Home Appointments Secretary of State
Secretary of State
US State Department
| Appointee | Madeleine Albright |
|---|---|
| Role | Secretary of State |
| Organisation | US State Department |
| Domain | Cabinet & Government |
| Start | 23 January 1997 |
| End | 20 January 2001 |
| Notes | First female US Secretary of State |
Institutional context
The Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State and the senior member of the Cabinet by precedence. The office was created in 1789. From 1789 through 1997, every holder was male — a span of 208 years.
Career path
Albright was born in Prague in 1937 and emigrated to the United States in 1948 with her family. She earned a BA from Wellesley, an MA and PhD from Columbia, and worked for Senator Edmund Muskie and on the National Security Council staff under Zbigniew Brzezinski during the Carter administration. She was a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service before being appointed US Ambassador to the United Nations in 1993 by President Clinton.
Appointment
Clinton nominated her as Secretary of State in December 1996 at the start of his second term, and she was confirmed by the Senate by 99–0. She was sworn in on 23 January 1997 and served until 20 January 2001.
Tenure
Four years. Her tenure included the eastward expansion of NATO to the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999, the Kosovo War, continued sanctions on Iraq, and engagement with North Korea over its nuclear programme.
Cluster context
Albright's appointment is among a small group of US Cabinet firsts in the late 1990s and early 2000s — Reno at Justice in 1993, Albright at State in 1997. The State Department's first-woman line continued with Condoleezza Rice in 2005 and Hillary Clinton in 2009; three of the four immediate successors to Albright were women, marking State as one of the earliest US Cabinet departments to register sustained female leadership.