Madeleine Albright

1937 – 2022

Madeleine Korbel Albright was a Czech-American diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997 and as the first female U.S. Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Asked by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes in May 1996 about a UNICEF estimate that economic sanctions had contributed to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children, she replied that the choice was "very hard" but that "we think the price is worth it," a comment she later said she regretted phrasing that way but never disavowed in substance. She was an architect of NATO's 1999 air campaign against Yugoslavia and a vocal advocate for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM