Madeleine Albright, first female secretary of State, dies at 84

Marie Korbelova was born in the Czech Republic. She was known as Madla, Madlan, and Madlenka before her study of French led her to her first name, Madeleine.

The epicenter of a crisis in Europe in the 1930's was Czechoslovakia, which was protected by France and Britain. The act of naivete that tried to calm Hitler by accepting his territorial demands came to an end with the Munich Agreement.

Albright's family fled to England 10 days after the second bite, after Nazi Germany swallowed most of Czechoslovakia. Madeleine was given a starring role in a film about the plight of the emigre community in England during the war. She said she received a pink stuffed rabbit as a gift.

She learned in 1997 that her family had converted to Catholicism and that three of her grandparents had perished in the Holocaust. She did research and found her family history. Her personal sense of identity was complicated by the discovery.

I am a firm admirer of the Jewish tradition, but beginning at the age of 59 I could not feel myself in it.

The Soviets took over after the Nazis left Eastern Europe. Albright's family came to the United States in 1948, after briefly returning to Czechoslovakia, and her father taught international relations at the University of Denver.

Wellesley College is where she attended. After graduating, she married a publishing family member and they moved to Chicago, where she got a job. The couple had three girls, but their marriage ended when he left her for another woman.

She became a U.S. citizen in 1957 and later raised money for a failed presidential campaign. The 200 pizzas that were unordered were part of a dirty tricks campaign and the event she planned at the Washington Hilton became something of a Watergate footnote.

In 1977 Albright was brought into the Carter administration working for Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Carter's national security adviser. Brzezinski was wary of the Soviet Union and needed her to smooth out his relations with Congress.

She joined the faculty at Georgetown University after the Carter years and served as an adviser to Democratic candidates. Albright met Bill Clinton during the failed 1988 campaign.

Albright was nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to the UN by Clinton four years later. The end of the Cold War left it unclear what practical steps the world's last superpower was supposed to be taking.

The difference between being an academic and a policymaker is that you have to put your money where your mouth is.

She seemed to assume that Albright was not a favorite of the Secretary-General.

In 1996, Clinton chose her to replace Warren Christopher, who had been Secretary of State.

Albright told Christopher: "I can only hope that my heels can fill your shoes." She was confirmed unanimously.

She wrote that she called many people for advice, including every living secretary of state. I was chided by Henry Kissinger for taking away the one thing that made him unique. I told him that he would be the only secretary who spoke with an accent.

The former Yugoslavia, a nation that had split apart when the ethnic and religious differences of the population had become insurmountable, was confronted by more crises when Albright was in the United Nations.

The US intervention in Kosovo to protect the Albanian minority was dubbed "Madeleine's War" in some quarters.

The war in Kosovo has become ground zero in the debate over whether it is a conflict or not.

Albright worked on crises in the Middle East and Africa, as well as the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe, her native land. Albright said in 1999 that the nations of Eastern Europe had recently freed themselves from Soviet control.

Efforts were made to improve relations with Vietnam, China, and nations of the former Soviet Union. In October 2000 she became the highest-ranking US official to ever visit North Korea in an effort to lure the country into the family of nations. The juggling act was 40-way.

She is quoted as saying that foreign policy is a management process and that you can't take your eye off the ball.

Efforts to create a lasting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians failed, as did the U.S. outreach to North Korea.

She wrote that she was often asked if she was condescended to by men as she traveled around the world.

She established a cultural presence in the heady days after the end of the Cold War.

She became a chair of Albright Stonebridge Group and Albright Capital Management after leaving office. She was heard from on a lot of diplomatic issues. She was a sharp critic of American leaders she found to be inadequate.

Her books included 2006's "TheMighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs" and "Fascism: A Warning."

In 2010, she was the subject of a unique exhibit at the Smithsonian, collecting pins and brooches that had been part of her diplomatic arsenal. She said that the jewelry had served her as an icebreaker.

When we were negotiating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Russians, she told the Russian foreign minister that she had an arrow pin that looked like a missile. We make them small. Let's negotiate.

When Saddam Hussein called her a snake, Obama noted her penchant for jewelry with themes.

In summing up her career, Obama shared a story where an Ethiopia man came up to her at a naturalization ceremony and told her that she couldn't meet the Secretary of State in America.

During Donald Trump's presidency, she kept a close eye on what he did.

The course I teach at Georgetown is about how to use foreign policy tools. She wrote that the president would have a hard time passing it.

Myah Ward contributed to the report.