Madeleine Albright Wiki
Madeleine Albright Biography
Who was Madeleine Albright ?
Madeleine Albright, a Czech immigrant who became the first female secretary of state in US history, has died at the age of 84.
A longtime foreign policy veteran, Albright became the top US diplomat in 1997 during the Clinton administration.
Often hailed as “a champion of democracy”, Albright was instrumental in efforts to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Death
His death from cancer was confirmed by his family in a statement.
“She was surrounded by family and friends,” the statement said. “We lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend.”
Among those who paid tribute to her after the announcement of her death were former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, who later followed in her footsteps as Secretary of State.
“Few leaders have adapted so perfectly to the times in which they served,” the Clintons said. “Knowing firsthand that America’s political decisions had the power to make a difference in the lives of people around the world, she saw her work as both an obligation and an opportunity.”
Current NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after the announcement that Albright “was a force for freedom” and an “outspoken champion of NATO.”
Former US President George W. Bush said that Albright “understood firsthand the importance of free societies to peace in our world.”
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted that the world “needs to uphold” Albright’s values ”more than ever.”
Born Marie Jana Korbelova in Prague in 1937, in what was then Czechoslovakia, Albright was the daughter of a Czechoslovakian diplomat who was forced into exile following Nazi Germany’s occupation of his country in 1939.
She moved to the United States in 1948, the same year her family applied for political asylum, arguing that they could not return home as opponents of the communist regime in her country. She became a US citizen in 1957.
When did Madeleine Albright get married?
June 11, 1959 (Joseph Medill Patterson Albright)
Obituary: Madeleine Albright
Albright went on to work in the White House during the Jimmy Carter administration and later as a foreign policy adviser to various vice-presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
Shortly after Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993, Albright was appointed ambassador to the United Nations, her first diplomatic posting.
A refugee who fled to the US with her family as a child, she made history by becoming the first woman to serve as Secretary of State, the highest-ranking woman in the US government. USA Until then.
As a diplomat, Albright helped shape the post-Soviet world during the Clinton administration, employing what she called “pragmatic idealism” to navigate uncharted geopolitical waters. That included, at times, an aggressive foreign policy that used US military might, in places like Iraq and the Balkans, when diplomacy failed.
NATO’s bombing campaigns in the states of the former Yugoslavia helped define a post-Soviet role for the Western alliance at a time when NATO’s future was highly in doubt.
Albright was also a champion of NATO expansion, overseeing the addition of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999, a move whose repercussions are deeply felt today.
In 1997, she became secretary of state, overcoming opposition from what some later called the “anything but Albright” faction in the White House.
She became most famous during this time for her efforts to pressure the Clinton administration to intervene to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo carried out by the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
Some critics dubbed the subsequent NATO bombing campaign “Albright’s War”.
“I take full responsibility … for believing that it was essential for us not to sit idly by and see what Milosevic was planning to do,” she said at the time. “We cannot see crimes against humanity.”
Kosovo finally declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, nine years after the Allied intervention.
Its president, Vjosa Osmani, said Wednesday that the country had lost an “invaluable friend,” adding that Albright’s “contribution to our freedom and democracy will never be forgotten.”
In 2012, then-President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award available to a civilian, for her work in the Balkans. In paying tribute Wednesday, Obama praised her “pioneering career.”
Just a month ago, on the eve of the Ukraine invasion, Albright was thrust back into the public spotlight with a New York Times editorial that took aim at Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he met shortly after he took office in 2000.
“Ukraine has the right to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbors are. In the modern age, big countries accept that, and so must Mr. Putin,” she wrote. “This is the message underpinning recent Western diplomacy.
“It defines the difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one that does not answer to any rules.”
Source: https://wikisoon.com/
