Madam Secretary
“Madam Secretary†by Madeleine Albright
I started reading this book immediately when I received it as a gift last December. However, a number of library books became available and intervened. Hence, it took me quite a long while to finish, but finally I did. And I must say the book is a very well written memoir. The book was co-written with Bill Woodward and published in 2003, when Albright was no longer in office.
Needless to say, a great deal of the material in the book relates to events that, being of a certian age, I remember quite well. But she starts out with her birth as Marie Jana Korbel in Prague during the time when Czechoslovakia was a democracy led by Tomas Masaryk. Madeleine’s father was active in the Czech foreign service. When Hitler came to power, the family moved to London and eventually they arrived in the U.S. and settled in Great Neck, Long Island and later in Denver, where her father was teaching.
The book goes into great detail about her childhood, adolescence–more than I need to go into in this report. Eventually, Albright was educated at Wellesley. Her first job was at the Denver Post, where she met her future husband, Joe Albright. They married in 1959.Three daughters were born to this marriage, but, after 23 years, it failed and ended in divorce.
In 1978, she was offered a position in the Carter White House, working under Zbigniew Brzezinski. Thus her entry into government service. In 1992, Albright went to work in the Clinton White House as US Ambassador to the United Nations. In 1996 she was named Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration. The book is replete with interesting anecdotes of events national and international during Albright’s tenure as well as in her family life. The book ends with an epilogue that discusses matters that pertain to the George W. Bush administration.
The book is liberally sprinkled with photographs of Albright, her family, and with various political personalities. Also included are some cartoons that were published during her various positions,