Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright was the first female U.S. Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. She was also appointed Ambassador to the United Nations. Throughout her career, Albright received multiple awards and honors. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998, was the second recipient of the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award, and received the Honorary Silver Medal of Jan Masaryk.

Albright passed away on March 23, 2022. The New York Times wrote: “She was a diminutive presence with an assured style: impeccably tailored and perfectly coifed, with touches of gold or pearl in her brooches, an amused smile for the cognoscenti and eyes that missed nothing. In meetings with foreign diplomats, colleagues said, she was firm but flexible, prepared to move beyond her talking points and to engage her counterparts in frank oval-table bargaining.

She courted the public, too, with speeches that made arcane foreign policy seem exciting and even meaningful to Americans, whose anxiety about a Soviet nuclear attack had faded, although the age of terrorism was right around the corner. Coming after decades of Cold War tensions, her relaxed pitches made many Americans feel prouder, or at least better, about their nation’s role in the world.”