Object Details
Biography
Marie Jana Korbelová (1937–) was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. After the communist coup in 1948, her family immigrated to the United States. She Americanized her name to Madeleine Korbel, became a U.S. citizen in 1957, and later took the last name of her husband, Joseph Albright. She graduated from Wellesley College and earned a PhD in public law and government from Columbia University. She served on the staff of Senator Edmund Muskie, in the Jimmy Carter White House, and on the National Security Council. President Bill Clinton appointed her ambassador to the United Nations and then secretary of state. Madeline Albright was the first woman to hold this position.
As secretary, Albright continued promoting the expansion of NATO eastward into the former Soviet bloc nations and sought to keep nuclear weapons owned by the former Soviet Union from getting into the hands of terrorists or rogue nations. During the 1999 humanitarian crisis in Kosovo, in Southeastern Europe, she successfully pressed for military intervention by NATO. Generally, Albright supported the expansion of free-market democracies and the creation of civil societies in the developing world, furthering the normalization of relations with Vietnam. Addressing concerns for the environment, she favored the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on Global Climate Change.
Following the end of the Clinton administration, Albright continued to serve on boards and committees related to foreign relations, world justice, and the empowerment of women.