Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright is an American politician and diplomat. She served as the first female United States Secretary of State in U.S. history from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. She is the Michael and Virginia Mortara Endowed Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

About Madeleine Albright in brief

Summary Madeleine AlbrightMadeleine Jana Korbel Albright is an American politician and diplomat. She served as the first female United States Secretary of State in U.S. history from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Albright immigrated to the United States in 1948 from Czechoslovakia. She is the Michael and Virginia Mortara Endowed Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. In May 2012, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U. S. President Barack Obama. She has served as chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group since 2009 and serves on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her father, diplomat Josef Korbel, settled the family in Denver, Colorado, and she became a U. s. citizen in 1957. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1959 and earned a PhD from Columbia University in 1975, writing her thesis on the Prague Spring. She worked as an aide to Senator Edmund Muskie before taking a position under Zbigniew Brzezinski on the National Security Council. In 1997, Albright said her parents never told her or her two siblings about their Jewish ancestry and heritage. Her family first lived on Kensington Park Road in Notting Hill, London – where they endured the worst of the Blitz – but later moved to Beaconsfield, then Walton-on-Thames, on the outskirts of London. They kept a large metal table in the house, which was intended to shelter the family from the recurring threat of German air raids.

Marie Jana was one of the children shown in a documentary film designed to promote sympathy for war refugees in London. After the defeat of the Nazis in the European Theatre of World War II and the collapse of Nazi Germany and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the Korbel family returned to Prague. In 1941, Josef and Anna converted from Judaism to Catholicism. In 1948, the family emigrated from the United Kingdom on the SS Southampton, departing Southampton on November 5, 1948, and arriving in New York on November 11, 1948. She was taught privately by a governess and later sent to the Prealpina Institut pour Jeunes Filles on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. While in Switzerland, her name changed from ‘Marie Jana’ to’madeleine’ and her name was changed to ‘Albright’ The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took over the government in 1948, with support from the Soviet Union. In 1959, Korbel was forced to resign from his position as an opponent of communism. He later obtained a position a United Nations delegation to Kashmir, then located in Lake Success, New York. In 1993, Clinton appointed her to the position of U. N. Ambassador to the U.N. and she held that position until 1997, when she succeeded Warren Christopher as Secretary of state. In 2001, she served in that capacity until Clinton left office in 2001. Her husband, former Vice President Al Gore, was elected president of the United Nations in 2000.