Madeleine K. Albright (1937–2022)

Madeleine Korbelová Albright was born May 15, 1937 in the Smíchov district of Prague, Czechoslovakia. She attended Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on a full scholarship, majoring in political science and graduated in 1959. Her senior thesis was written on Czech Communist Zdenek Fierlinger Her PhD is from Columbia University. She holds honorary degrees from Brandeis University; the University of Washington; Smith College; University of Winnipeg; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , and Knox College. Albright worked as an intern for The Denver Post and as a picture editor for Encyclopædia Britannica. She was invited to organize a fund-raising dinner for the 1972 presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Ed Muskie of Maine.This association with Muskie led to a position as his chief legislative assistant in 1976. However, after the 1976 U.S. presidential election of Jimmy Carter, Albright's former professor Brzezinski was named National Security Advisor, and recruited Albright from Muskie in 1978 to work in the West Wing as the National Security Council's congressional liaison. Albright joined the academic staff at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1982, specializing in Eastern European studies. In 1992, Bill Clinton returned the White House to the Democratic Party, and Albright was employed to handle the transition to a new administration at the National Security Council. In January 1993, Clinton nominated her to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Albright soon took office as the 64th U.S. Secretary of State on January 23, 1997 and she became the first female U.S. Secretary of State and the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. Albright now serves as a Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. Her title Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 made The New York Times Best Seller list for 2012. Her most recent book is Fascism: A Warning. (Bowker Author Biography) — biography from Madam Secretary: A Memoir… (more)