Standing For Freedom . Madeleing Albright President Clinton’s key advisers could hardly believe their ears when Madeleine K. Albright put it straight to tough guy Russian Foreign Minister Primakov. Tense negotiations were under way in the State Department conference room. Primakov was insisting that Moscow could not accept a NATO committed to the defense of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic---the very states forced into the Soviet empire 50 years ago. Fixing her eyes on his, Albright said firmly, “Neither the President nor I will allow the security or the rights of the Eastern European states to be bargained away. Primakov, the former chief of the Russian foreign intelligence service, had no answer for such simple yet resolute words that left no diplomatic wiggle room. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright may look like a pleasantly rumbled housewife, eyes round and bright as full moons. But being an aide and security agent, she tools across the globe with the zeal of a super-saleswoman. Her consuming wok is to explain to Americans the puzzles of post- Cold War foreign policy when, as she told Reader’s Digest, we confront “not an enemy with a face,” but huge problems such as international terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Albright is particularly well-suited to the job., Certainly on American Secretary of State in history could approach her personal experiences: a family run out of Prague, Czechoslovakia, first by Adolf Hitler, then by Joseph Stalin. Those dreadful events set her far apart from the rest of Clinton’s national security staffers – many of them postwar baby boomers whose views of the world were formed during the counterculture protests of the Vietnam War. Albright’s own life has taught her the meaning of freedom, the importance of national security --- and the vital role the United States plays in restoring the world to order. She was born on May 15, 1937, in Prague to Jewish parents. Shortly after Hitler arrived in Prague in March 1939, her father, Josef Korbel, a Czech diplomat, escaped with his wife and two-year-old daughter to a basement apartment in London, The city was soon in the middle of the Nazi blitz. “I spent huge portions of my life in air-raid shelters, singing ‘A Hundred Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall,’” Abright said. Soon the family moved to Walton-on-Thames, where “they had just invented some kind of steel table” Albright says. “If your house was bombed and you were under the table, you would survive. We ate on the table, slept under the table and played around the table.” While her father worked against Hitler in Czechoslovakia’s government-in-exile, six-year-old Madeleine went to school. A 1943 report card described her as a “ quick and lively” student who “ learns easily and remembers well.” Her grades were solid----except for one surprisingly low grade in geography. Abright was baptized and raised a Roman Catholic. She insists she was unaware of her Jewish background until recently, when Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs disclosed the truth of her heritage. Albright learned that her grandparents and several other relatives had perished in the Holocaust. How could she not have known? “Perhaps, when the truth about her family began to appear,” wrote Philip Taubman in the New York Times, “Albright thought it too late and too painful to dismantle the world her parents had constructed and she had preserved for herself and her children.” Now she has to expand NATO, walk the tight line of engagement with China and persuade American taxpayers that keeping the world safe does not come cheap. That’s a tall order, but Madeleine Albright has made an auspicious start. 當瑪德林直截了當地向強硬的俄羅斯外長普利馬科夫申明利害時，克林頓總統的高參們幾乎無法相信他們的耳朵。 在國務院會議廳裏，正進行着激烈的協商。普利馬科夫堅持莫斯科不能接受北約組織承擔對波蘭、匈牙利和捷克共和國的防禦義務——正是這幾個國家五十年前被強行納入蘇維埃帝國。 奧爾布賴特兩眼盯住對方堅定地說，“無論總統還是我都不會讓東歐國家的安全或利益有半點喪失。” 普利馬科夫，這位前俄國情報組織的首腦，對這樣簡單而毫無外交斡旋餘地的堅定話語無言以對。 國務卿瑪德林·奧爾布賴特看上去像是個和藹可親，愛嘮叨的家庭主婦，圓又明亮的眼睛如同滿月。而作爲助理和安全代表，她懷着超級推銷員的熱情足跡遍及全球。 她日理萬機的工作是爲了告訴美國人民冷戰後對外政策的難題。正如同她在《讀者文摘》裏說的，我們面對的“不是直接的敵人，”而是諸如國際恐怖主義與核擴散這樣的巨大問題。 奧爾布賴特與她的工作非常相稱。當然歷史上沒有哪位美國國務卿有着類似於她的個人經歷：一個逃出捷克斯洛伐克布拉格的家庭，先是由於阿道夫·希特勒，而後是由於約瑟夫·斯大林。那些可怕的事件使她與其他克林頓的國家安全官員迥然不同—— 他們中很多人是戰後人口出生高峯期出生的，他們對世界的看法是在反對越南戰爭的反主流文化中形成的。奧爾布賴特的親身經歷教給了她自由的含義，國家安全的重要性，以及美國在恢復世界秩序中所擔當的重要角色。 1937年5月15日她出生在布拉格一個猶太家庭。1939年3月，在希特勒到達布拉格不久，她的父親約瑟夫·戈倍爾，一位捷克外交官，與妻子和兩歲的女兒逃到倫敦一間地下公寓。這座城市不久就處於納粹的空襲之下。“我一生中很大的一部分是在防空洞中度過的，並常會吟唱起‘掛在牆上的一百個綠瓶子，’” 奧爾布賴特說。 不久全家又搬到泰晤士河邊的瓦爾頓，奧爾布賴特說：“就是在那裏他們發明了一種鋼鐵桌子，如果你的房子遭到了轟炸而你正呆在桌子下，你就有救了。我們在桌子上吃飯，在桌子下睡覺，在桌子旁玩耍。 當瑪德琳父親爲捷克斯洛伐克的流亡政府做反希特勒的工作時，六歲的她上了學。1943年的一份紀錄卡描述她是“敏捷而活潑”的學生，“接受力強且記憶力好。”她的成績很好——除了地理成績低得令人驚訝。 奧爾布賴特受過洗禮併成了天主教徒。她一直堅持說自己不曉得她猶太人的背景，直到最近《華盛頓郵報》的記者麥克爾·多布斯發現了她家族的真實情況。奧爾賴特得知她的祖父母和其他幾個親屬在大屠殺時喪了生。 她怎麼會不知道呢？《紐約時報》的菲利普·陶博曼寫道：“可能，當有關她家庭的事實行將顯現時，奧運會爾布賴特覺得將她父母給她構築的這個世界公之於衆爲時已晚且不堪回首，她已將此留在自己和孩子們的心中。” 現在她必須要擴展北約組織，在與中國的抗衡中走鋼絲以及說服美國納稅人維持世界安全不會只需區區數文錢。這並非輕而易舉，但瑪德琳已開了個好頭。
