MADELEINE ALBRIGHT
First Woman U.S. Secretary of State, Professor, Diplomat, Foreign Policy Expert and Author

STORY BY MAUREEN TRAXLER

Albright Encourages Women's Leadership

Nominated by President Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright was confirmed by Congress, took the oath of office in January 1997, to become the first female Secretary of State and the highest ranking woman in the history of the United States government. Responding to President’s Clinton’s words, “I want you to be my Secretary of State,” Albright said, in her true fashion, “I will give it all the energy I have.”

As she stood next to the President and her new colleagues, Albright remarks, “I said in reference to Secretary Christopher, ‘I only hope my heels can fill his shoes.’” Of her achievement, she says, “I had arrived [in New York Harbor] half a century before, an eleven-year-old immigrant from Prague staring up at the Statue of Liberty. How astonishing that that girl was about to become the 64th secretary of state.”

Secretary Albright has not only lived through historic times—born two years before the start of World War II—but she has also made history. More importantly, she has made women’s history, and encourages women to great accomplishments. As a research professor of International Affairs and Director of the Women in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University, she taught undergraduate and graduate courses in international affairs, U.S. and 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.

Influence on Women’s History
She continues to influence women’s history. In January 2010, Albright traveled to her alma mater, Wellesley College in Massachusetts, for the opening of the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs, which has 40 inaugural Albright Fellows. “The Wellesley women of the future have to understand how today’s global challenges are connected,” says Albright. “The Institute will adopt an interdisciplinary approach to give these women leaders the tools they need to deal with the most pressing issues.”

During a Wellesley Reunion Weekend six months before, Albright had remarked, “In the foreign policy field and beyond, instead of sending a message to our young women that they should stay in their place, we should tell them that they can define their place through hard work and a willingness to match their best against the best of others. This matters not because it is politically correct, but because it helps women to live full lives, which in turn, helps society to benefit from the contributions of all.”

A phenomenal speaker who often banters with her audience, Albright has accepted an invitation from Wellesley classmate, Winifred Freund, Co-President of the Long Island Fund for Women and Girls (www.lifwg.org), to speak and sign her beautiful new book, Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box, at LIFWG’s spring fundraiser, “An Evening in Honor of Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,” April 26 at Oheka Castle. Albright is expected to address women’s issues around the world.

 

“I love spending time with children. Here, the Girl Scouts are sporting merit badges. I’m wearing a fish.” –Madeleine Korbel Albright. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of State

Read My Pins
Adapting her book title from President George H.W. Bush’s famous line, “Read my lips,” Albright says Read My Pins would not have existed had it not been for Saddam Hussein. In a recent C-Span segment, Albright explains, she had just been appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Clinton in 1993, arriving at the end of the Gulf War. The Security Council sanctions resolutions for cease fire were coming up for renewal, and “as an instructed ambassador,” she says, “it was my job to say terrible things about Saddam Hussein,” and why not, she quips, he had invaded another country. Soon after, a poem appeared in the Bagdad press comparing her to many things, among them an “unparalleled serpent.”

“I happened to have a serpent pin, so I wore it when we talked about Iraq,” remarks Albright, which caused reporters to notice. “I thought it was fun,” she adds, and decided to go out and buy costume jewelry that would reflect the moods and events taking place at the UN. “On good days, I’d wear flowers, butterflies and balloons; on bad days, spiders and man-eating carnivorous animals.” In Pins, Albright talks about the brooches and pins she’s worn during various official meetings and the messages she was trying to send. “Ultimately, the people on the other end understood what was going on,” she notes. “I decided my niche in writing about foreign policy is to make it interesting and understandable for non-experts.”

Bug pin sends a message in Russia
With a straight forward, take-no-prisoners approach, her pins set the tone for diplomacy. She recounts a time when she discovered that the conference room outside her office in Russia was bugged. “The next day I wore a big bug, and the Russian Foreign Minister really got it.” On another occasion, when she was participating in the renegotiation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty, she wore an arrow pin. “The Russian Foreign Minister asked, is that one of your (American) missile interceptors? And I answered, ‘Yes, and we make them very small so it’s time to negotiate.’”

One day, she was buying pins and saw an eagle—the symbol on the Defense Department seal—but she hesitated, thinking she might jinx her chances. But she did buy it, and wore it when she took the oath of office. Readers can see the eagle on her lapel in the cover photo of her memoir, Madam Secretary.

United States Ambassador to U.N.
Albright served as foreign policy advisor during President Clinton’s campaign and as liaison during his transition before her appointment as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. She saw her role on three levels: to articulate the American position and preferences on global problems to the assembled delegations; to assist the President in formulating the U.S. government’s stand on UN-related topics; and to mobilize public support.

One of the achievements for which Albright is proud was her role in the effort to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The United States preferred the use of force; however, the Russian delegation would surely veto. The decision was to operate multilaterally through NATO, challenging her diplomatic skills. Albright says, “I invented something that should not have been brain surgery; it was the diplomatic conference call.” She talked to the major foreign ministers daily to make sure they were all on the same page. She also worked with the U.S. Defense Department, and the result, she says was that “Kosovo is now an independent country,” and with her sense of humor adds, “and there are a lot of little girls whose first names are Madeleine.”

Pathway to a career
Albright was touched by the diplomatic community from an early age as the first born child of a press-attaché serving at the Czechoslovakian Embassy in Belgrade. As WWII began, the family fled to England where her dad, Josef Korbel, worked for the Czech government-in-exile. They returned briefly after the war, but when the communists took over Czechoslovakia, Albright’s father resigned, took a position with the United Nations delegation to Kashmir, and sent the family to America. They arrived in New York City and settled in Great Neck to await Korbel’s report to the United Nations. In New York, he applied for political asylum and received a position at the University of Denver, where he rose to become Dean of the University’s (currently named) Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

During Albright’s teen years in Colorado, she attended the Kent Denver School, where she founded the school’s international relations club and was its first president. While later in life she would serve as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, she recalled in the December 2009 C-Span segment that she got her start in Colorado, “living with a Czech diplomat who was a tough professor and a pretty tough father.” She recalls, too, as a high school sophomore winning the United Nations contest for the Rocky Mountain State by naming the then 51 members in alphabetical order.

While attending college, Albright was an intern at The Denver Post, where she met Joseph Medill Patterson Albright, the nephew of Alicia Patterson, the founder and former editor of Long Island’s Newsday. They married in 1959, and over the years, lived for some time in Garden City and Brookville. Albright took classes in Russian at Hofstra University. She first put her toe in political waters when she organized a fundraising dinner for Maine Senator Ed Muskie’s presidential campaign in 1972, later taking a position as his legislative aide, while raising a family and continuing her education.

 

Overseas accompanied by officers from the U.S. Air Force. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of State

An exceptional career
Albright got her first paying job at the age of 39, when, with the election of President Jimmy Carter in 1976, she was recruited by a former professor at Columbia University, Zbigniew Brzezinski, to work in the White House as the National Security Council’s congressional liaison. In the years between Democratic Presidents Carter and Clinton, Albright kept active by hosting dinners at her Georgetown home for leading Democratic foreign policy experts. She also received a research grant to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution, and joined the faculty of Georgetown University, expanding both her foreign policy interests and her personal contacts.

In addition to her B.A. from Wellesley, Albright holds Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Columbia University’s Department of Public Law and Government, and a Certificate from its Russian Institute. She is fluent in English, French, Czech and Russian, and has good speaking and reading abilities in Polish and Serbo-Croatian.

Albright’s academic writings include Poland, the Role of the Press in Political Change (1983); The Role of the Press in Political Change: Czechoslovakia 1968 (1976); and The Soviet Diplomatic Service: Profile of an Elite (1968). More recently, she has authored four New York Times best-sellers: the two previously noted, and The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs, and Memo to the President: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership. In the latter, she believes that the issues she put on the table require partnerships, but partnering with other countries doesn’t mean a lessening of American power; in fact, she has said, it’s a force multiplier if the U.S. works with other countries to solve problems.

Continuing a life of service
Albright founded, and currently chairs, the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. She continues to teach at Georgetown University, currently chairs the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the Pew Global Attitudes Project, and co-chairs the UNDP’s Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor. She serves as president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Board of Trustees for the Aspen Institute. In 2009, Albright was asked by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to chair a group of experts to advise him on the new NATO’s New Strategic Concept he will issue later this year.

Albright has served on the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange; participated in White House meetings of former Secretaries of State to discuss U.S. foreign policy and Iraq; has given many interviews; and guest starred as herself on the television drama “Gilmore Girls” (note: she doesn’t take herself too seriously). She has received honorary degrees and awards, including the second Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award presented by the Prague Society for International Cooperation, and with Czech President Václav Havel, the Menschen in Europa Award for furthering the cause of international understanding.

A Washington, D.C. resident, Albright has three daughters, twins Alice and Anna, and Katherine. They and their husbands have given Albright six grandchildren. Katherine’s eight-year-old daughter Ellie is proud of her grandmother and the other secretaries of state she knows about, and wonders, “What is the big deal about Grandma Maddie? Aren’t all Secretaries of State girls?”