The Madeleine Albright Few Knew

Earlier today, as I sat in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. — as did President Joe Biden, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, and many, many others — my mind returned to intense memories of a very different time: a time when America was respected, admired and feared around the world, a time in the late ’90s when Madeleine Albright became the first woman to be named Secretary of State.

As so many have written, Albright brought wisdom, clarity, humor and a full helping of humanity to whatever she did. And she was always doing something. And doing it with enthusiasm and determination. Whether in her role as a professor at Georgetown University, author of several books, mentor to generations of foreign policy professionals, adviser to Democratic candidates for president, ambassador to the United Nations or America’s first female secretary of State, Albright came prepared and worked hard.

For seven remarkable years, from 1993 to 2000, at the United Nations and the State Department, serving as her spokesman and close adviser, I watched her shape American foreign policy at a very special time in history. So, in the hope of filling out the story of her time in office as U.N. Ambassador and secretary of State, let me offer a perspective with which only a few are familiar.

In the 1990s, Secretary Albright really was a woman alone in a sea of men. At the United Nations, she used to joke that if she ever wrote a book it would be called “14 Suits and a Skirt,” as she spent most of her time in the U.N. Security Council with 14 male ambassadors. At the time, of the 180-odd countries, there were only five other female ambassadors. So, naturally she started a lunch club for the six of them. (Some 28 years later, I called her from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris to tell her that a lot had changed since her club of six. Today, of the 38 leading democracies which make up the OECD, more than half were represented by female foreign or finance ministers at the first meeting I attended. She laughed and asked: “Why did it take so long?”)

Back then, it really was different. And it took a lot of confidence and charm to operate as the only woman. For example, when she became secretary of State, she confided in me that she had decided to try to hire the strongest possible team, even if that meant the difficulty of dealing with the above-average male egos that inevitably come with strong personalities. And then she did exactly that. Her deputy secretary was Strobe Talbott. The two undersecretaries were Tom Pickering and Stuart Eizenstat. She had Dennis Ross as Middle East peace envoy. Martin Indyk was an assistant secretary. Morton Halperin was director of policy planning much of the time. And Richard Holbrooke was a special envoy for the Balkans along with Bob Gelbard. (When the two of them traveled together, inevitably someone was heard joking that “the egos have landed.”) These are just a few names from what must have been one of the strongest State Department teams of recent times.

I daresay that others in her position would not necessarily have picked that kind of team, but Albright wanted what was best for the government as a whole, even though she knew that it would make her job harder and criticism more likely. That was just her way.

And that is why others might not have accomplished so much. In addition to her work to prevent a potential genocide of Kosovar Albanians, bring peace and democratic change to the Balkans and expand NATO to include Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, there were diplomatic achievements in the Middle East (the Wye River agreement), implementation of agreements to prevent North Korea from becoming a nuclear weapons state, the creation of the war crimes tribunals for Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo, the comprehensive assistance package “Plan Columbia” to help that country’s transformation into a democratic success story, elevating the issue of women’s rights in American diplomacy, the containment of Iraq and Iran, the leap forward in relations with India, the strengthening of security relations with Japan, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (2000), the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, negotiations on strategic nuclear arms with Russia and much more.

Yes, this was the unique moment of American ascendance people talk so much about, when the French Foreign Minister dubbed us the “hyperpower.” But it was Albright, backed by Clinton’s confident second-term leadership on foreign policy, who wanted to take full advantage of that moment in history by building a team that could do it, regardless of those strong personalities. That is a management lesson worth remembering.

While Albright worked on each of these portfolios and many more, it was her unique expertise and determination on matters European that most stand out in my mind. Indeed, after her passing, President Clinton paid tribute to her historic role in building a Europe free and at peace. For in the cases of Kosovo and NATO expansion, her involvement made a decisive difference.

Because Albright understood the Central and East European mindset, with all its anxieties and insecurities, she knew exactly how to reassure these countries about the U.S. commitment to their freedom and security. Similarly, when working with Russia, she knew how important it was to cooperate and consult, but she also knew when to be firm. For example, in the final endgame in the talks regarding Russia’s acceptance of NATO expansion, there was a memorable moment when Russia’s then-Foreign Minister, Yevgeny Primakov, tried to restrict the rights of former Warsaw Pact countries. I remember a moment when a seventh floor state conference room in the State Department suddenly became eerily quiet as she reminded Primakov of all the times when Eastern European countries were abandoned. “This time,” she told him, “we are not going to negotiate over the heads of the countries of Eastern Europe. We are not going to deny them the opportunity to make these decisions for themselves.” And that was the last time the Russian delegation sought to include such limiting language in the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act.

Of course, she was fully aware that the fear of Russia’s resurgence was a primary factor motivating countries of Central and Eastern Europe to be part of NATO. And she shared their view that the sooner NATO was extended the better. (This past year she noted with satisfaction that the only countries Russia was threatening with military action were the ones that didn’t make it into the Alliance.) But that didn’t stop her from doing all she could to keep Russia on side, whether that required her speaking in Russian or charming their top officials. I will always retain a vivid image of Albright and Primakov walking seemingly arm in arm through the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg on one of the famous Russian “white nights.”

It was with respect to policy in the former Yugoslavia where Albright had the greatest impact. For when Serbian nationalists unleashed their ethnic cleansing machine on the Kosovar Albanians in 1998, they came up against a western world at the peak of its power and a secretary of State determined to see the United States fulfill its role as “the indispensable nation.”

The strategy she formulated was diplomacy backed by force. The first hurdle to overcome was Washington’s reluctance to get involved in another Balkan war. But she insisted. After returning from a particularly intense White House meeting, she recounted to me how she demanded a decision on Kosovo, telling a top administration official: “As U.N. Ambassador I was ignored on Bosnia, but this time I am secretary of State, and we are going to have a discussion about the use of force in Kosovo.”

To achieve support from other European members of NATO, she reminded them of the years of inaction on Bosnia. And then she proposed a strategy that required the Serbian leadership to agree to a peace plan or face the prospect of air strikes. By linking the use of force to a diplomatic plan agreed with European allies as well as Russia, Belgrade was given every reasonable chance. When the Serbs refused, the West was united in the fateful decision to conduct NATO air strikes.

To keep NATO countries united, Albright initiated what is now common practice: conference call diplomacy. These discussions involved real consultation, not just Washington informing its allies of its plans and expecting unquestioned support. Through a daily call with her counterparts from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy, she helped NATO stay united, despite accidental strikes on civilians and even a mistaken attack on the Chinese embassy.

It was during one such call that Germany’s Joschka Fischer stunned his colleagues by comparing what Milošević was doing in rounding up civilians on trains to what the Nazis did during the Holocaust. It was also Fischer, following Belgrade’s capitulation, who had the dignity and grace to say: “Well, they were calling it Madeleine’s war when it wasn’t going so well, so we have to call it Madeleine’s war now that we have won.”

Looking back on it, the people of Kosovo were lucky that their quest for freedom happened at a time when the Western world was operating on all its cylinders, and when a secretary of State with special knowledge and history was in place. But most important of all, the intervention Albright helped launch was an unqualified success. Force was used after exhausting all other options. It was legitimated by widespread support. There was a post-war plan that worked to minimize instability and bring order and democratic change. European countries shared the burden. And after losing Kosovo, Slobodan Milošević was sent to a war crimes tribunal to face justice, giving Serbia a chance to develop democratic institutions. And last but not least, Kosovo is now free, democratic and independent.

As secretary Albright told me many times in recent years, whenever things in the world were looking bleak, all she needed to do pick up her spirits was to have a Kosovar Albanian come up to her in an airport or a restaurant, in Europe or America, and thank her for her role in preventing a genocide and giving the Kosovars their freedom.