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“PAYING TRIBUTE TO MADELEINE ALBRIGHT” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the in the House of Representatives section section on pages H4491-H4496 on April 26.
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PAYING TRIBUTE TO MADELEINE ALBRIGHT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Jacobs of California). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Slotkin) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
General Leave
Ms. SLOTKIN. Madam Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the subject of the Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Michigan?
There was no objection.
Ms. SLOTKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act
Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to urge passage of the Lend-Lease Act for Ukraine. I think Madeleine Albright would like this very much.
Putin's unprovoked war on the sovereign nation of Ukraine is an attack on freedom-loving people around our globe. Not since the costly tragic wars of the 20th century has the world seen such a test of liberty's survival.
The Lend-Lease is an uncommon tool for uncommon times. These are uncommon times.
Justice Franklin Roosevelt marshaled U.S. arms for the aid of our allies in World War II. We must now marshal those same resources to defeat a tyrant seeking to rebuild his fallen, tyrannical empire.
Ukraine is the scrimmage line for liberty on the European Continent. If the world allows Putin to claw Ukraine under his command, our Central and Eastern European allies may very well be next.
The time to act is now. Pass the Lend-Lease Act. Arm Ukraine. Defeat the Russian war machine. The fate of liberty rests in the balance. This is our watch in freedom's defense. Let us meet this test.
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman very much for yielding time.
Ms. SLOTKIN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to one of our country's greatest public servants and diplomats.
Madeleine Albright was a stateswoman, a trailblazer, and someone who has been a friend and mentor to me and to so many other women in national security.
I appreciate Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer for creating this Special Order hour and allowing me to host it here and allow Members of Congress from across this entire body to contribute some remarks, some recognition, for a woman who has done so much to change the course of history in the United States.
I think it is particularly important because not only was she our first Secretary of State, not only was she at the U.N., not only does she have a storied history in national security in the executive branch, she was also here in Congress as a Congressional aide, a chief of staff, a national security staffer, that made her mark in this body as well.
She was also a national security staffer at the White House, one of the first women to represent our country in the United Nations and, of course, our very first female Secretary of State. Her remarkable career and achievements are made all the more astonishing by the fact that she first came to this country as a refugee, having first left Czechoslovakia to escape the Nazis and then again to flee communist rule in Eastern Europe after the Second World War.
Secretary Albright would be the first one to tell you that her story would only be possible in the United States, the country she loved and served even long after her time in government had come to an end.
She left her stamp at the U.N. and at the State Department with her intelligence, her passion for human rights, and her unwavering commitment to democratic ideals. On the world stage, she stood up to dictators, shined the light on human rights abuses, and championed diplomacy and democracy.
Even though she had always been an idol for me as a young woman in national security, I actually didn't get a chance to meet her until 2018, until I became a Member of Congress. But the years that I have spent getting to know her since then have been incredibly important to me.
I think what many of us will recognize and remember is the class of 2018--that large group that were elected in 2018 to come into this body--it had the most women that had ever been elected; one of the most diverse classes that had ever been elected; one of the classes that contained the largest number of national security people; people that were veterans; and people that were former intelligence community folks--like myself. Madeleine Albright was the speaker when we all traveled to Williamsburg for our orientation, our session to get to know each other and how to be a Member of Congress.
I met her there, along with her wonderful chief of staff, Jacob Freedman, and basically had the honor of hosting her and walking her around the room. What I remember very clearly is that she had admiration coming at her from every corner: young, old, early parts of their career, later parts of their career, and, importantly, Democrat and Republican.
One of the fondest memories I have from that first year with her was when she actually took me up on an offer to come to Michigan in early 2020, right before the pandemic really began. We did a road trip around Michigan together.
I will go into that in just a moment, but I note that the Speaker has just arrived on the floor.
We did this road trip across mid-Michigan. She was already over 80 years old. She took me up on this offer. She spoke at Michigan State University. She spoke at Oakland University. She did events for folks at restaurants and in private homes. We had her on an incredibly busy schedule. She kept us on our toes, and she was never short of a kind word or a borderline saucy joke the entire time. No matter where we went, her presence was electric.
One of my proudest moments was when we brought in all the honor students from the Rochester and Rochester Hills area. These are young people, still in high school. I actually questioned whether they would have a connection to this woman who had been the first female Secretary of State long before some of them were born. It took about 1 second for her to get a complete rock star welcome. All the students who came out were desperate to talk to her about service, about being the first female Secretary of State, about how to think about leading in their own careers, and all the barriers that she had shattered.
At a separate event at Oakland University, the reception was no less boisterous. We had, I think, up to 500 people. We were oversold; people from across the community wanted to come in. And even at a moment of deep polarization for our country, here was a woman who seemed to supersede politics.
For us in Michigan, with so many Michiganders who left the Balkans to come to the United States and resettled in Michigan, she, with that community, is truly a hero. It is now etched firmly into the history books that Secretary Albright was the driving force behind engaging the United States and ending the genocide in the Balkans.
She understood that while America is not perfect, the world is better off with a strong American leadership role in that world. She used her moral authority to bring American might into that conflict and then later negotiated the peace that, ever-tenuous, still holds today.
Her visit to Michigan was filled with people whose fates were quite literally changed by her having a seat at the table as Secretary of State, and being able to see that up close was a truly remarkable experience for me and for all the people who came to greet her.
I would be remiss if I didn't point out that as someone who has spent her career in national security, there just aren't that many senior women we have to look up to for guidance, for mentorship. There are very few women who had navigated the complicated waters of working and leading in male-dominated fields.
Not only did Secretary Albright blaze a new trail for women in national security, she also raised the bar for all of those who would succeed her. She became the gold standard. Despite all the accomplishments and accolades, this was a woman who never let ego cloud her actions.
{time} 1930
She was humble and gracious with everyone I saw her meet and engage with in Michigan, students, parents, perfect strangers. She was generous with her wisdom and insights, but never full of herself.
For her, the work she did in government was always about serving the country that she loved, the country that welcomed her and her family as refugees when she was just 11 year old.
Her preferred way of continuing to serve after leaving office was by teaching the next generation of national security leaders. Her passion for her students at Georgetown University was evident to everyone around her, and it is no exaggeration to say that an entire generation of rising public servants are better prepared for the challenges of the 21st century thanks to her guiding hand.
So this is how I will remember her: As a down-to-earth, warm, saucy leader who meant something to perfect strangers and world leaders alike. I am so grateful for the years that I had to get to know her and for the chance to introduce her to the next generation in my State.
As we mourn the loss of this incredible humanitarian, we also celebrate the life and achievements of a woman whose impact, both here at home and in the farthest corners of the globe, will be felt for many years to come.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Speaker of the House.
Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Slotkin for arranging for this Special Order and for just speaking so beautifully about Madeleine Albright, a person that we all loved so very, very much for so many years. And to hear the gentlewoman, a new Member, a relatively new Member of Congress, but a woman in national security making her own mark in a significant way, recognize the greatness of Madeleine, it is just a joy to us to see another generation of women leaders in security speaking about Madeleine.
Madeleine Albright was a stateswoman. She was a champion of national security in our country. She was the embodiment of the American Dream; her family coming when she was 11 years old, a refugee to our shores. Her personal story is the makings of novels and movies and the rest.
But she was fresh and frisky, and she had a sense of humor that was wonderful. And I remember the night that there was a debate in St. Louis for the Presidential, when President Clinton was running for President; we had dinner after the debate. And I said well, Madeleine, would you like--are you interested in participating in the administration?
I was a relatively new Member of Congress at the time. And she said, I am not going--I don't want to go overseas. I said, I know what you want. You want to be Ambassador to the U.N. Because that would be of the stature, and yet she did not want to go overseas. She wanted to be home for all kinds of different reasons. And what a magnificent Ambassador she was for us to the United Nations.
And then, as it would turn out, to become the first woman to be Secretary of State. This is such an exalted position. Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State. And Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State.
And as Congresswoman Slotkin said, she had boundless energy. She would be--well, she was on the campaign trail after serving as Secretary of State, on the campaign trail, and she was, as the gentlewoman said, a rock star. She was a major attraction. People loved to see her.
I want to say, because my husband loved her so much, my husband, Paul, who was the chairman of the board of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service for a couple of decades I think. It seemed like a long time. He worshipped at the shrine of Madeleine Albright. When she would call me, if he had the phone first, I would have a hard time getting it away from him because he thought they were the best of friends. She was my girlfriend in addition to being someone I admired so greatly.
And she would always call the day before your birthday because she wanted to be the first one to wish you happy birthday which, of course, I was looking forward to this year. And instead, we would get this very sad news, with all the dignity of Madeleine Albright, with all of the warmth and greatness of her, be with her family, right up to the end.
Alice, Anne, and Katherine, thank you for sharing your mother with us; and again, to sister, Kathy, and brother, John.
Another thing I want to mention about her is I don't know how many of you were at the funeral of Brzezinski, National Security Advisor Brzezinski. Two people spoke at his funeral in the church. Some of us spoke afterward in the more informal setting. But two people spoke at his funeral; President Jimmy Carter and Secretary Madeleine Albright. And what a beautiful compliment to speak for another great American patriot born overseas and coming to America to make his mark.
And she spoke so beautifully about America and about patriotism, about civic responsibility, and of the contribution he made; that she was chosen to make that speech with the President was really so clearly appropriate and great to hear her speak.
Now, she had a collection of pins, and she would always say, when she would go to give testimony or whatever it is, ``read my pins.'' Sometimes it would be an American eagle. We never knew what it might be. And she even toured the country with her pins, and people showed up to see Madeleine's pins, because she had something about her that was--
she knew how to connect with people. You know, this great intellect and the rest.
I will just go back to Paul in closing to say this: She taught at Georgetown for 40 years, for 40 years. The gentlewoman mentioned this next generation of young diplomats and the rest. They took such pride in her leadership, her service, her being a professor there, that they were cooking up how they were going to observe her 40 years and this or that; and again, she had other plans, to be in heaven and look down on all of us.
How wonderful it is that tomorrow, many of her friends from Congress and--she made us all feel as if we were her best friends. I mean, I thought so.
So many of her loved ones, whether they were diplomats or people in service, would be there to praise her as an Ambassador to the United Nations and Secretary of State, she represented our Nation with great poise and distinction and brilliance on the world stage and worked relentlessly to keep Americans safe and America secure.
As a trusted voice on foreign policy, and those jobs, and beyond, and beyond, because her influence extended long after her actual service in public office, but also as a professor, she was quick to sound the alarm at the rise of autocracy. As you know, she wrote about that in her book, at home and abroad, a prescient warning that remains an important guide and resource today.
And then, as a professor at Georgetown, which we, the Pelosi family, take great pride. My husband went there; my kids went there; I have an honorary degree there, and we all feel associated with Madeleine.
She shaped the next generation of leadership by sharing her hard-
earned wisdom and experience.
So tomorrow, many of her loved ones, whether it is from government, politics, security, academic world, friendship, girlfriends, hair dressers, wherever we met together, her family, first and foremost, which she loved so much, will join Madeleine's family and her loved ones to pay our final respects at her memorial at the glorious Washington National Cathedral.
I said final respects. I meant final respects for tomorrow. We will be paying our respects to her in many things that are being planned already. The presence of so many Members and diplomats at her memorial, and two Presidents of the United States to speak at her service, will be another testament to the monumental impact she made on our Nation and the world.
I wish everyone would read the op-ed that another Secretary of State, a national figure, Hillary Clinton, wrote about Madeleine Albright. They were kindred spirits. They loved each other very much. They worked together with great respect for each other and for our country in such a beautiful way.
Please, if you can, go to The New York Times and read what the Secretary of State--I think she may be speaking tomorrow, too. I don't know what the program is. I think she may be speaking tomorrow, too.
So God truly blessed America with the life and the service and the leadership and the goodness of Madeleine Albright. May she forever rest in peace.
And again, I thank Congresswoman Slotkin for affording us all the opportunity to pay our respects to our dear Madam Ambassador, Madam Secretary, Madeleine Albright.
Ms. SLOTKIN. Madam Speaker, I thank the Speaker for that personal tribute.
I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the majority leader.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Michigan for yielding. And the Speaker pro tem, Ms. Jacobs, how proud Madeleine Albright would be of the two of you standing here, presiding here, and giving tribute to an extraordinary woman who must have been, particularly for women--she was for me as well, but particularly for women, an extraordinary example of success, of focus, of intellect, of achievement. And I thank the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Slotkin) for taking this Special Order.
Madam Speaker, tomorrow, as the Speaker just said, at the National Cathedral, really the cathedral--America's cathedral, many of us will gather to remember and celebrate the extraordinary life of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Secretary Albright was a dear and valued friend for over 35 years. As the chair of the Helsinki Commission, I worked closely with her on issues related to human rights and foreign affairs for years, for a decade that I was chair.
Secretary Albright was a diplomat, a teacher, and a mentor to so many who now serve in our diplomatic corps and the world of foreign policy.
She was an author who used her pen and her voice to urge us both to see the untapped possibilities in our world, and not to ignore the dangers that confronted our country, our freedom, and our democracy.
Perhaps most of all, Secretary Albright was someone who never forgot the experience of being a refugee and a survivor of war and genocide. It gave her great insight and determination to confront the enemies of freedom and human rights.
Her family fled Czechoslovakia when it fell under the oppression of Nazi occupation. Her determination was spurred as well when Czechoslovakia fell under Stalin's heel. That experience pushed her to spend her life working to keep others safe from those evils and to ensure that the world's democracies, led by America, took action to help those fleeing conflict and danger.
In 2018, she released a masterful book that everyone ought to read:
``Fascism: A warning.''
She said in that book: ``Throughout his time in office,'' she wrote of Vladimir Putin, ``He has stockpiled power at the expense of provincial governors, the legislature, the courts, the private sector, and the press. A suspicious number of those who have found fault with him have later been jailed on dubious charges or murdered in circumstances never explained.''
She saw then very clearly the threat that he and others pose to democracy in our time.
I miss her wise words. Luckily, she wrote a lot of them down and those were some that we certainly ought to remember; those insights, as Ukraine's brave fighters battle a new tyranny and another criminal dictator.
After she died, just days following Vladimir Putin's criminal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom the Speaker just mentioned, said: ``As has happened so often, the man with the guns was wrong, and Madeleine was right.''
Right now, as the world confronts Putin's aggression, as we and our fellow democracies stand up to authoritarianism and tyranny, we do so better prepared, Madam Speaker, because of the warning and lessons that Secretary Albright gave us.
{time} 1945
In many ways, the most fitting tribute to her memory is the unity we and our allies are demonstrating in the face of Putin's threat to democracy, decency, and international law.
Before Secretary Albright's death, President Biden had committed $424 million toward his Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal, which drew heavily on Secretary Albright's proposals and sought to tackle the challenges she identified in her book, ``Fascism: A Warning.'' ``It is easier,'' she wrote, ``to remove tyrants and destroy concentration camps than to kill the ideas that gave them birth.''
This is a war of ideas, and America must lead the fight for democracy.
Now, Secretary Albright's legacy is felt throughout the global alliance of our democratic allies and partners confronting Vladimir Putin and Russia together, where billions of dollars in both military and humanitarian assistance are being mustered and deployed in defense of democracy and human rights, the cause for which she lived and of which she spoke so eloquently.
After Secretary Albright died, I spoke at length with my foreign policy adviser, Mariah Sixkiller, who was a part of the group that met at Secretary Albright's home for 15 years for discussions about American leadership around the world. I asked Mariah to write a few words of her recollections. She told me: ``I was honored to be at her table for 15 years and to learn from this great stateswoman. She was,'' as the gentlewoman from Michigan has pointed out, ``witty, wise, bold, and brilliant, even until her final days,'' even, as the gentlewoman from Michigan said, someone as old as 80.
Mariah Sixkiller went on to say: ``She had the perfect combination of good humor and unique charm.'' Our Speaker just reflected that, as the gentlewoman from Michigan did. ``She made us laugh even at the hardest times.''
All of us who knew her and who worked with her during her time in government remember that characteristic wit and charm, along with her keen intellect and her vision of a more perfect Union and a more perfect, peaceful world.
Madam Speaker, I particularly admire the dedication she had to the mission of standing up for the rights of women and girls worldwide.
As the first woman to serve as Secretary of State, a successor to Thomas Jefferson and so many other extraordinary leaders who have served in that post--including, of course, Secretary Clinton--at a time when women were still having to prove they belonged in boardrooms and around Cabinet tables dominated by men, she felt a unique responsibility to be a voice for girls and women striving to be all they could be, undefined by gender alone. And she was that voice.
She knew that when women had more political, social, and economic freedoms, societies are better off in every way. Democracies, she believed, are stronger, and democratization is more successful when women and girls can pursue opportunities in safety, equality, and freedom. The fight for women's rights never ended for her.
Even as recently as just a few months ago, Secretary Albright was working furiously to push for more action to help women and girls in Afghanistan.
We left Afghanistan. We left Afghanistan with the hopes that there would be some civilized action by the Taliban. Sadly, we have seen that they returned to their old ways of discrimination and putting down, disallowing young women to go to school to prepare themselves for leadership. Secretary Albright was active and, as a matter of fact, the leader of the National Democratic Institute, which she chaired and which argued strenuously for the rights of those girls and those women.
That was the last time we spoke directly, as we worked together to help save these courageous Afghans who dedicated themselves to the goal of creating a democratic future in their country.
In the final months of her life, Secretary Albright wrote down some reflections to be included in a new memoir. Discussing what she perceived to be her own shortcomings, she shared this: ``My parents taught me what the best teachers tell us all: that it is no sin to make a mistake but unpardonable not to try to make the most of our talents.''
Fortunately for America and people around the globe, Madam Speaker, Secretary Albright made the most of the many, many, the legion of talents which she had and with which she was gifted.
One of the greatest was as a teacher. As the Speaker said, she was a teacher for 40 years, and I would correct the Speaker and say she was a teacher for at least 60-plus years. Although probably prior to 20, she was a teacher as well. She taught thousands of students over the course of an almost 40-year career in academia.
As a professor in the practice of diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Secretary Albright helped train and launch the careers of so many who are leaders today for America's foreign policy and national security.
That is why so many of us are going to honor her tomorrow, and we will not ever forget what she contributed to this country, a perfect example of how important it is to accept and have come to this country the brightest minds, the most committed people. What an extraordinary example she was of the enrichment that immigration has given to this country.
Moreover, she had an unwavering belief that women in the field of foreign policy must support each other.
Mariah didn't give that quote. I know Mariah is listening right now. Mariah Sixkiller was my national security adviser, and she worked with me. Very frankly, Mariah knew what I believed before I believed it. She was extraordinary. The inspiration that Secretary Albright gave to Mariah is still fired up in her eyes, in her speech, and in her thinking.
Secretary Albright served as a mentor to scores of other young women who were students, as well as her colleagues at the State Department, and she strove to ensure that these women got a seat at the table.
Secretary Albright's legacy will live through these women who have followed in her footsteps and become the Foreign Service officers and ambassadors working hard on behalf of the American people today and for a long time to come.
Madam Speaker, we are so fortunate to have their talents in service to our country as a result of Secretary Albright's example and advocacy. I, again, repeat, as I am sure she is watching, she is so proud--I hope of our friendship--but so proud of Congresswoman Slotkin and so proud of Congresswoman Jacobs as they rise on her behalf as leaders of this country.
Tomorrow, we will bid Secretary Albright farewell, but our country and its leaders would be wise to keep her close in our hearts and in our minds in the weeks, months, and years ahead.
In many ways, the battle underway between democracy and despotism is one that Secretary Albright so presciently foresaw. That battle, which currently rages in Ukraine, reminds us, as she did, that the price of liberty is, in fact, eternal vigilance.
We face a torturous road ahead, one that will demand our energy, our faith, our perseverance, and our courage, all of which Secretary Albright displayed throughout her life.
She believed that democracy would surely prevail, but she knew that that result required our constant attention. When democracy prevails, as surely it must, it will be in no small part due to her work, her contributions, and her service.
God blessed America with an extraordinary woman whose name was Madeleine Albright, and that name will be remembered for a long, long time to come.
Ms. SLOTKIN. Thank you, Mr. Leader, for those words.
I know we have a few other Members of Congress who are trying to make it here, and so I will just say a couple more things as we wait for them to come in.
When I was with Secretary Albright and brought her to Michigan, we were on this road trip. I think most people know she is not a tall woman. No one ever would describe her as a tall woman. She was quite petite. I drove her around in my Ford Escape, and we had to kind of help her into the front seat.
It happened to be what is called Paczki Day in Michigan, Fat Tuesday. It is when we all eat these jelly doughnuts full of powdered sugar on top. We brought a box of those in the car, and she indulged me and tried a paczki that day.
We just had hours in the car driving around my very large district and got to talking. I think that one of the best things you can have when you are a younger person learning from someone who has really broken glass ceilings is you have time with them to just hear stories about what life was like.
She told me that her one regret in life is that she never ran for Congress. She never ran for office. She was a chief of staff up here, a legislative assistant. She was adjacent to campaigns pretty much her entire adult life, but she never actually ran herself.
I can only imagine how successful she would have been as an elected leader because, as Speaker Pelosi mentioned, she had that thing where she could connect deeply with anyone from any background. Not all Members of Congress elected today have that, and she had it in spades.
She had an ability, despite all the amazing things she had done, to connect with real people, with strangers. I think people understood that she was confident because she had seen a lot of things in her life, and the woman had a code.
She had a code that she believed in, a principled place with which she engaged in the world. When you meet someone who has a code, you don't have to question whether they are kind of like a leaf blowing in the wind, that they will bend to whatever whim. You have the confidence to know that this person is going to make decisions based on character and integrity. She really had that, and it kind of oozed out of her. People could see that and feel that.
I know that this body would have been much strengthened should she had ever decided to run for office. I am sorry that we all didn't get to see that, but she helped so many of us who were seeking elected office.
Then, just to add to what the majority leader said about her famous quote, that there is a special place in hell for women who don't help women--I think we have all seen that quote. I think most women understand exactly what that means, but let me just give you an example for many of us, particularly in national security, of what that really meant.
When I joined the CIA as a young CIA officer in 2003, I was put on the Iraq desk. We were in the middle of the Iraq war, and I would often go and brief the senior-most folks at the CIA on kind of what was happening on a daily basis. I would often go with mostly male colleagues into these rooms and brief very senior folks.
At the time, there were a couple--just a couple--of very senior women at the CIA. They had clawed their way to the top. I think at that point, the most senior woman was the number three at the CIA, and there were a few other senior women in the analytics side of the house.
I would go in and brief, and I remember very clearly going in with all of my male colleagues, my peers, and this very senior woman kind of had it out for the only other woman in the room. There was a generation of women who were basically so sort of tough in making it to the top that they really internalized this idea that there could only be one senior woman. There could only be one woman who was in the shop with the boys. So any other woman that came there was a threat, and you were going to put your sights on that woman.
I remember my male colleagues saying, man, like, she just has it out for you. It was a thing that a lot of us in national security grew up with. Now, I am happy to say that, a few years later, that generation largely retired, and in came the next generation of senior leaders who believed in lifting women up.
But when Madeleine Albright gives that famous quote, that there is a special place in hell for women who don't help women, she knows of what she speaks. It is not a general statement. It is something that I know she specifically had to deal with as a woman who was a leader on the Hill, a leader in the executive branch.
{time} 2000
And it is very hard when you are trained a certain way to change your approach and say I am not going to repeat that kind of aggressive focus on women, and I am going to learn from my experience and do something different. I think she really embodied that. That was a very real thing that was still going on until relatively recently in national security circles.
Lastly, as we wait for Mr. Malinowski, somewhere in the ether, he texted me to say that he was on his way. I will say that I noted that Secretary Albright died just about exactly a month after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I know that in her final days she was watching, I am sure with rapt attention, what was happening in the world.
As has been said many times tonight, she really was a person thinking ahead that this competition between democracy and autocracy was not over. It was not something of the past, it was not a Cold War-era phenomenon that didn't exist anymore. It was very alive, like a bone in the throat.
It gives me great peace that despite the terrible things that are going on and watching the suffering of the Ukrainian people that Madeleine Albright spent her life trying to push back on the kind of violence and dictatorship that we see active right now. Her words and lessons are helping us parse through what to do in a place like Ukraine.
We have a history in places like Europe, particularly the Balkans, in using American willpower and military power to help get us through these conflicts because she laid that predicate by pushing in her era when she was Secretary of State.
Despite the fact that she didn't get to see the end of this conflict, I know that she would feel confident that whether it is in a few weeks or a few months, whatever time it takes, that the principles of democracy and freedom are not things you can just snuff out with the barrel of a gun. I am sure she would have felt that deeply as she was watching in her final days the events taking place in the world.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Malinowski).
Mr. MALINOWSKI. Madam Speaker, when people sometimes ask me to name an unusual fun fact about myself, something that no one would quite believe would be true, I sometimes say that at a younger point in my life I had a chance to write and negotiate a four act parody performance of ``West Side Story'' with the Russian Government. I owe that experience to Secretary Madeleine Albright.
I was a young speech writer at the State Department when she became Secretary of State. I was so thrilled to have that opportunity because here I was an immigrant from Poland when it was a Communist country. Our new Secretary of State was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, leaving that country under duress with her family when it became a Communist country. I felt a kinship with this extraordinary American, a sense that we saw the world in similar terms.
I saw her in every part of the world stand up for our country, for our values, for our interest. I saw her face down dictators and comfort their victims. I saw her sense of fun.
In 1997, we were on our way to a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, in Malaysia, and we learned a couple of days in advance that there was a tradition that every delegation would put on a skit at the end of this diplomatic meeting, something very, very unusual. We heard, furthermore, that the United States had developed a reputation for really sucking at the skit. That was not acceptable to Madeleine Albright.
She was going to go and stand up for democracy in Burma and Cambodia and have a standoff with the Chinese over the South China Sea, but we were also going to win the skit. So she assigned me to write a brand new version of ``Don't Cry for me Argentina'' from ``Evita,'' which became ``Don't Cry for Me ASEANs.'' We all got up there and performed it, not really knowing what the reaction would be. It was reviewed in Playbill on Broadway. It was such a surprising hit.
We learned something really interesting, in diplomacy you can actually say anything, no matter how sensitive, no matter how potentially offensive to your diplomatic partners around the world, if you make it rhyme and you put it in a song.
So the next year we got even more ambitious, and we went to the Russians, and said, Would you like to do ``West Side Story'' with us? They said, Yes. So my job over the most stressful week of my life, counting my last two elections, was to negotiate into long hours of the night with the Russian diplomats the jokes that we would make in this four-act production of ``West Side Story.''
We didn't think that they would do it until the last minute. The night before the performance, at midnight, the foreign minister of Russia, Yevgeny Primakov, who had been the head of their KGB, stumbled in with his aides into Secretary Albright's suite completely drunk, and said, We are ready to rehearse. We knew that we had it.
Those were obviously simpler days, better days, when we could fight with the Russians on all kinds of issues, but still find fellowship and some friendship and some opportunity to laugh together.
Times have changed. When I look at what is happening right now to the brave people of Ukraine and the evil that Russia has unleashed on them, and so many other terrible things that the government of Vladimir Putin has done in recent years, I thank goodness for what Secretary of State Madeleine Albright did in the 1990s, particularly her role in leading the first expansion of the NATO alliance.
She understood and saw, before most people, that it would be unjust to stay allied with Europe's old democracies, France, Germany, the United Kingdom forever, but Europe's new democracies never, simply because they had once, against their will, had been subjugated by the Soviet Union.
She also saw it would be unwise, in fact reckless, to allow these Eastern European democracies to stay in a gray zone of insecurity, to signal to Russia that it could, in effect, do what it wanted in this zone, that America would not defend these countries.
She said then of NATO expansion that it was basically about expanding the part of Europe where wars do not happen. By making clear that we, the United States, will fight, if necessary, to defend our allies there, we would make the necessity of doing so actually far less likely. She was right.
Not a single member of NATO, old or new, has ever been attacked on European soil to this day. The only countries Russia has attacked are countries that do not have NATO's defense guarantee.
I think one reason she saw these things is because as an immigrant to America, as an immigrant from tyranny, she saw America from the inside but also from the outside. She saw what America means--what the idea of America means to a human rights defender in Burma, to a dissident in China, to a refugee from violence in Kosovo or Bosnia. She comforted so many of those people and convinced them that America was on their side.
She believed America is a special country, indeed, an indispensable country. She understood that our influence in the world comes not just from the example of our power, but from the power of our example at home.
In her last years, when I would see her, she would often tell me that one of her greatest regrets was she never had a chance to run for office. She was jealous of those of us who had worked with her over the years who decided to run for Congress because she understood that we can't do anything for others if we are not safe and strong at home in our own great, American democracy.
Years ago, when I worked for her she gave a commencement address, and I will just close with these words that she spoke: ``There is no certain roadmap to success, either for individuals or for generations. Ultimately, it is a matter of judgment, a question of choice. In making that choice, let us remember that there is not a page of American history, of which we are proud, that was authored by a chronic complainer or prophet of despair. We are doers. We have a responsibility, as others have had in theirs, not to be prisoners of history, but to shape history; a responsibility to fill the role of pathfinder, and to build with others a global network of purpose and law that will protect our citizens, defend our interests, preserve our values, and bequeath to future generations a legacy as proud as the one that we honor today.
``To that mission, I pledge my own best efforts and summon yours.''
We pledge our best efforts to that mission here today, and we summon those of everybody who is watching this evening.
Ms. SLOTKIN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those moving remarks.
As I conclude here, I just want to thank everyone who came to speak, and I feel extremely proud that these remarks and just a taste of the Secretary's legacy will be kept forever in the official Record of the people's House.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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