Historical Figure
Madeleine Albright
d. 2022
American diplomat and political scientist (1937–2022)
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"TED Talk on Being a Woman and a Diplomat" — January 2010
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Biography
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright was a Czech-born American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 64th United States secretary of state under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the first woman to hold the position.
Timeline
The story of Madeleine Albright, told in moments.
Born Marie Jana Korbelova in Prague. Her family fled twice: first from the Nazis in 1939, then from the Communists in 1948. Twenty-six of her relatives died in the Holocaust. She didn't learn about her Jewish heritage until she was 59 years old.
Appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by Bill Clinton. She becomes known for blunt talk and a collection of diplomatic brooches. When Saddam Hussein calls her a serpent, she wears a snake pin to the next meeting.
Sworn in as Secretary of State. The first woman to hold the position. She serves during the Kosovo crisis, the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and the expansion of NATO. She pushes for intervention when others hesitate.
Publishes Prague Winter, a memoir about her childhood and the discovery of her Jewish ancestry. She'd been raised Catholic. Her parents never told her. Three of her grandparents died at Auschwitz and Theresienstadt.
Dies in Washington, D.C. Cancer. She was 84. Her brooch collection, numbering over 200 pieces, was donated to the Smithsonian. Each one had been a deliberate message.
In Their Own Words (20)
Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbors happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Mr. Putin. That is the message undergirding recent Western diplomacy. It defines the difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one answerable to no rules at all.
2022
Although Mr. Putin will, in my experience, never admit to making a mistake, he has shown that he can be both patient and pragmatic. He also is surely conscious that the current confrontation has left him even more dependent on China; he knows that Russia cannot prosper without some ties to the West.
2022
I have been reminded in recent months of that nearly three-hour session with Mr. Putin as he has massed troops on the border with neighboring Ukraine. After calling Ukrainian statehood a fiction in a bizarre televised address, he issued a decree recognizing the independence of two separatist-held regions in Ukraine and sending troops there. Mr. Putin’s revisionist and absurd assertion that Ukraine was “entirely created by Russia” and effectively robbed from the Russian empire is fully in keeping with his warped worldview. Most disturbing to me: It was his attempt to establish the pretext for a full-scale invasion. Should he invade, it will be a historic error.
2022
Mr. Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, like to claim that we now live in a multipolar world. While that is self-evident, it does not mean that the major powers have a right to chop the globe into spheres of influence as colonial empires did centuries ago. -->
2022
In early 2000, I became the first senior U.S. official to meet with Vladimir Putin in his new capacity as acting president of Russia. We in the Clinton administration did not know much about him at the time — just that he had started his career in the K.G.B. I hoped the meeting would help me take the measure of the man and assess what his sudden elevation might mean for U.S.-Russia relations, which had deteriorated amid the war in Chechnya. Sitting across a small table from him in the Kremlin, I was immediately struck by the contrast between Mr. Putin and his bombastic predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Whereas Mr. Yeltsin had cajoled, blustered and flattered, Mr. Putin spoke unemotionally and without notes about his determination to resurrect Russia’s economy and quash Chechen rebels. Flying home, I recorded my impressions. “Putin is small and pale,” I wrote, “so cold as to be almost reptilian.” He claimed to understand why the Berlin Wall had to fall but had not expected the whole Soviet Union to collapse. “Putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness.”
2022
Artifacts (15)
Whenever I looked at her [Fatima], all my worries and sadness disappeared
d to have had a happy marital life, which continued until her death in 11 AH. In particular, Ali is reported to have said, "Whenever I looked at her [Fatima], all my worries and sadness...
Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership
The next president, whether Democrat or Republican, will face the daunting task of repairing America's core relationships and tarnished credibility after the damage caused during the past seven years....
Prague Winter (Enhanced Edition): A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948
“A riveting tale of her family’s experience in Europe during World War II [and] a well-wrought political history of the region, told with great authority. . . . More than a memoir, this is a book of...
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