On Wednesday, March 23, the family of Madeleine Albright shared in a statement that Albright, who was the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state, died at the age of 84. The statement says she died of cancer and passed away “surrounded by family and friends.”
Albright immigrated to the U.S. from Prague in 1948 and in adulthood came to play a significant role in foreign policy, especially in terms of human rights, genocide, and expanding NATO. She served as secretary of state under former President Bill Clinton, taking on the role in 1997. She was the first woman in the U.S. to serve in the position and went on to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President Barack Obama in 2012.
“We are heartbroken to announce that Dr. Madeleine Albright, the 64th U.S. Secretary of State and the first woman to hold that position, passed away earlier today,” the statement reads in part. “The cause was cancer.”
Albright escaped the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia before eventually arriving in America as a refugee at the age of 11. Though Albright was raised Catholic, she later became Episcopalian and learned that she had more than 25 Jewish relatives who were killed during the Holocaust.
As reported by The Washington Post, Albright once said she was called to public service to “repay the fact that I was a free person.”
In speaking to CNN back in 2018, Albright recalled coming to the nation onboard the SS America, and passing by the Statue of Liberty in New York. “One of the things I loved to do was hand out people’s naturalization certificates. I remember doing it July 4, 2000, at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s house,” she recalled to the outlet. “And I figured, why not? I have Thomas Jefferson’s job.”
She went on to describe giving a certificate to a refugee who said, “‘Can you believe I’m a refugee and the Secretary of State is handing me my naturalization certificate?’” to which she replied, “‘Can you believe the Secretary of State is a refugee?’”
It’s only fair to point out areas where Albright got it wrong, and in fact, admitted as such. For example, Albright described one of her “greatest” regrets from her service representing the United States in the United Nations as when she ultimately argued in favor of withdrawing most United Nations military presence from Rwanda at the start of the genocide. In the end, at least 800,000 people died in the brutal ethnic cleansing that occurred in about 100 days.
“President Clinton has said repeatedly that failure to act in Rwanda was the biggest policy mistake of his presidency,” Albright admitted to The Washington Post when reflecting on the mass genocide 20 years later. She went on to add that she agrees, noting, “It’s my greatest regret from that time.”
More recently, Albright shared her insights into Putin’s invasion of Ukraine via an op-ed in The New York Times. "Instead of paving Russia's path to greatness,” Albright wrote in part. “Invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin's infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance.” She said it would be a “historic error” for Putin to invade Ukraine, which, among other things … it is.
She also once described Donald Trump as the “most undemocratic president in modern American history,” which is also true!
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