When Albright left the Bush administration in 2001 as Secretary of State, she had visited 95 countries in four years. Even her then Russian colleague lamented her departure. To this day, she maintains a close friendship with former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer (Greens). Because of her European origins, transatlantic relations were particularly important to Albright during her tenure. However, the convinced US patriot did not want to follow the call of her friend, the then Czech President Vaclav Havel, to run for his successor in 2003.
For a long time, the vivacious politician did not think about withdrawing from the public: whether it was her commitment to impoverished women, a humorous short appearance in the cult TV series “Gilmore Girls” or her much-noticed participation in an anti-terrorist exercise – Albright made sure that she kept talking. In the US election campaign in 2008, she initially supported a candidacy for her gender colleague Hillary Clinton, but then later confessed to Barack Obama. In 2008 she represented him before he took office at the world financial summit.
She worked as a university lecturer, ran a consulting firm in Washington, was committed to promoting democracy and empowering women, traveled extensively, gave speeches and remained a sought-after commentator on international politics.
Strong words
When she was active, she was considered a tough negotiator and a friend of clear words. The energetic politician made devastating judgments about the policies of the George W. Bush administration, for example, when she described the Iraq war as “the greatest catastrophe in American foreign policy”.
Albright published a third autobiography in 2020. “Hell and Other Travel Destinations” deals with the “third act” of her life – her career after she left office in 2001, when she was 63 “not ready for the rocking chair”. Albright describes her extensive political work and various whoops in a thoroughly self-critical and entertaining manner.
Quote on coffee mug
The result was a “collection of stories shaped by the realization that we can all learn a lot from each other, have unique qualities and don’t have to be perfect role models”. She explained the title as follows: “I repeated the sentence ‘Hell has a place for women who don’t help other women’ so many times that Starbucks had it printed on a coffee mug.”
This was also the phrase at a 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign rally in Concord, a town in the state of New Hampshire, three days before the Democratic presidential primary. Albright received a shitstorm on social media for her words and also regrets her statement. “Encouraging women to help other women? Always a good thing. Telling a woman who votes for a man she’s going to hell for it? Not so smart.”
The Democrat was harsh on Clinton’s competitor from back then, the future US President Donald Trump. “Apparently, foreign policy for Trump is less a question of strategy than of style. He thinks it wise to make threats one day and be bluffing the next, jumping, tricking and bluffing at will.” , said Albright. In the field of national security, Trump has “achieved little, apart from making many grandiose promises,” the ex-US Secretary of State continued. Among other things, she mentioned his “dilettante and disgraceful attempt at blackmailing Ukraine, which he wanted to force to supply him with ammunition for his election campaign,” which “offended a long-time US ally.”
Albright found being secretary of state “wonderful”, “but that doesn’t mean that I always ran around whistling happily. There were days, and quite a few, when I left a meeting boiling with anger because I didn’t have myself again prevail,” reported Albright.