Much of official Washington paid tribute to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the first woman to ever serve in that role, at her funeral Wednesday at the National Cathedral.
Albright, who had cancer, died in March at the age of 84. She served as secretary of state from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton and as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. from 1993 to 1997.
President Joe Biden eulogized Albright, sharing a story about a speech he gave last month in Poland, where he said a crowd of hundreds cheered when he mentioned Albright's name.
With the NATO alliance critical in the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Biden highlighted her work to keep NATO "Strong and galvanized" when she was the nation's top diplomat.
Her approach to diplomacy and statecraft was coloured by her own experiences as a refugee who fled what was then Czechoslovakia with her family in the aftermath of World War II. She remained engaged with both American and international affairs until the end of her life, writing a book in 2018 warning about a resurgence of fascism and sounding an alarm about Russian President Vladimir Putin in a New York Times op-ed published just before Russia invaded Ukraine.
"In early 2000, I became the first senior U.S. official to meet with Vladimir Putin in his new capacity as acting president of Russia... Flying home, I recorded my impressions. 'Putin is small and pale,' I wrote, 'so cold as to be almost reptilian,'" Albright wrote in the Times.
"Few leaders have been so perfectly suited for the times in which they served... Because she knew firsthand that America's policy decisions had the power to make a difference in people's lives around the world, she saw her jobs as both an obligation and an opportunity," the former president wrote in a statement the day Albright died.
