Madeleine Albright
According to a statement from her family, Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as Secretary of State for the United States, has died.
Albright died at the age of 84 from cancer, according to her relatives.
"When she died, she was surrounded by loved ones. We've lost a wonderful mother, grandma, sister, aunt, and all-around kind person "added the statement.
During the Clinton administration, she served as secretary of state from 1997 until 2001.
"The death of Madeleine Albright saddens both Hillary and myself deeply. The Secretary of State was a superb diplomat and academic, as well as one of the most admirable people I have ever met "Bill Clinton, the former president, released a statement on Wednesday. It is rare for a leader to be "so well fitted for the era in which they led."
After the Nazis conquered Czechoslovakia in 1939, Albright and her family left the country.
Czechoslovak Foreign Service officer Josef Albright served as ambassador to Yugoslavia during the Cold War era, according to an official biography kept by the State Department's Office of History.
On Albright's problems as a young lady, Vice President Biden said.
"Persecution had driven her to seek refuge in the US. Someone fleeing for their life and in desperate need of a place to call home. She, like so many others before and after her, was a proud American citizen. She bucked convention and shattered boundaries again and over again in order to make this nation she loved even better "In a statement released on Wednesday, Biden explained his remarks. Madame was a force for generosity, elegance and decency—as well as for freedom.
To commemorate Albright, Vice President Biden has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and all U.S. government buildings and grounds.
According to the Office of the Historian, her family fled Yugoslavia in 1948 following the communist takeover. By the time she graduated from Wellesley College in 1959 with a bachelor's degree in political science, Albright had already become an American citizen. Graduates of Columbia University's School of Public Law and Government awarded her a doctorate in 1976.
From 1976 to 1978, Albright worked as the top legislative aide to the late Democratic Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine. From 1978 to 1981, she worked for former President Jimmy Carter in the White House and on the National Security Council, according to the office.
In 1993, Clinton named her ambassador to the United Nations, where she served until she became secretary of state.
"As secretary of state, Albright championed the extension of NATO eastward into the former Soviet bloc countries and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons from the former Soviet republics to rogue states," according to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. National Archives.
During a General Assembly Emergency Special Session on Ukraine on Wednesday, the current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, hailed Albright "a pioneer and a light."
"For the rest of the world, and for the United Nations, she will be remembered. Her commitment to our nation and the United Nations has made us all stronger "As Thomas-Greenfield said.
Before a meeting between Russian and American leaders in Geneva, Albright gave an interview to NPR. The first time she met Vladimir Putin was in 1999, when she was a U.S. ambassador to Russia. She described him as "working very hard" to gain favour with President Clinton.
"Initially, it seemed like he was attempting to find out who he was. – While he seemed to enjoy being in the Kremlin's historical context, my opinion was that he was well-prepared, intelligent, and had a clear idea of how things were going to turn out "NPR spoke to Albright about it.
©Credit : NPR