mind and her integrity could come up with no better response than to make something up: “I am really surprised,” she declared, “that people feel that it is necessary to defend the rights of Saddam Hussein.”

At another point, a besieged Albright was moved to yell: “We are the greatest country in the world!” Patriotism is indeed the last refuge of a scoundrel, though her words didn’t quite have the ring of “Deutschland über alles” or “Rule Britannia”.

Finally, unable to provide answers that satisfied or quieted the questioners, she stated that she would meet with them after the meeting to answer their questions. But as soon as the meeting ended, the Secretary of State was out of their, posthaste. Her offer, it would seem, had just been a tactic to try and pacify the hostile crowd.

8) And here is Madame Albright at her jingoist best, on TV the day after the Town Hall meeting, again in the context of Iraq:

“If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see further into the future.” 7

9) Madeleine Albright, then UN Ambassador, informed the UN Security Council during a 1994 discussion about Iraq: “We recognize this area as vital to US national interests and we will behave, with others, multilaterally when we can and unilaterally when we must.” 8 Ms. Albright is thus stating that the United States recognizes no external constraints on its behavior, when it decides that a particular area of the world is “vital to US national interests”. It would of course be difficult to locate a spot on the globe that Albright and the United States do not regard as “vital to US national interests.

10) On more than one occasion while U.N. ambassador, Albright yelled at U.N. Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali that he must not publish the report about Israel’s bombing of the U.N.-run refugee camp in Qana, Lebanon, in April 1996, which killed more than 100 refugees. The U.N. report said that the attack was not a mistake, as Israel claimed. Albright – who has surrounded herself with alumni of Israeli and Jewish lobbies – warned the Secretary-General that if the report came out, the U.S. would veto him for his second term. The report came out, and so did Boutros Boutros-Ghali. 9

11) Madeleine the humanitarian: It is “not a good idea” to link human rights and trade issues. 10 A philosophy that could have been used to justify trade with Nazi Germany … or anyone else … or anything.

12) To Colin Powell, who felt that the U.S. should not commit military forces to Bosnia until there was a clear political objective: “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” “I thought I would have an aneurysm,” Powell later wrote. “American GIs were not toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of global game board.” 11

• Washington Post , April 23, 1997, p.4
• “60 Minutes”, May 12, 1996
• Washington Post , May 5, 1997, p.20
• Washington Post , May 14, 1997
• Washington Post , Feb. 28, 1996
• Los Angeles Times and Washington Post , both Feb. 27, 1991, page 1
• NBC “Today” show , February 19, 1998
• Middle East International (London), Oct. 21, 1994, p. 4
• New York Times , Jan. 1, 1997
• Washington Post , March 1, 1999, p. 13
• Colin Powell with Joseph Persico, My American Journey (NY, 1995), p. 576

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• About the Author

William Blum was an author, historian, and U.S. foreign policy critic. He was the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II and Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower , among others. Read more →

Books by William Blum

America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy

The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else

Rogue State

A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower

Killing Hope

U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II

Freeing the World to Death

Essays on the American Empire

West-Bloc Dissident

A Cold War Memoir

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Perseverance — Madeleine Albright: a Lasting Message to the Graduating Class of Mount Holyoke College 

Madeleine Albright: a Lasting Message to The Graduating Class of Mount Holyoke College 

• Categories: Perseverance

About this sample

Words: 905 |

Published: Aug 16, 2019

Words: 905 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

• Albright, M. (1997). Speech to the Graduating Class of Mount Holyoke College. Mount Holyoke College. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/marylyon/address.html
• Albright, M. (2003). Madam Secretary: A Memoir. Miramax Books.
• Chagnon, C. (2001). Madeleine Albright: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Dunn, M. A. (2019). Madeleine Albright: First Woman Secretary of State. Enslow Publishing.
• Elshtain, J. B., & Tobias, S. (Eds.). (2006). Women, Militarism, and War: Essays in History, Politics, and Social Theory. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
• Harp, D., & Harp, L. (2005). Women Prime Ministers and Presidents: 25 Women Leaders of the World. McFarland.
• Heymann, P. B. (2000). Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship. Cambridge University Press.
• Langan, S. (2016). Madeleine Albright: She Speaks for America. Simon & Schuster.
• McFadden, M. (2006). Madeleine Albright: First Woman Secretary of State. Lerner Publications.
• Vanden Heuvel, K. (2004). The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power. Picador.

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Blacks and Immigrants Stories

Madeleine albrights personal #5.

Madeleines Albright’s immigrant story is one of the most dedicated and resilienced story in public story. Her birth name was Maria Jana Korbelova who was born on May15th, 1937 in Prague Czechoslovakia which is now know as the Czech Republic. Her early life was surrounded by the tragic events of World War two and the tragic events of the Cold War. Madeleine’s family faced a whole lot of persecution during the Nazi occupation of Czech because of their Jewish Heritage. They then had to migrate to England in the year 1939, where they spent the rest of the war before they returned back to Czech Republic in 1945. But it didn’t get any better, these post-war years had brought way harder challenges. Czech had fell under communist rule behind a Soviet coup in 1948. Her and her family once again had found themselves exiled, but this time they had seeked help and went to the United States. They began to settle down in Denver Colorado, where her father took over a teaching position at the University of Denver. Madeleine embraces her new life ad home beautifully and excelled even better, despite the challenges that had faced before.  She had then attended the Wellesley College where she had earned her Bachelors degree in Political Science. She moved on to excel in her graduated studies at the Columbia University School for International and Public Affairs. She earned her masters degree and later her Doctor of Philosophy degree in Public Law and Government. Her excellent academic achievements helps shape her future career in diplomacy and foreign policy. She later became a leading expert international affairs where she worked as a professor, author, and foreign policy advisor. She than made history in 1993 where she was appointed as the ambassador in the United States to the United Nations by President Bill Clinton. She was the first women to ever be appointed to that position. This ambassador position to the United nations was given by her outspoken advocacy to Human Rights, international cooperation and democracy. She also played an important role in putting together the United States foreign policy during a period that had huge conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. IN 1997, she made even more history where she had become the 64th secretary of the United State. She was also the first women to hold the position again! She was keen on speaking on the advancement in American Interest and promoting democracy and furthering stability.

One thought on “ Madeleine Albrights Personal #5 ”

I did not know that Madeline’s early life was surrounded by the tragic events of World War two and the tragic events of the Cold War. It also came by surprise that her family faced a lot of persecution/hate during the Nazi occupation of Czech because of their Jewish Heritage. it is so cool that she turned her life around and truly chose an occupation that resided with her. It is true that her excellent academic achievements helped shape her future career in diplomacy and foreign policy. I also love that she made history by being the first women to hold the secretary of the U.S twice.

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