Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright, the first female secretary of state, who arrived in the U.S. as a young girl from war-torn Czechoslovakia before becoming a political and feminist icon, died Wednesday at 84.
Albright’s death from cancer was confirmed by her family in a statement posted to Twitter on Wednesday.
Albright, who served as secretary of state from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton, pushed for NATO expansion eastward into the former Soviet bloc and helped lead the NATO bombing campaign in 1999 to halt ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. She previously served as Clinton’s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997.
Albright told USA TODAY in 2020 that she had “a trick” to make sure her position was clear in a foreign policy arena dominated by men.
“After too much of the small talk, I would say, ‘I have come a long way, so I must be frank,’ Then I really did make a point of what I needed to say,” she said. “I don’t think frankly that I was rougher, tougher or anything than any man. I just think people were surprised to hear that language from a woman.”
Ned Price, the State Department’s chief spokesman, called Albright a “trailblazer,” adding President Joe Biden and his chief diplomat Antony Blinken “have been apprised of this” and said the U.S. diplomatic corps was grieving her death. News of Albright’s death came as Biden was aboard Air Force One en route to a NATO summit in Brussels.
“She was a trailblazer as the first female secretary of state and quite literally opened doors for a large element of our workforce,” Price said. “She took so many people under her wing … It’s a really devastating piece of news.”
–USA Today