Customer Reviews

Madam Secretary: A Memoir

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"Madam Secretary" presents the memoirs of Madeleine Albright, the highest ranking woman in the history of U.S. government (despite what conclusions you might have reached about some of the First Ladies, Edith Galt Wilson in particular). During the eight years of the Clinton administration Albright served as U.N. ambassador and then, following the resignation of Warren Christopher, as Secretary of State. Half of "Madam Secretary" is devoted to that period of her life, while the rest tells the story of how a refugee from Czechoslovakia eventually became the first woman Secretary of State in American history and one of the most admired public figures of recent years (she was confirmed 99-0 by the Senate). The result is a book that is both candid and insightful. The memoirs of any Secretary of State are going to be of importance, but "Madam Secretary" is actually a good read.

Madeleine Korbel Albright was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1937. Her father was an official in the Czech government-in-exile who fled to London, where she remembers enduring the blitz. Her father served in several diplomatic posts after World War II and when the Communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948 he sent his family to the United States, where he ended up running the School of International Studies at the University of Denver (where one of his prize students was Condolezza Rice). On the personal side of the ledger Albright talks about her marriage to "Newsday" scion Joe Albright, which ended in divorce, raising her three daughters, and learning late in her life that her Jewish grandparents had died in Nazi concentration camps. Earning her doctorate from Columbia, Albright worked her way from being Edmund Muskie's senior legislative assistant to work for National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezinski in the Carter Administration. When the Democrats returned to the White House in 1992, Albright moved into the upper stratosphere of American diplomacy where she proved herself to be a Wilsonian moralist whose hero was Dean Acheson.

In the most important parts of her memoir Albright provides commentary on all of the foreign policy crises with which she was involved, from Rwanda and Serbia to North Korea and Iraq, with NATO's humanitarian intervention in Kosovo being the episode that stands out most in my mind as the one she wants to present as being paradigmatic of what the Clinton administration was trying to accomplish in terms of foreign policy. Not coincidentally, it was also the specific policy on which she was the biggest advocate and primary architect. She does not make the explicit argument, but when you read of how her family came to the United States the policy seems a logical extension of her personal story. Clearly the goal was to avert a humanitarian catastrophe and not as sign of support for the Albanian guerrillas.

You will also find Albright's views on the national and world figures with whom she had to deal, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell, Vaclav Havel, Vladmimir Putin, Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu, Yasser Arafat, Slobodan Milosevic, and even Kim Jong-Il. Of course, a recurring theme of Albright's book is how she had to prove herself in the male-dominated world of power politics, which lends a certain power to the scene where she describes waiting for the phone call from President Clinton where he told her he wanted her to be his Secretary of State. Albright consistently places the emphasis on presenting her side of the record rather than going out of her way to defend particular policies and actions. Her position on American foreign policy is clearly implicit in her accounts, but she does not go out of her way to be an advocate.

Obviously this volume will be a primary document for assessing the foreign policy of the Clinton administration. Albright comes across as being candid and self-efacing, while also provided insights into the goals of the Clinton foreign policy. Having long ago grown tired of the public statements of any and all government officials, it was refreshing to read what it was like to play this came from someone who was actively involved and has never been burdened by being an elected official. Ome of the biggest compliments I could pay to Albright would be that this memoir comes across as being written by a real person. She might have been a diplomat, but she was not a politician (an assessment that I think applies to her successor at the State Department as well). Of course she touches on issues, such as terrorism and relations with Iraq, that are of even more importance today. "Madame Secretary" includes a pair of 16-page color and black & white photo inserts and a chronology of Albright's personal and political life. This 562-page volume will be of interest to not only Albright's personal admirers, but anyone interested in the machinations of American foreign policy in the past decade (especially if they have read Michael Dobbs' "Madeline Albright: A 20th Century Odyssey," the obvious companion volume for a presumably more objective look at the same subject).

So I find myself a bit disagreeable when it comes to extolling Madeleine Albright. So what. ...

I am still fascinated by the chequered career of "Madam Secretary", who came from a Czech refugee family that first fled Hitler and then the communists. After reaching America, her zigzagging life eventually landed her in the upper echelon of American diplomacy and policy-making. This path alone makes this memoir worth every little centimeter of every frayed penny you spend on it.

This is an outspoken work, and it provides a ringside view of a world in unprecedented turbulence. No, I do not think the authors were fawning a political celeb. It contains a colorful portrait of several other big tykes -- the Clintons, Colin Powell, Jesse Helms, Vaclav Havel, Yasser Arafat, Ariel Sharon, King Hussein, Vladimir Putin, Slobodan Milosevic, and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Il. All this tirade, whether your polemical filter reconciles with it or not, makes for quite an interesting read.

As regards weaving an intimate and panoramic tapestry of Madeleine's character, well the writing is fluent, tight, and very interesting. I seldom devour politically charged reminiscences with such zeal. It is clearly self-billed as a "memoir, so I did not expect it to be a highly objective analysis of political stances, if there were such a beast to begin with.

In my book, this comes highly recommended. Will definitely not bore you if that is any consolation. Come to think of it, I guess it also makes for a great movie theme.

Madeleine Albright comes across in this book as an enormously genuine, honest and affable person - qualities one does not expect in the upper echelons of government, or in business for that matter. Her advice was always level headed and was delivered with only her nation's and the world's peoples interest at heart.

I had the good fortune to sit next to Ms. Albright on an airplane trip back from Korea and I can tell you from that brief encounter that she is the genuine article. We sadly miss her involvement in government given the state of world affairs today.

In winding up her far-ranging autobiography, Madeleine Albright tells us with amusement that once, after leaving office as U.S. Secretary of State, she was mistaken in public for Margaret Thatcher.

It's worth a chuckle to the reader --- but there are indeed interesting similarities between the two women, even though their political leanings are light-years apart. They both reached the highest rank ever attained by a woman in their respective democratic governments, were fiercely partisan political figures, and held very strong opinions and were never afraid to battle for them (Albright's favorite expression for this is that she never hesitated to "push back" at those who opposed her).

Albright is best known for serving as U.S. ambassador to the UN in the first Clinton term, and as Secretary of State in the second. Readers of this book will learn in detail about the early years and long political apprenticeship that led up to those two high-profile jobs. They will also learn, in perhaps more detail than they care to absorb, about the many foreign policy crises in which she was a major player under Clinton.

The other thing about Albright that most people will recall is that only after she became Secretary of State did she learn that her family ancestry was Jewish --- that three of her grandparents had died in Nazi concentration camps. This personal revelation is duly covered but not dwelled upon in extraordinary detail.

Her life, though unsettled due to wartime exigencies, was not a rags-to-riches tale. She was born Marie Jana Korbel in Prague into a comfortably situated family. Her father was a respected Czech diplomat and college professor. Fleeing the Nazis, the family spent time in England during World War II. They arrived in the United States when she was 11, and her father took a teaching job in Denver. She entered Wellesley College in 1955 and became an American citizen two years later. She married into a wealthy and well-connected American family in 1959. Her first political idol and mentor was Edmund Muskie, in whose doomed presidential campaign she took part. After the breakup of her marriage, her career in government and politics took off during the Carter presidency, her only personal setback being a painful divorce in 1983.

This is all dispatched in the first 100 pages or so of her lengthy book. The rest of it details her UN and State Department years with a thoroughness that seems at times compulsive. All the heroes and villains of those years pass in review --- Carter, Havel, Milosevic, Helms, Clinton, Putin, Arafat, Barak. The complexities of Rwanda, Serbia, Kosovo, the Middle East, Somalia and other trouble spots are laid out in prose that can get ponderous --- but her incisive personal portraits of these people lighten the mood.

Albright makes no pretense to real objectivity. She is a committed Democrat who admired both Carter and Clinton, and she defends them against all the charges that have been flung at them by their opponents. She defends such controversial actions as Clinton's successful ousting of Boutros Boutros-Ghali as Secretary General of the UN, and his policy of opening up trade with China and warily seeking a somewhat civil relationship with North Korea. Her two biggest regrets are the failure of the UN to stop genocide in Rwanda and Clinton's failure to forge a solid peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (in that regard, while gently critical of Israel on occasion, she holds Arafat mainly responsible for the breakdown). The two biggest villains in her cast of characters, not surprisingly, are Arafat and Milosevic.

There is naturally a strong feminist slant to her narrative. There is also a vein of sharp observation, character analysis, and even humor. The writing, when not bogged down in the minutiae of crisis management, can be bright, though we are left to wonder how much of the credit is hers and how much belongs to her collaborator, Bill Woodward.

Mercifully, Monica Lewinsky remains a bit player in Albright's narrative. Two other things, perhaps more important, are also missing: detailed assessments of the effect of the 9/11 tragedy on America's global course and the George W. Bush administration. Those would have made an already long book longer, but one wishes she had covered them anyway.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn

Madam Secretary is a wonderful capsule of a remarkable life and highly recommended for anyone who is as much of a current affairs geek as I am. While most will be drawn to read this book because of the insights Ms. Albright provides into the Clinton Administration's roles in the Middle East conflict, Kosovo, and North Korea - all of which are discussed in fascinating detail - some of the most compelling (and poignant) sections of the book have to do with her pain associated with the sudden dissolution of her marriage, the discovery of her Jewish ancestry, and her life in Czechoslovakia as a young girl.

Ms. Albright's narrative voice is warm and inviting and utterly without pretension. This is my vote for the best non-fiction book of 2003.

I wish I hadn't put off reading this book. I never imagined I would enjoy it so much.

I would have never thought a political novel would keep me anxious for every page, but hers did. I enjoyed the mix of serious commentary and humor. Although it seems that she could have written more in some places it does seem candid overall.

Albright's writing style is very comfortable. She sticks to the point and presents her thoughts clearly. I felt as if I was being told stories by my own grandmother. I have a newfound respect for Albright as a role-model for todays young women.

I especially enjoyed her personal accounts of the "non-public" side of several world leaders.

I see some reviewers complain that this book didn't have enough hard hitting politics, but it does say it is a "memoir." I wasn't looking for policy choices or political analysis, I was looking for history from the point of view of one woman on the inside, and I found just that.

I didn't want it to end. What a wonderful, delightful, insightful book Madeleine has written. To read this book is to walk in her shoes, and to know what it is like to not only care deeply and passionately about foreign affairs and far away countries, but what a single individual along with a motivated team (she could never forget her team) can accomplish in a poultry 4 years, to change the course of history and the lives of women, men and children we may never met. Thanks Madam Secretary! A reader From The Front Range of Colorado and the High Desert of Phoenix.

Madeleine provides behind the scene insight into the fall of the Iron Curtain/Berlin Wall and the introduction of a free market economy in Central and Eastern Europe. Shortly after reading her Memoir I toured nine countries along the Danube and saw the importance of the spark of freedom that her father passed along to her. One person made a difference; especially one with her energy, language skills, and cultural familiarity. This book gives all of the nitty gritty details that made her the woman she is and gave her the strength to be the right person at the right time to usher in major changes in that part of the world. Fascinating!

Madam Secretary is a wonderful autobiography of former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright.

I found the book to be well written, informative and human. Albright has always impressed me as a straight shooter. The book puts her life on the table for inspection and she doesn't disappoint.

Albright opens her life to the reader in discussing so many personal areas of her life: from her marriage to journalist Joseph Albright; to her surprise at its ending twenty-three years later. She is candid about losing a baby at birth, and of her identity as Mom to three girls. She discusses the struggles of balancing marriage, motherhood, advanced graduate education and a career.

Madeline Albright's candor, humanness and sense of humor are most refreshing and I came away with the sense that she is a rather delightful down to earth lady who would be comfortable and honest in a conversation with most anyone she might meet. While she has pursued great heights across her lifetime, this lady seems to have her feet fairly well planted on earth. A wonderful signpost for me throughout the book of Albright's depth were the incidents where she is able to laugh at herself and make light of her goofs and missteps along the way.

Albright is an intelligent academic and diplomat who has served as a role model for women, as hope for foreign nationals and as a formidable protectress of our nation's interests.

As a naturalized citizen who grew up during Nazi occupation of her homeland, Albright shows her appreciation of our nation through the very human eyes and heart of someone who knows what life is like in the absence of freedom. Albright's subsequent devotion to foundational principles of freedom and democracy of the United States reflect her genuine appreciation for her citizenship and a mindfulness of her own family history.

Beyond the personal aspects of her life, this is the story of an extremely brilliant American woman who dealt with a wide range of world leaders -- from the most admirable to the horribly reprehensible -- as one of the most visible official representatives of the United States during the Clinton administration.

Clearly, the manner in which she conducted herself as Ambassador to the United Nations and later as Secretary of State points Albright out as a great American who has been consistent and courageous in her service to our country's foreign policy.

A great lady candidly tells her story in an honest and classy way.

Excellent read!

James J. Maloney
Saint Paul, Minnesota USA

Madeleine Albright led a remarkable life - fleeing as a child across war-torn Europe, first from the invading Germans and then from the invading Soviets, the little girl from Prague came to America before a teenager, and ended up becoming the first female Secretary of State in American history (although, interestingly, not even the first non-American-born Secretary of State in the last half century!). She reinvented herself as an American, someone who fell deeply in love with her adopted country, even to the extent that her name Madeleine, isn't the one with which she was christened (although it is the French version of her name, and thus we are reading the memoirs of Madeleine, not Marie Jana Korbel).

She weaves together her personal life and insights together with the professional experiences she has had throughout her various careers, culminating with the office of Secretary of State for several years in Bill Clinton's administration. Her father, part of the Czech government-in-exile, immigrated to America and became a professor (interestingly, one of his student was Condalezza Rice, one of the principle voices in foreign affairs in the current Bush administration). Albright thus had training from the very beginning in terms of both academic and practical aspects of governments and diplomacy.

Albright's academic credentials are impressive, and her experiences in school shaped her later career. For undergraduate work, she studied at Wellesley College in Political Science, and then went to the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. She finished her formal education at Columbia, receiving a Certificate from the Russian Institute, and her Masters and Doctorate from the Department of Public Law and Government. This is also where she got involved with political and media affairs in earnest.

She was a White House staffer, including staffing the National Security Council, during Carter's presidency; during the 12-year Republican administrations in Washington, her career focused on the Center for National Policy, a non-profit liberal think-tank/research organization formed in 1981 looking at issues in domestic and foreign policy. This gave her continued presence in the field so that when the time came, Clinton tapped her to be the ambassador to the United Nations, and then later Secretary of State.

She met and married Joseph Albright, part of a wealthy media family, and recounts in some detail and emotion the difficulties with the breakup of that relationship. She also confesses an affair with a Georgetown professor, and other difficult times in her life. However, these take a back seat most of the time to her professional career.

Albright makes the claim to have not discovered her Jewish ancestry until late in life; there is reason to discount this belief, given that she is the kind of person likely to know the details of her background, and given that she visited family back in Czechoslovakia back in the 1960s. Reasons for not wanting to be identified as being of Jewish descent during her career are unclear, but in an otherwise very straightforward autobiographical account, this one point seems less than convincing.

Albright does reflect with candor on many world leaders, including her boss Bill Clinton, and his wife Hillary; few of the key names of the 90s are missed here. Ultimately, one comes across with the impression of a erudite diplomat, a skillful politicians, and a sincere worker for the best interests of the nation.