The importance of being Madeleine Albright – Letohrad, Memorial plaque of M. Albright

Fact of the Czech figure „The memorial of cutting the barbed wires of the Iron Curtain”

Part of the „Back to Europe together” topic

Madeleine Albright (1937-2022) served as Secretary of State in Bill Clinton’s second administration from 1997 to 2001. She became the first woman in the history of the United States and the first non-native American to hold the post. Until then, the courageous and uncompromising politician had served as the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations. She came to both positions with a clear vision of the values America should protect and promote. This was shaped by family experience. She was born in 1937 into a family of Czechoslovak diplomats who had to flee from dictatorships twice. The first time, when she was a toddler, from the Nazis, and the second time, permanently, from the Communist regime. She never forgot her native Czechoslovakia, however, and from the time of her studies she maintained close contacts with the dissident Václav Havel. That is why she played a key role in the enlargement of NATO to include the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary as former Eastern Bloc countries.

But it was not just national sentiment. The daughter of political refugees has always felt the need to use the tools of power to defend the oppressed – she successfully pushed for military intervention under NATO auspice during the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo in 1999, supported the democratisation of the free market and the creation of civil societies in the developing world, the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change, and continued to normalise relations with Vietnam. At home, the distinguished native is commemorated by a plaque in her father’s birthplace in Letohrad.