Madeleine Albright, a native of Czechoslovakia who fled Nazi and communist persecution in Europe to become the first female U.S. secretary of state, has died at age 84.
Her family said on March 23 that she died of cancer, surrounded by family and friends.
Albright served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997 before being named as secretary of state by Democratic President Bill Clinton. She served in the State Department post for the four years of Clinton’s second term.
When she became secretary of state, Albright was the highest-ranking woman ever in the U.S. government, although she was not in the line of succession to the presidency because she was foreign-born.
Clinton said in a Twitter statement that Albright was "one of the finest Secretaries of State, an outstanding UN Ambassador, a brilliant professor, and an extraordinary human being."
Republican former President George W. Bush, who was often criticized by Albright, wrote on Twitter: “[Wife] Laura and I are heartbroken by the news of Madeleine Albright’s death. She lived out the American dream and helped others realize it.”
“She served with distinction as a foreign-born foreign minister who understood firsthand the importance of free societies for peace in our world. I respect her love of country and public service, and Laura and I are grateful to have called Madeline Albright our friend.”
Albright was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama in 2012.
As ambassador to the UN, Albright pressed for a tougher stance against ethnic Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina after Bosnian Serb military forces laid siege to the capital, Sarajevo, killing at least 10,000 soldiers and civilians.
As secretary of state, she played a key role in persuading Clinton to intervene militarily against Yugoslav and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic over his treatment of Kosovo's ethnic-Albanian population in 1999.
Kosovar leaders praised Albright's contributions to the small Balkan country's independence.
President Vjosa Osmani described her as "a great friend of Kosovo."
"She gave us hope, when we didn't have it," Osmani said in a Facebook post, adding that the "people of Kosovo will remember her forever."
"She became our voice and our arm when we had neither a voice nor an arm. She recognized the pain of our people because she had experienced persecution herself since childhood," she said.
She was born near Prague in 1937 as Marie Jana Korbelova. Her family fled Czechoslovakia in 1939 as the Nazis took over the country, and spent the war years in London.
After the war, as communists took over much of Eastern Europe, her Czech diplomat father took the family to the United States.