Led by President Joe Biden, some 1,400 mourners gathered to celebrate Madeleine Albright's life and accomplishments as a child refugee from war-torn Europe who rose to become America’s first female secretary of state.
WASHINGTON — Addressing world leaders and America’s political elite paying final respects to Madeleine Albright, former President Bill Clinton recalled in his final conversation with the former secretary of state that she didn’t want to talk about her declining health at a moment when the West is on edge following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Albright died of cancer last month at age 84, prompting an outpouring of condolences from around the world that also hailed her support for democracy and human rights. Besides the current and former presidents, the service was attended by at least three of her successors as secretary of state along with other current and former Cabinet members, foreign diplomats, lawmakers and an array of others who knew her.
Clinton in her own tribute recalled some lighter memories of Albright, including the time she taught the foreign minister of Botswana the Macerana and danced the night away with a young, handsome man at her daughter Chelsea’s wedding. She also remembered Albright as a fearless diplomat that broke barriers and then counseled, cajoled and inspired women to follow in her footsteps.
Albright was born in what was then Czechoslovakia, but her family fled twice, first from the Nazis and then from Soviet rule. They ended up in the United States, where she studied at Wellesley College and rose through the ranks of Democratic Party foreign policy circles to become ambassador to the United Nations. Bill Clinton selected her as secretary of state in 1996 for his second term.
She also took a hard line on Cuba, famously saying at the United Nations that the 1996 Cuban shootdown of a civilian plane was not “cojones” but rather “cowardice.”
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