Photo: Nicholas Kam/AFP via Getty
Hillary Clintonis keeping her friendMadeleine Albright’s legacy alive.
The former U.S. secretary of state, 74, paid tribute to her predecessor,who died of cancerWednesday at age 84, in aNew York Timesop-edon Friday, reflecting on Albright’s childhood as a refugee from Prague and her years of championing American democracy.
“ForBill [Clinton]and me and her many friends all over the world, Madeleine’s passing is a painful personal loss,” Clinton wrote. “She was irrepressible: wickedly funny, stylish and always game for adventure and fun.”
“Madeleine’s death is also a great loss for our country and for the cause of democracy at a time when it is under serious and sustained threat around the world and here at home,” she added.
Madeleine Albright (left) is sworn in as secretary of state in 1997.Diana Walker/Getty Images
She recalled Albright’s extensive work with the NATO alliance, as well as her foresight in regards to the ongoingwar in Ukraine.
“She saw the chronically underestimated Russian presidentVladimir Putinfor what he is: a vicious autocrat intent on reclaiming Russia’s lost empire and a committed foe of democracy everywhere,” Clinton continued.
“In a prescientcolumninThe Timespublished Feb. 23, she warned that an invasion of Ukraine would be ‘a historic error’ that would leave Russia ‘diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance,'” she noted. “As happened so often, the man with the guns was wrong and Madeleine was right.”
Clinton’s op-ed recognized Albright as the first U.S. secretary of state to travel to North Korea, where she negotiated with dictator Kim Jong-il. She also praised Albright’s stance against former PresidentDonald Trump’s assault on U.S. alliances and democracy, as well as hisincitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
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“She would warn, as she did in her book, about the ‘self-centered moral numbness that allows Fascism to thrive,’ and urge us to keep pushing the envelope for freedom, human rights and democracy. We should listen,” Clinton concluded.
source: people.com
