E-mail a friendMadeleine Albright
airdate January 10, 2008
Now a professor at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Madeleine Albright was America's first female secretary of state. Her public service career includes U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and positions on the National Security Council. Albright co-founded the Center for National Policy and chairs the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. She's also the author of three New York Times best sellers, chair and principal of Albright Capital Management LLC and chair of Albright Stonebridge Group.
Former Secretary of State shares advice she offered Sen. Clinton for her presidential campaign. (3:23)
Madeleine Albright
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Madeleine Albright back to this program. The former secretary of state and national security counsel member is the founder of the Albright Group and a bestselling author. Her new book is called "Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership." She joins us tonight from Washington. Madame Secretary, nice to have you back.
Madeleine Albright: Great to be with you, Tavis, thank you.
Tavis: I want to discuss some news issues first before I come back to the book. I hope that's possible, though, that we can, in fact, restore America's reputation and leadership.
Albright: Well, it's absolutely necessary, but I've got to tell you it's not going to be easy. And the next president is going to have a very hard job. It's not going to be possible to restore our reputation immediately, but for starters it would be very important to close Guantanamo and to take some responsibility for what happened at Abu Ghraib because those are kind of code words for what has happened to our reputation.
Tavis: Hold on for that just for a second; we'll come back to the book. I like the tease, so we'll come back to it in two seconds. Let me start, though, with some of the news of the week. You, as I mentioned earlier, are a Hillary Clinton supporter and what do you make of this victory in New Hampshire this week when even inside of your own camp, that is the Clinton camp, they had themselves in their own polls losing to Barack Obama by 11 points. What happened?
Albright: Well I have to admit that I don't have a clue of how the polls work, but I was up in New Hampshire earlier in the week myself, and I think that a lot of hard work went into it. Hillary really threw herself into the campaign. She went to a lot of different places, she answered a lot of questions and I think really opened up in terms of her passionate interest in issues. And I think it really made a difference. Everybody feels really good about it, Tavis.
Tavis: I made the mistake one time of saying - I say mistake in quotes - but made the mistake one time of saying to a "Washington Post" reporter - actually, the "Washington Post" editorial board was interviewing me one day and I said to them, in answer to a question about Hillary and Barack and John Edwards, about Hillary Clinton, I said, "Well, I like her a lot, she's always been nice to me, but I'm not so sure she has a soul."
And that story ran, of course, the front page the next day in the "Washington Post" and I ran into Mrs. Clinton the next day and she walked up to me and give me a hug as she always does and whispered in my ear, "And by the way, Tavis, I do have a soul." Now that soul came out, I think, in New Hampshire a few days ago when people saw her, in answer to I think a very good question, really start to express what those of you who know her best see all the time, we are told. What's your sense, though, having said all that, of whether or not that had any impact on the large turnout of women voters for her in New Hampshire?
Albright: I have to say it's hard to tell. Clearly, it's one of the moments that was run over and over again, and certainly discussed by commentators. She has thought all along that many women were obviously her constituency, and whether they hadn't made up their minds till the last minute or what, but I do think that that moment did exactly what you pointed out.
Those of us that know Senator Clinton, Hillary, well know that she is a person that cares passionately about the issues and wants to be president in order to make a difference. And I think campaigns are very hard and you have to kind of stay always in charge of yourself in order to get through the day. And she is a person who is very smart, very determined, but truly, truly compassionate and that came through, I think, in response to that question.
Tavis: I wonder what kind of advice you have given her that you might be able to share with us, given that you are a woman who has achieved some pretty historic firsts. What advice do you give her about trying to be the first woman to do what she's doing in the way that she's doing it?
Albright: Well the thing I've said to her is that it is not easy to be the first woman in any one of these positions because you have to set the tone. People have expectations that you can do something or should do something that is not possible. But you also have the opportunity to really make a difference. I have said to her, frankly, what she said to me, because I had moments when I was secretary and the press wasn't so great.
And she'd call me up and she'd say, "Madeleine, suck it up, this is how it goes. Put a smile on your face. We all have our ups and downs." The thing, though, that I have told her, and I think you've probably noticed this, Tavis, is that often, different adjectives are used for exactly the same characteristics in a man and a woman.
A man is passionate; a woman is emotional. A man is bold; a woman is aggressive. And so I think that's the hardest part, is presenting yourself and not getting caught up in how people might be wanting to describe you.
Tavis: So finally before I move on to some other issues, what is your sense, then, to that wonderful description you've just offered - and I couldn't agree more - that we still live in a very sexist world. When a man cries - I told somebody the other day, Secretary Albright, you know this as well as I do; even better because you're closer to him than I am - Bill Clinton cried more times as president than I can count.
This cat cried all the time. But when men cry, it shows our sensitive side. When women cry, they're weak. What's your sense of how the media played this story this time around?
Albright: Well I think there was not just a uniform view. I think some of the media saw it as a moment of true Hillary and others made kind of different aspects of it. I think people are going to analyze it for a while. The truth of the matter is is that she cared deeply and she won the other night in New Hampshire. And there are any number of reasons that she did; I would not put it to that.
I would put her win to the fact that she really worked hard and that people began and I hope will continue to understand what a great president she would be and that she has compassion, and at the same time she's ready to be president on day one. And I think as we talk about my book, you'll see I believe this is going to be a very hard presidency and we're going to need that combination of determination and compassion.
Tavis: I want to jump right to the book after I ask you quickly about President Bush's trip to the Middle East. Some think it's too little, too late. You think what?
Albright: Well, we don't know how the whole trip is going to come out because he has a very large regional trip. I do think it's late. Seven and a half years into a presidency where the Middle East is one of the crucial issues and trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian disputes, for the president to come this late I think is unfortunate.
But I'm glad that he has now considered this an important issue, that he is trying to get the Israelis and Palestinians to talk about the basic aspects. But if he had followed up right away with the kinds of negotiations that President Clinton was able to do before he left, I think it would have made a difference.
Tavis: To the book now, "Memo to the President Elect." You mentioned moments ago two issues; that the president ought to grab and wrestle with immediately Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and the stench still left behind that. Go back to those two points.
Albright: Well, I think that I have said in other places and I continue to repeat that I think the war in Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy. I think we have to be very proud of our troops and we owe them a great debt of gratitude, but the mission has been very muddy and it has had unintended consequences.
And one of them is that we are now viewed in a very negative way by the world because of the torture and various aspects of Abu Ghraib and the lack of law as we question people at Guantanamo base. And so those are kind of symbolic aspects of a policy that's gone wrong in fighting terrorism.
The main thing, though, I think, and the Democratic candidates are saying this, is that one of the first things that the next president has to do is to end the war in Iraq. And there are various plans for it, and despite the fact that our troops and the surge seems to be working militarily, politically, we haven't gotten very far in Iraq.
Tavis: What tools, Madame Secretary, do you think are in fact or will in fact be available to the next president?
Albright: Well, my book really describes what this national security toolbox looks like, and even at best, they're not always a lot of tools in there. Foreign policy is just trying to get some country to do what you want. And so what are the tools? And diplomacy is a tool that hasn't been used very much in the last seven years, and I think that is a tool that is available and needs to be used because that is the way to get countries to talk to each other and we gain a greater understanding.
We can also use economic tools. There are the sticks, like sanctions and embargos, but there are also carrots, which can be assistance or forgiving debts or trade that is free and fair to the United States. And then there's always the use of force, and that is the last tool that should be used, not the first. But I would really advocate that we take a very close look at diplomacy, both bilateral, between two countries, and then multilateral, when we work with other countries.
Because Tavis, the issues that are out there that have to be dealt with, which are fighting terrorism, nuclear proliferation, global warming, the gap between the rich and the poor, the problems with imposing democracy; those are issues that just by their very nature require the cooperation of a lot of different countries.
Tavis: No matter how much a president-elect might disagree with the outgoing president on any number of issues, where our reputation is concerned, how does a new team come in and do a 180 on foreign policy without sending the wrong message to the world when this president hits the oval office?
Albright: I think that's a very good question, because one of the things that I always talk about is foreign policy doesn't come in four-year segments just because that's our election cycle. And I was very critical of the fact that the Bush administration came in and said out loud that their policy was ABC - anything but Clinton.
So whatever things we had on the table, whether they were the Middle East peace talks or negotiations with the North Koreans to have them get rid of their nuclear potential, you have to assess which of the various issues that are out there have a possibility of success. Not everything is bad. I think that there's some movement on North Korea; we'll see where the Middle East peace talks are.
There have been some increasingly good relations with Libya, for instance, and some that I think are worth following. And so one has to look at it, but I do think, Tavis, that the thing that has to be different is the style of the next president. Not just telling everybody what to do and also considering the advice of his or her advisors.
I think as we now look at the record of the Bush administration and some books are coming out about it, it's clear that divergent voices were not really tolerated and that's one of the reasons that we're in this mess.
Tavis: Finally, Madame Secretary, I assume, given you've written the book, that you don't disagree with this assessment, but there are those who think that the damage to our reputation around the world is, at least some of it, irreparable.
Albright: I never want to say irreparable because I am an optimist. However, an optimist who worries a lot. I think it's going to take a while. And I think the hard part, Tavis, is that there are going to be a lot of expectations for the next president. He or she cannot turn things around - people say the first 100 days. I think we ought to throw that concept out and to set priorities and to realize that we're in a pretty deep hole and that it's going to take a lot of work.
And I think the most important thing is the next president has to challenge the American people to understand our role in the world, ask things of us, and work very hard to restore the good reputation of the United States.
Tavis: Earlier this week we had on this program former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell and tonight we're honored, of course, to have former Clinton secretary of state on this program, Madeleine Albright. Her new book is "Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership." Madame Secretary, you're always welcome here and I'm glad to have you.
Albright: Great, Tavis, thank you so much, and I can still say happy New Year.
Tavis: Thank you, and to you, as well.
Albright: Thank you.
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