Madeleine Albright is the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government--our first female Secretary of State. As the Number 1 member of President Clinton's Cabinet, she is in charge of the country's dealings with other nations, including battle-torn Yugoslavia.
A Child Of War
Albright, 61 and a grandmother, knows what it is like for children to grow up in a nation at war. Born in Czechoslovakia, she was only 2 years old when the German Nazis invaded her country during World War II. Holding little Madeleine in their arms, her parents managed to escape by jumping on a train that took the family to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and, finally, to London, England.
Even today, the Secretary remembers the sounds and smells of the air-raid shelters where her family hid while the Nazis bombed London. She entertained frightened people in the shelters by singing A Hundred Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall. When Madeleine was 11, her family sailed to America. She spoke three languages--Czech, English and French.
Albright was always interested in foreign relations because her father was a diplomat. She studied political science in college and then settled down to start a family. For years, she was a pretty typical mom, driving carpools for her three daughters and playing tennis. When the girls were little, she studied Russian and Polish in graduate school. Later she earned a doctorate in political science.
When Albright's children were teenagers, she was divorced. It was a sad time. Albright became a professor of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington. Her students loved her and elected her Teacher of the Year three times.
Bill Clinton turned to Albright for advice when he first ran for President. In 1992, after the election, he named her U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Five years later, he appointed her Secretary of State.
Madeleine Albright has not had an easy life. Yet by learning from difficult challenges, she has become a role model. "I feel totally fulfilled," she told me in an interview. "I love what I do."