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On Jan. 22, 1997, the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Madeleine Albright as secretary of State. She was sworn in the following day and became the highest-ranking woman to serve in any federal government post to that point. She was born in Prague to Jewish parents while her father was a Czech diplomat. Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and later Communist rule there motivated her parents to move the family to several countries before arriving in the U.S. in 1948, when Albright was 11 years old. Her interest in international affairs was evident as early as high school, and she studied politics and international relations at Wellesley College, Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University. She worked in newspapers before joining the Carter administration in the West Wing in as the National Security Council’s congressional liaison. She was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for the Clinton administration, and was a proponent of US support for the financially-beleaguered organization — although highly critical of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali — which put her at odds with several members of Congress. She also favored expanding NATO and the use of U.S. military force in Iraq in 1998.
(Time/Wikipedia)
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