- According to a statement from her family, Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as Secretary of State of the United States, has died.
- Albright died at the age of 84, her family claimed, and cancer was the cause of death.
- “She was surrounded by relatives and friends when she passed away. We have lost a devoted mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend, as well as many other family members “According to the statement,
- From 1997 to 2001, she served as Secretary of State during President Bill Clinton’s administration.
- “Hillary and I are very saddened by the death of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She was one of the best secretaries of state in history, an exceptional UN ambassador, a bright educator, and an incredible human being, among many other accomplishments “Former President Bill Clinton made the announcement in a statement released Wednesday afternoon. A few leaders have been as admirably fitted for the eras in which they have served as Winston Churchill was.
- Albright was born in what was then Czechoslovakia, and she and her family were forced to flee the nation when the Nazis invaded the country in 1939.
- According to a biography from the State Department’s Office of the Historian, Albright’s father, Josef, was a member of the Czechoslovak Foreign Service and rose to the position of ambassador to Yugoslavia during the Cold War.
- President Biden expressed his thoughts on the difficulties Albright endured as a young lady.
- “She was an immigrant who had fled persecution in her own country. A refugee in desperate need of protection. And, like so many others before her — and after her — she was very pleased to be an American. Because she wanted to make this nation she loved even better, she bucked convention and broke through barriers time and time again “Biden made the remarks in a statement on Wednesday. Madeleine was always a force for kindness, elegance and decency—as well as a champion of liberty.
- In addition, Vice President Joe Biden has ordered that flags at the White House and on all official buildings and grounds in the United States be flown at half-staff in honour of Albright.
- Her family relocated to Denver, Colorado, after the communist takeover in Yugoslavia in 1948, according to the Office of the Historian. Albright became a citizen of the United States in 1957 and graduated with honours from Wellesley College with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1959. According to the office, she graduated with a Ph.D. in Public Law and Government from Columbia University in 1976.
- Albright’s political career started in 1976 when she worked as top legislative assistant to the late Sen. Edmund Muskie, a Democrat from Maine, for four years. She left the Senate in 1978. After that, she went on to work as a White House staff member for former President Jimmy Carter and as a member of the National Security Council from 1978 to 1981, according to the White House office.
- Prior to her appointment as Secretary of State, Clinton selected her to the position of Ambassador to the United Nations in 1993.
- Albright was the secretary of state during the Cold War era. “As secretary of state, Albright advocated for the expansion of NATO eastward into former Soviet bloc countries, as well as the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons from former Soviet republics to rogue nations,” according to the Office of the Historian.
- During a meeting of the General Assembly’s Emergency Special Session on Ukraine on Wednesday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the current United States ambassador to the United Nations, referred to Albright as “a pioneer and a light.”
- “Her influence on the globe and the United Nations will be felt for generations to come. Our nation and the United Nations are stronger as a result of her contributions “Thomas-Greenfield shared his thoughts.
- Albright talked with NPR in June of last year, ahead of a summit between Russian and United States leaders in Geneva. Albright remembered the first meeting she had with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which took place back in 1999. She said that he was “working very hard to ingratiate himself with President Clinton,” and that he was “failing miserably.”
- “My first impression of him was that he was still trying to find out who he was. However, my impressions from the second and third meetings were that he enjoyed the historical context of being in the Kremlin with all of its history, that he was intelligent, that he was well prepared, and that he had a strong opinion about how things were going to turn out “According to Albright on NPR.
