Ann Blackman - Seasons of Her Life: A Biography of Madeleine Korbel Albright

A Biography of Madeleine Korbel Albright

Ann Blackman

Brooke Zimmer

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Copyright 1998 by Ann Blackman

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Designed by Brooke Zimmer

ISBN 0-684-86431-2
ISBN 978-0-684-86431-0
eISBN 978-0-684-86431-0

To Mike and Leila and Christof With love

Seasons of Her Life is based on interviews with almost two hundred friends and acquaintances of Madeleine Albright and her family. Many individuals were interviewed numerous times. Because peoples memories differ, I tried to rely on several sources for each anecdote. In many instances, I read quotes and passages back to the source, even if the person was not named, to check for accuracy and nuance. Where memories differed, I footnoted the disparity.

When quotation marks are used to recount conversations at which I was not present, at least one participant in the dialogue repeated the words to me as verbatim. In rare instances when information came from interviews conducted on deep backgroundmeaning the source refused to be identified in any wayit is reported without attribution, but in every case the source was in a position to know the facts described.

In weighing information provided by officials in the Clinton administration, I tried to consider the motives and biases that are part of every political culture: of those who worked for Albright, wanted to work for her, did not get a job with her, had a spouse working for her, had a spouse who did not get a job with her, or, in some cases, of individuals who wanted the jobs Albright got.

Any errors that remain, either in fact or analysis, are mine.

G EORGETOWN. New Years Eve, 1996. At the corner of 30th and N Street, inside the redbrick Federal mansion that Abraham Lincolns son Robert Todd once called home, a fire crackles softly at either end of the long, rose-colored living room. Tiny colored lights on the Christmas tree sparkle and dance off the eighteen-foot ceiling, and the silky voice of Ella Fitzgerald floats through the hallway. Guests are shoulder to shoulder, politicians and journalists, elegantly turned out in diamonds and black tie, toasting each other with clever, irreverent one-liners, clinking fluted, crystal champagne glasses shimmering with well-iced Mot & Chandon Brut. In the kitchen, Ernesto Cadima, crisp in his white jacket and chefs toque, is tossing a ham hock and sauted onions into the pan of black-eyed peas.

By 9:45, the annual party of Washington media stars Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee is well under way. Hollywood diva Lauren BacallBetty to her friendshas arrived. Colin Powell and Al Gore are en route. Their entrance will be noted, casually, of course. No elbowing and finger-pointing. Most of those in the room have met them before.

Just after 10:00 P.M., a 1992 bulletproof black Cadillac Fleetwood limousine, equipped with a secure telephone for conversations with the president, pulls up to the curb, followed by a black Chevrolet Suburban war wagon carrying four security agents. Out steps Madeleine Albright, the newly nominated secretary of state, radiant in black silk. As she enters the pine-decked hallway, all heads turn. Even before the butler whisks away her black velvet wrap, she is quickly embraced with hugs, kisses, and shrieks of joy.

Albright had not intended to come this evening. In fact, she had not accepted the highly coveted invitation until that very morning, when a friend persuaded her to put away her black briefing books for a few hours, that it was important to be seen at places like this, to do a drop-by. Albright mulled it over. She had no other plans, but something rubbed her the wrong way. It was so damned typical of Washington, a city obsessed with power, fickle to the core, a climate where whos up and whos down changes faster than the weather. She had lived right here in Georgetown, only a few blocks away, for more than thirty years. Yet this was the first time that Sally and Ben had invited her to their fete, the first time she was thought of as part of their A-list. Albright told friends that she was not sure that she wanted to attend. This was the uptown crowd. Would she fit in?

The irony was delicious.

When Madeleine Korbel Albright became secretary of state on January 23, 1997, the white male establishment that has long dominated American foreign policy was taken aback. It was one thing to entertain the notion of a woman in charge, to put a womans name on the short list to placate the feminists. It was quite another for a woman to actually move into the spacious, seventh-floor office at the State Department, where even the secretarys private clothes closet had been outfitted with a sock drawer for men.

Clinton made a dramatic statement when he chose Albright for the number one cabinet position. Although women have made considerable progress in breaking into middle- and upper-management, very few make it to the top. Of the Fortune 500 companies, only two have women CEOs. Female executives hold high-level jobs, but all too frequently they are in departments that do not lead to advancement. There was another, more subtle irony to Clintons choice. For a significant number of middle-aged male WASPs, who consider American foreign policy their private province, the day Madeleine Albright became secretary of state will go down in history for one reason: It was the day they were beaten by a girl.

Despite criticism that Albright is not a visionary like Thomas Jefferson, the countrys first secretary of state, or a strategist like Dean Acheson in the Truman administration,

It is this visceral understanding of modern European history that distinguishes her from most American leaders. This is what Madeleine experienced personally, Havel says. So she is aware of the meaning of symbols like Munich, symbols of division that never lead to peace and stability. She knows all about appeasement, about democracy making concessions to a dictator. Albright knows firsthand what happens to a country when dictators raise their swords, tyranny reigns, and everyone in the apartment building heads for the air raid shelter.

Just as important to her selection, however, was the fact that Albright was the candidate with whom the Clintonsboth Bill and Hillaryfelt most comfortable. President Clinton realized that he had in her a dazzling speaker with unquestioned loyalty to the people she served, a natural politico who could handle the press while giving him credit for American foreign policy decisions and not seek acclaim herself, as Henry Kissinger had done under Richard Nixon. She was tough and strong on the issues that I thought were important, especially on Bosnia, President Clinton says. She supported what I did on Haiti. When we had to do difficult things that didnt have a lot of popular support in the beginning, she on principle agreed with me. I could see she was willing to take risks.