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Former Secretary of State Visits Winchester

Madeleine Albright visited Winchester Friday night to talk about her new book and hold an informal conversation about U.S. and world politics.

 

Sponsored by the Connect and Commit campaign that advocates community service learning and addressing larger social needs outside the classroom, and in partnership with Bookends, the former, first female Secretary of State, Director on the Board of Foreign Relations, U.S. Ambassador to the UN and current college Professor at Georgetown University, Dr. Madeleine Albright visited the Friday night at 7 p.m. to talk shop and her new book, "Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War 1836-1948."

 This marks Albright's second tour through Winchester, the first coming on the heels over her 2009 book, "Read My Pins." “I feel very much at home in Winchester,” she related.

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Albright was invited by friend and Connect and Commit Co-Founder Pam Reeve, who also acted as interviewer for the informal talk. Dozens of Winchester resident's paid $65 dollar (which was donated to the Connect and Commit campaign) in order to listen to Albright speak and get a copy of her latest memoir.

Albright, who just last week received the Medal of Honor from President Obama, was funny, endearing and very informative concerning a host of issues stemming from discussions surrounding her new novel.

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Albright's Prague Winter

“I decided to write this book to understand who I am,” Albright stated as shes detailed what spurred her to write Prague Winter, her latest of five books that details the complicated history of her home country of Czechoslovakia through her personal journey. Albright explained that when she became Secretary of State under Clinton, a Washington Post journalist doing a biography on her brought to her attention her Jewish heritage and research of those from her family that were killed in the Holocaust. Albright and her immediate family would flee her hometown of Prague to avoid the Nazi regime and she was unaware of this connection.

“The book really has three layers,” continued Albright, citing family, World War II and moral choices and their consequences towards leadership as these layers.

The informal talk with Albright jumped topics frequently, hitting on some very important political ideas. She spoke about her UN seat and engagement in Bosnia to halt the ethnic cleansing of Serbians, a use of force that had her butting heads with top U.S. generals like Colin Powell. On this subject, Albright mentioned, “I began to examine the role of the United States as a global leader,” further detailing that she was put off by sentiments from constituents who said, “'why should we worry about people in a far off land whose names we can't pronounce.'”

The Story of the Parachutists

Albright went into detail about a story from her book that was related as, The Parachutists. As the Nazis entered Czechoslovakia and “dismantled it,” Albright and her parents fled. Albright recalls the questions often being asked: what should be done to stop the Nazis? Ultimately, assassinations of top Nazi officials, specifically against Final Solution architect, Reinharrd Heidrich, were carried out by a special forces team that parachuted back into Czechoslovakia to carry out the dangerous mission.

The retaliation of the Nazis after the assassinations was to kill thousands of civilians. Despite this atrocity, the parachutists were aided in avoiding Nazi capture by the citizenship, risking and sometimes losing their own lives to save the elite team. Albright didn't want to spoil the end of the story, but mentioned that it speaks to the “bravery of the soldiers and Czechoslovakia people, and to the hideous nature of the Nazis.”

On ... Revenge Versus Forgiveness

From this story, Albright flowed into another topic her book covers: what happens when power moves from the oppressor to the oppressed and should they seek revenge? As the Nazis were expelled from her home country, Albright was critical in her analysis of the brutal revenge the Czech people took on the German minority. Alrbight related this to the ethnic cleansing of the Serbians she fought to deter in Bosnia in 1994-5.

Albright presented the statement and query, “revenge is something where you question your own behavior […] this is a lesson for all of us today. Where do we assign individual guilt versus assigning guilt to a people or a culture?”

On ... Global Politics

Jumping to the issue of a globalization, Albright said, “the rule of a leader is to protect his or her people. When that doesn't happen, what is it the international community's role and who does it?”

Albright also said global leaders have to be aware of, “the very important idea of national sovereignty” that it is another cultures' country and interference, for whatever reason, can create severe moral dilemmas for the invading and natural communities.

On ... The Second Bush Administration

Briefly, Albright focused on George W. Bush's administration saying, “although I have my issues with the second Bush administration, I don't think they sat in their offices trying to make bad decisions.”

On ... The Current Political Climate in Washington

Albright then jumped gears and made some comments about the current stalemate in Washington, detailing, “I wish we could have a civilized conversation about the role of government in the 21st century,” which was met with a round of applause.

On ... The Millennial Generation in Public Service

Albright mentioned that Darfur protests and movements began with college students and praised the attitudes of the millennial generation for their conscious attitude towards global issues and community service, saying they are far more active in issues outside their own public sphere, adding, “compared to students I taught in the 80's that were more focused on their retirement plans.”

Soon after, Albright related, “I really admire the millennial generation, they have blown me away in a variety of ways […] one way is how to welcome the returning veterans. That is a new level of community service we have to focus on.”

Wrapping Things Up

After a few questions that had Albright explaining her disapproval of the current state of the UN (“there are real questions if the security council is representative of the world now”) a brief look at the possibility of peace in the Middle East, (“the questions is – to what extent – where is the political will? The answers are there, we just have to have the goal to come together”) and lastly, on the over-arching idea of her book, (“the motto of Czechoslovakia is, 'truth will prevail' […] we can look inside all of us and ask this question of truth. At the core of my book this is the theme, it's about human spirit”) Albright wrapped up her second tour of Winchester by signing her book for her long line of fans.

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