In 1996, President Bill Clinton appointed Albright America’s top diplomat. She served that role for the four last years of the Clinton presidency. Prior to this, she was Clinton’s Ambassador to the United Nations.
She was at the time the highest-ranking female in American government history. However, she wasn’t in the succession line for the presidency because she was a Prague native.
Her family posted on Twitter that “She was surrounded with family and friends.” “We have lost our loving mother, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and friends,” it said.
Barack Obama presented Albright with the Medal of Freedom in 2012 as the nation’s highest civilian honor. He said that Albright’s life was an inspiration for all Americans.
Through the years, Albright was not afraid to speak out. She criticized President George W. Bush’s use of “the shock and force” instead of alliances to foster diplomacy after he left office.
She was a Czechoslovakian refugee and played an important role in urging the Clinton administration to become militarily involved with the conflict in Kosovo. She was also a strong advocate for Cuba and famously stated at the United Nations that the Cuban shooting down of a civilian aircraft was not due to “cojones”, but rather because she was afraid.
She encouraged women to “act in a more confident way” and to “ask questions whenever they arise and don’t wait until the next opportunity.”
She told HuffPost Living that it took her a while to find a voice.
In January 2007, when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked her whether she supported Bush’s “surge” of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, she replied: “I think we should have a surge in diplomacy. Our motives are suspect and we are seen in the Middle East as a colonial force.
Albright was an internationalist, whose perspective was partly influenced by her family’s background. Her family fled Czechoslovakia after the Nazis overtook their country in 1939. She spent the war years living in London.
She was secretary of state and played a crucial role in convincing Clinton to go to war on Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav leader, over his 1999 treatment of Kosovar Albanians. She often said, “My mindset is Munich,” referring to the German city in which the West allies left her homeland to Nazis.
She was instrumental in securing Senate approval of NATO’s expansion as well as a treaty that imposed international restrictions on chemical weaponry. She led a successful campaign to prevent Boutros Boutros Boutross-Ghali, the Egyptian diplomat, from being elected secretary-general of United Nations. He accused her deception and of posing as a friend.
She advocated for a tough U.S. policy in foreign affairs, especially with regard to Milosevic’s treatment towards Bosnia. She once said to Colin Powell, the former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, “What’s it point of having this fantastic military you’re always referring to if we can’t use it?” Powell, who passed away last year, recalled that Albright’s remarks almost caused him an “aneurysm.”
Albright declared, “I am an everlasting optimist” in 1998 as she tried to promote peace in Middle East. However, she acknowledged that getting Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and to allow the Palestinians to eliminate terrorists was a serious problem.
Albright was America’s top diplomat. She made little progress in expanding the 1993 Oslo Accords, which established the principle that Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank would be self-rule. She played a key role in the formulation of the Wye Accords in 1998 that gave control of 40% of the West Bank to Palestinians.
She was also the leader of an unsuccessful effort to broker a 2000 peace agreement between Israel and Syria, which was signed by Syria’s late President Hafez al-Assad. She also aided in guiding U.S. foreign policies during conflict in the Balkans, and the Hutu Tutsi genocide of Rwanda.
Marie Jana Korbel was born in Prague, May 15, 1937. She was the daughter Joseph Korbel, a diplomat. Her family was Jewish, and she converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of 5. Three of her Jewish grandparents were killed in concentration camps.
Later, Albright stated that she was made aware of her Jewish heritage after becoming secretary of state. After World War II, the family moved back to Czechoslovakia, but they fled to the United States in 1948 when the Communists took power.
Her father got a job at University of Denver and they settled down in Denver. Condoleezza Rice (a young woman by the name of Condoleezza) was one of Josef Korbel’s top students. She would become the first Black woman secretary of state.
Albright graduated in 1959 from Wellesley College. Albright worked as a journalist before she studied international relations at Columbia University. She earned a master’s degree there in 1968 and a Ph.D. there in 1976.
She was a National Security Council advisor during Carter’s administration. In 1993, he nominated her to be the U.S. ambassador at the U.N.
After her service in the Clinton administration she was head of Albright Stonebridge, a global strategy company, and chaired an investment advisory firm that focused on emerging markets.
She also wrote many books. Albright married Joseph Albright in 1959. He was a descendant from Chicago’s Medill-Patterson newspaper family. They had three children and were divorced in 1983.
