By Sahan Tennekoon  The foreign policy of the US can be considered a determining factor in the course of the entire world. Its foreign policy is directed by the US State Department, and the Secretary of State is the principal figure in directing foreign policy, and he/she holds a powerful position in America . This article is about Madeleine Albright, the first woman to become the US Secretary of State, a courageous trailblazer and one of the world’s most towering figures of her time, who died of cancer last Wednesday (23). Albright was not born in the US; she was born in 1937, Czechoslovakia. Her father was Joseph Korbel who served as Czechoslovakia’s Ambassador to Yugoslavia as well as the Chairman of the United Nations (UN) Commission for India and Pakistan. Later, he became the Dean of the Faculty of International Relations at University of Denver where he mentored Condoleeza Rice, the first black woman to serve as the US Secretary of State. Albright and her family  immigrated to the US in 1948. Due to the Nazi invasion of 1939, little Albright had to move to London with her parents, where her father participated in various diplomatic missions. Later, he joined the UN and had to seek political asylum in the US, as communist groups held sway in Czechoslovakia; that’s how Madeleine came to the US. She received American citizenship in 1957 and received her PhD in 1975 from Columbia University. Later, she served under Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński, the National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter until 1981 and joined the academic faculty of Georgetown University after she left the National Security Council. Meanwhile, she advised many democratic candidates regarding foreign policy. With the victory of Bill Clinton in the presidential race in 1992, Albright was chosen as US Ambassador to the UN, making it a turning point in her life. She held that position from 1993 to 1997, where she played a key role in events such as the Rwandan genocide. According to foreign sources, the relationship between then-UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Albright was a bit unsettling. She criticised him as “disengaged” and “neglectful” of the Rwandan genocide. Albright wrote: “My deepest regret from my years in public service is the failure of the US and the international community to act sooner to halt these crimes.” At some point it is alleged that Boutros-Ghali did not run for a second term as there was an American hand led by Albright who supported Kofi Annan’s appointment. Albright was appointed as head of the US Department of State in 1997 by President Bill Clinton at a time when a woman had not yet held a high position in the US Government, such as the Secretary of State. With that, Albright was sworn in as the 64th US Secretary of State, making US history. It marked a turning point in American political history. Albright is often dubbed as “The Madam Secretary” even though there are many. In 1998, at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit, Albright articulated what became known as the “three Ds” of the NATO, “which is no diminution of NATO, no discrimination, and no duplication”, adding: “I think that we don’t need any of those three ‘Ds’ to happen.” Albright was also the first high-ranking US diplomat to pay an official visit to North Korea and she worked hard to draw the attention of the UN to the sovereignty of Hong Kong. Albright was a central figure in President Bill Clinton’s administration, first serving as US Ambassador to the UN before becoming the nation’s top diplomat in his second term. She championed the expansion of NATO, pushed for the alliance to intervene in the Balkans to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing, sought to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons, and championed human rights and democracy across the globe. It is a well-known secret that Albright used her brooches to express her views on American foreign policy. Madeleine’s brooches were highly attractive because of its importance beyond its elegance. “Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection” features more than 200 brooches that she has used over the years. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein once described Madeleine Albright as an “unparalleled serpent”, after which she visited the UN Security Council and Iraqi officials, wearing a brooch with a serpent. When she was sworn in as US Secretary of State, she wore an eagle-like brooch that symbolised American power. On 24 February 1996, Cuban fighter pilots shot down two unarmed civilian aircrafts over international waters between Cuba and Florida. In their official transcripts, the pilots boasted about destroying the cojones of their victims. Albright immediately denounced the murders, saying: “This is not cojones, it is cowardice.” She also wore her blue bird pin with its head pointing down in mourning of the four Cuban-American pilots killed in the tragedy. Once, during a heated exchange of words with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, she was wearing a bee-like brooch and later stated that she had come to show how sharp her point was. When she went to meet Nelson Mandela, she wore a black zebra. Once a journalist questioned Albright on the devastating effects of sanctions imposed on Iraq when she was the US Ambassador to the UN. He asked: “We have heard that half a million Iraqi children have died. I mean, that is more children than those who died in Hiroshima, and, you know, is the price worth it?” Albright answered: “I think that is a very hard choice, but the price – we think, the price is worth it.” This became one of the most controversial interviews made by Albright and she was criticised by many for the rude answers given in the particular interview. A small UN survey in 1995 found a giant spike in the mortality rate of young Iraqi children following the Gulf War, one that implied over 500,000 extra deaths. It was to this survey that the journalist was certainly referring. A 1999 United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) report found similar results. She backed Hillary Clinton in the presidential race in 2016 and was a front-line critic of President Donald Trump. She described Trump as “the most undemocratic president in recent history”. Former Presidents including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama along with the incumbent Joe Biden had issued their condolences over the death of their dearest colleague. The Clinton family said: “She was one of the finest Secretaries of State, an outstanding UN Ambassador, a brilliant professor, and an extraordinary human being”. The Clintons added that Albright was a friend of theirs, saying she gave them “wise counsel” for years. Condoleezza Rice, who, under President George W. Bush, became the second woman to serve as US Secretary of State, called Albright “an American giant whose life and legacy will be remembered for generations to come”. The State Department paid tribute saying: “The impact she has had on this building is felt every single day in just about every single corridor.” “America had no more committed champion of democracy and human rights than Secretary Albright,” President Biden said. Meanwhile, the Arab world including Iraq and Iran had criticised her for imposing sanctions on Iraq. From the life of Madeleine Albright, a girl who went on to become the top diplomat of the most powerful nation in the world, we must learn that courage, talen,t and ability, when combined with fate, can conquer the whole world. (The author is a freelance writer who is currently studying at the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies [BCIS])  ………………………………………  The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.