United States Secretaries Of State

"Twenty-two years later, Kosovo is the third-poorest country in Europe (after Moldova and post-coup Ukraine) and its independence is still not recognized by 96 countries. Hashim Thaçi, Albright's hand-picked main ally in Kosovo and later its president, is awaiting trial in an international court at the Hague, charged with murdering at least 300 civilians under cover of NATO bombing in 1999 to extract and sell their internal organs on the international transplant market. Clinton and Albright's gruesome and illegal war set the precedent for more illegal U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, with equally devastating and horrific results."

"Hugh, I know I shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event—something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough—and slow enough—so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?"

"Maybe it wasn't such a great idea for Hillary Clinton to invite Madeleine Albright to campaign for her in New Hampshire. During a campaign event in Concord on Saturday, the former Secretary of State declared: "Young women have to support Hillary Clinton. The story is not over!...They’re going to want to push us back," she continued. "It’s not done and you have to help. Hillary Clinton will always be there for you. And just remember, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other." And while it was not the first time Albright muttered that phrase, the backlash was swift and severe. Pointing to Albright's notorious defense of the 1990 sanctions on Iraq, during which she said that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children was "worth it," observers speculated about someone else who may end up in that "special place.""

"About half a million Iraqi children have died as a result of the sanctions. Of them, Madeleine Albright, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, famously said, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price-we think the price is worth it." "Moral equivalence" was the term that was used to denounce those who criticized the war on Afghanistan. Madeleine Albright cannot be accused of moral equivalence. What she said was just straightforward algebra."

"I really am tired of all the Clinton Democrats running around getting all-sanctimonious over Iraq. It was them who killed 1.5 to 2.2 million Iraqis through sanctions. Sanctions that Madeline Albright, their illustrious Secretary of State, when confronted with the fact of 500,000 dead Iraqi children, said it was a price she was willing to pay."

"There was now a bipartisan consensus on war, and it extended into the next conflict, Iraq. Indeed the predicate for that war had been laid by the previous administration, which hyped the threats of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction program. “No one has done what Saddam Hussein has done, or is thinking of doing,” Clinton’s secretary of state Madeleine Albright told the audience at a town hall meeting at Ohio State University in 1998. “He is producing weapons of mass destruction, and he is qualitatively and quantitatively different from other dictators.” When some in the room expressed skepticism, Albright attacked their character. “I’m really surprised that people feel they need to defend the rights of Saddam Hussein,” she said. At least one person in the crowd wasn’t intimidated. “You’re not answering my question, Madame Albright,” he yelled. Albright’s response: “As a former university professor, I suggest, sir, that you study carefully what American foreign policy is. Every one of the violations has been pointed out on what is not right, and I would be happy to spend fifty minutes with you after the forum to explain it.” She never did. Nor did Albright explain how exactly Saddam was “qualitatively and quantitatively” different from other strongmen around the world. She didn’t need to. Everyone back in Washington already agreed with her."

"..veteran Pentagon officials told the Senate Budget Committee in 1991 that military spending could safely be cut by 50% over the next 10 years... U.S. officials instead set out to exploit the post-Cold War "power dividend," a huge military imbalance in favor of the United States, by developing rationales for using military force more freely and widely around the world. During the transition to the new Clinton administration, Madeleine Albright famously asked Gen. Colin Powell, then chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" In 1999, as secretary of state under Bill Clinton, Albright got her wish, running roughshod over the UN Charter with an illegal war to carve out an independent Kosovo from the ruins of Yugoslavia. The UN Charter clearly prohibits the threat or use of military force except in cases of self-defense or when the UN Security Council takes military action "to maintain or restore international peace and security." This was neither. When U.K. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told Albright his government was "having trouble with our lawyers" over NATO's illegal war plan, Albright crassly told him to "get new lawyers.""

"Shortly after the end of the Cold War, virtually the entire American foreign-policy establishment succumbed to a monumentally self-destructive ideological fever. Call it INS.... Indispensable Nation Syndrome, along with the militarism that it’s spawned in this century... Back in 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright not only identified INS, but also captured its essence. Appearing on national TV, she famously declared, “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.” Now, allow me to be blunt: this is simply not true. It’s malarkey, hogwash, bunkum, and baloney.,, The United States does not see further into the future than Ireland, Indonesia, or any other country, regardless of how ancient or freshly minted it may be.,, To charge Albright with lying, however, somehow rates as bad form, impolite, even rude...To be fair, Albright herself is not solely or even mainly responsible for the havoc that INS has caused. While the former secretary of state promoted the syndrome in notably expansive language, the substance of her remark was anything but novel. She was merely reiterating what, in Washington, still passes for a self-evident truism: America must lead... we make the rules."

"Consider Madeleine Albright. The U.N. imposed draconian sanctions on Iraq, pushed by the U.S. and Britain after it invaded Kuwait. Before that, in 1989 Iraq was reported to have “one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, as well as universal, free healthcare and education.” (“Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq,” johnpilger.com, 1-15-05) Iraq’s remarkable health was due to President Saddam Hussein nationalizing the country’s vast oil resources, and investing certain of its revenue in the Iraqi people. This policy did not set well with Western oil corporations, which saw Iraq’s bountiful oil reserves as a gold mine to be controlled and tapped. The sanctions prevented Iraq from importing supplies of food and medicine and other necessities. A survey by two scientists, Drs. Mary Smith Fawzi and Sarah Zaidi, found that “as many as 576,000 Iraqi children may have died since the end of the Persian Gulf war because of economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council.” (“Iraqi Sanctions, Kill Children, U.N. Reports,” By Barbara Crossette, The New York Times, Dec. 1, 1995)"

"Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbors happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Mr. Putin. That is the message undergirding recent Western diplomacy. It defines the difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one answerable to no rules at all."

"Mr. Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, like to claim that we now live in a multipolar world. While that is self-evident, it does not mean that the major powers have a right to chop the globe into spheres of influence as colonial empires did centuries ago. -->"

"Mr. Putin must know that a second Cold War would not necessarily go well for Russia — even with its nuclear weapons. Strong U.S. allies can be found on nearly every continent. Mr. Putin’s friends, meanwhile, include the likes of Bashar al-Assad, Alexander Lukashenko and Kim Jong-un. If Mr. Putin feels backed into a corner, he has only himself to blame. As Mr. Biden has noted, the United States has no desire to destabilize or deprive Russia of its legitimate aspirations. That’s why the administration and its allies have offered to engage in talks with Moscow on an open-ended range of security issues. But America must insist that Russia act in accordance with international standards applicable to all nations.<!--"

"Although Mr. Putin will, in my experience, never admit to making a mistake, he has shown that he can be both patient and pragmatic. He also is surely conscious that the current confrontation has left him even more dependent on China; he knows that Russia cannot prosper without some ties to the West."

"Mr. Putin’s actions have triggered massive sanctions, with more to come if he launches a full-scale assault and attempts to seize the entire country. These would devastate not just his country’s economy but also his tight circle of corrupt cronies — who in turn could challenge his leadership. What is sure to be a bloody and catastrophic war will drain Russian resources and cost Russian lives — while creating an urgent incentive for Europe to slash its dangerous reliance on Russian energy. ... Such an act of aggression would almost certainly drive NATO to significantly reinforce its eastern flank and to consider permanently stationing forces in the Baltic States, Poland and Romania. ... And it would generate fierce Ukrainian armed resistance, with strong support from the West."

"Instead of paving Russia’s path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin’s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance."

"In the 20-odd years since we met, Mr. Putin has charted his course by ditching democratic development for Stalin’s playbook. He has collected political and economic power for himself — co-opting or crushing potential competition — while pushing to re-establish a sphere of Russian dominance through parts of the former Soviet Union. Like other authoritarians, he equates his own well-being with that of the nation and opposition with treason. He is sure that Americans mirror both his cynicism and his lust for power and that in a world where everyone lies, he is under no obligation to tell the truth. Because he believes that the United States dominates its own region by force, he thinks Russia has the same right."

"I have been reminded in recent months of that nearly three-hour session with Mr. Putin as he has massed troops on the border with neighboring Ukraine. After calling Ukrainian statehood a fiction in a bizarre televised address, he issued a decree recognizing the independence of two separatist-held regions in Ukraine and sending troops there. Mr. Putin’s revisionist and absurd assertion that Ukraine was “entirely created by Russia” and effectively robbed from the Russian empire is fully in keeping with his warped worldview. Most disturbing to me: It was his attempt to establish the pretext for a full-scale invasion. Should he invade, it will be a historic error."

"In early 2000, I became the first senior U.S. official to meet with Vladimir Putin in his new capacity as acting president of Russia. We in the Clinton administration did not know much about him at the time — just that he had started his career in the K.G.B. I hoped the meeting would help me take the measure of the man and assess what his sudden elevation might mean for U.S.-Russia relations, which had deteriorated amid the war in Chechnya. Sitting across a small table from him in the Kremlin, I was immediately struck by the contrast between Mr. Putin and his bombastic predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Whereas Mr. Yeltsin had cajoled, blustered and flattered, Mr. Putin spoke unemotionally and without notes about his determination to resurrect Russia’s economy and quash Chechen rebels. Flying home, I recorded my impressions. “Putin is small and pale,” I wrote, “so cold as to be almost reptilian.” He claimed to understand why the Berlin Wall had to fall but had not expected the whole Soviet Union to collapse. “Putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness.”"

"Get out, you disgusting Serbs!"

"I'm a critic. I think the administration has really undermined America's power and reputation and that Iraq may go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy, which means that I think it's worse than Vietnam in its unintended consequences and for our reputation. This president, because his administration is imposing democracy, which is an oxymoron, has, I think, hurt the concept. It is not just that the administration has been unilateral but that it has been unidimensional. It has paid attention primarily to one part of the world, without enough attention being paid to other parts."

"There is a significant moral difference between a person who commits a violent crime and a person who tries to cross a border illegally in order to put food on the family table. Such migrants may violate our laws against illicit entry, but if that's all they do then they are trespassers, not criminals. They deserve to have their dignity respected."

"When we're trying to solve difficult national issues its sometimes necessary to talk to adversaries as well as friends. Historians have a word for this: diplomacy."

"Armageddon is not a foreign policy."

"The victor of the war in Iraq is Iran."

"I'm not a person who thinks the world would be entirely different if it was run by women. If you think that, you've forgotten what high school was like."

"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."

"What really troubles me is that democracy is getting a bad name because it is identified with imposition and occupation. I'm for democracy, but imposing democracy is an oxymoron. People have to choose democracy, and it has to come up from below."

"I never should have made it. It was stupid."

"Mahmoud Abbas is a puppet."

"I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life"

"Little effort was made to explain Saddam's culpability, his misuse of Iraqi resources, or the fact that we were not embargoing medicine or food. I was exasperated that our TV was showing what amounted to Iraqi propaganda...I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. Saddam Hussein could have prevented any child from suffering simply by meeting his obligations. Instead, I said the following: 'I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.' As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong. Nothing matters more than the lives of innocent people. I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one's fault but my own."

"What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?"

"My deepest regret from my years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt these crimes."

"Lesley Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it."

"Our nation's memory is long and our reach is far."

"It is the threat of the use of force [against Iraq] and our line-up there that is going to put force behind the diplomacy. But if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."

"The Marshall Plan enabled the economies of Western Europe to overcome their dollar shortage and thus to finance trade and investment. This ensured that American-style technologies could be adopted and also that free trade would benefit at the expense of protectionism. The greater integration of the Western economy was an important consequence, and the Marshall Plan led to the European Payments Union, which encouraged the ready convertibility of currency, and looked toward the establishment of the European Economic Community. Marshall Plan Aid was rejected by the Soviet Union as a form of economic imperialism. This aid certainly represented a demonstration of American strength that could serve to create links. This rejection created a new boundary line: between the areas that received such aid and those that did not."

"I couldn't sleep nights, George, if you were out of Washington."

"General George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff during World War II, wanted desperately to lead the D-Day invasion of Europe. Any general would want to lead the "Great Crusade." But that didn't happen. The assignment went to General Eisenhower, one of his protégés and junior to him. President Roosevelt, well aware of how badly Marshall wanted the mission, discussed it with him. At the end of the conversation, as Marshall was leaving, Roosevelt said gently, "Well, I didn't feel that I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington." Marshall, that great man, knew his place was not to wade into the surf out of a landing craft in the Philippines or command the assault on the Normandy beaches, but to ensure that MacArthur and Eisenhower could."

"The quiet power of the man lay in his utter selflessness. It lay in the dignity that emerges from every photograph you've ever seen of him. It lay in his hard work and his immense personal sacrifice. It lay in his compassion, his wisdom. George Marshall practically defined those virtues. Yet he would have thought it odd if you had tried to congratulate him for these things. To him, those virtues were simply expected of a citizen of this country."

"George Marshall had continued to fade slowly through various health problems, but in early 1959 he suffered an incapacitating stroke in Pinehurst, North Carolina. It took until the spring for him to be safely transported to Walter Reed, where he declined from wheelchair to full-time bed rest to oxygen, catheter, and feeding tubes, in and out of consciousness. John Foster Dulles was also on the same floor, near the end of his life, and Ike brought the visiting Winston Churchill in for one final meeting with his faithful secretary of state. On the way out, they looked in on George Marshall, the man Churchill had honored at the coronation of his own queen. The general had not the slightest idea who either of them were. They both left somberly, Churchill wiping tears from his eyes. Marshall hung on until the fall and died quietly in the early evening of October 16, 1959. He had left explicit instructions forbidding a funeral at the National Cathedral or lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. He wanted no eulogy, and his interment was to be private. He left a short guest list that included Bob Lovett "if it is convenient" and Beetle Smith "if he is in town," but not Ike, though he left it up to Katherine to invite more guests as she thought appropriate. On October 20, a brilliant autumn day, his coffin was brought to the Fort Myer chapel for a short service. Before the family entered, Harry Truman and his former military aide, along with Dwight Eisenhower with his own aide, settled into the same pew in icy silence. When the abbreviated Episcopal rites were over, a caisson took the coffin down the hill from the Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to a grave next to the ones Lily and her mother had been buried in decades earlier. Katherine would join them there in 1978. Fittingly, his legacy is preserved primarily at the George C. Marshall Research Library on the campus of the Virginia Military Institute."

"Fleet Admiral William Daniel Leahy's death was announced by the US Navy. On July 22 at noon, his casket was moved into the Bethlehem Chapel of the Episcopal Cathedral in Washington, DC, and for the next twenty-four hours his body lay surrounded by a naval honor guard before being brought into the nave for the funeral. His eleven honorary pallbearers consisted of his old friend Bill Hassett and ten naval officers who included his few remaining living friends from the Annapolis class of 1897. After the service, a motor procession brought the admiral to his final resting place in Arlington Cemetery. A nineteen-gun salute was fired, and then Leahy was laid beside his wife, Louise, where she had awaited him for seventeen years. Neither Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, nor George Marshall were in attendance. Newspapers marked his passing, but the articles were perfunctory and often mistaken. The New York Times noted how he had all but disappeared from the public mind, having lived as a "recluse" for the past for years. The Washington Post missed his importance entirely, writing, "Yet despite his inner position, his contribution to evolving defense concepts probably was not profound." When George Marshall died three months later, the reaction could not have been more different. President Eisenhower issued a public proclamation announcing Marshall's passing and extolling his greatness. He ordered that the national flag be flown at half-mast on all US government buildings, military facilities, and warships, both at home and abroad, and to be kept that way until after the funeral. both Truman and Eisenhower attended the funeral, and Truman described Marshall as "the greatest general since Robert E. Lee... the greatest administrator since Thomas Jefferson. He was the man of honor, the man of truth, the man of greatest ability. He was the greatest of the great in our time." The general's death was soon followed by a hagiographic biography, the foundation of Marshall scholarships, a Marshall library, Marshall public schools, Marshall awards- a whole industry to perpetuate his memory. To this day, historians claim, with scant evidence, that he determined US strategy in World War II."

"Throughout the war, the four of us- Marshall, King, Arnold, and myself- worked in the closest possible harmony. In the postwar period, General Marshall and I disagreed sharply on some aspects of our foreign political policy. However, as a soldier, he was in my opinion one of the best, and his drive, courage, and imagination transformed America's citizen army into the most magnificent fighting force ever assembled. In number of men and logistical requirements, his army operations were by far the largest. This meant that more time of the Joint Chiefs were spent on his problems than on any others- and he invariably presented them with skill and clarity."

"The President and the Prime Minister had discussed the matter repeatedly, and both seemingly favored Marshall for the command. King felt that Marshall too wanted it, although he never said so. It was only natural, in King's view, that he should want it, as it was the most enviable duty that could come to any military man during the war. Nevertheless King felt strongly that Marshall was indispensable as a member of the Joint and Combined Chiefs of Staff, however desirable he might be as Supreme Commander. During the Quebec Conference when Secretary Knox, who had by exception been present for a couple of days, King had insisted forcibly that Marshall could not be spared, as he was a key-man, both in the United States and in the Allied organizations, and it seemed a poor idea to swap horses in midstream. Secretary Knox had countered that no one remembered the name of the Chief of Staff of the Army during World War I, whereas everyone knew General Pershing. King had pointed out, however, that World War II was very different from World War I, since now there were many oceans and many continents to be considered, against the single Atlantic Ocean and the single continent of Europe in the previous war."

"We were conscious of a great sense of excitement about the plan. Marshall himself was a great, great man — funny, odd but great — Olympian in his moral quality. We'd stay up all night, night after night. The first work ever done that I know about in economics on computers used the Pentagon's computers at night for the Marshall Plan. I had a tremendous sense of gratification from working so hard on it."

"George Marshall was in the habit of speaking bluntly to his superiors. As a young captain with the American Expeditionary Force in France in 1917, he had dared to correct General John J. Pershing in front of a group of fellow officers. Pershing responded by making Marshall his principal aide. But despite his anointing by the legendary Pershing, Marshall, in common with almost all officers of the postwar years, had languished in the missionless peacetime Army, where promotion was slow and action rare. He remained a lieutenant colonel for eleven years. He uncomplainingly accepted a series of apparently dead-end assignments: with the tiny U.S. Army garrison in Tientsin, China; with the Illinois National Guard; and even with the Civilian Conservation Corps. Yet everywhere he made a consistent impression as an outstanding soldier. His directness, his keen analytic mind, his unadorned speech, and his granitic constancy evoked admiration that bordered on reverence. More than one of his commanding officers, answering the routine efficiency report question of whether they would like to have Marshall serve under them in battle, replied that they would like to serve under his command- the highest of soldierly compliments. Marshall was just shy of six feet tall, ramrod-straight, invariably proper, impeccably controlled, and determinedly soft-spoken. Most associates saw only fleeting glimpses of his potentially volcanic temper."

"For all their disagreements, King and Marshall had formed a good working partnership. Marshall did not ask for too much on MacArthur's behalf, and King refused to squeeze every drop of blood from the Army at the cost of his relationship with Marshall. The hard-swearing, hard-drinking womanizer from Ohio understood, better than most Army strategists, the symbiotic relationship among air, land, and sea forces. It would be a long war, and though they would lock horns from time to time, he and Marshall knew they would have to "get along" a while longer."

"Marshall testified before the appropriations committee and, shortly afterward, the money was forthcoming. Americans had read of the destitution in Europe and were in the mood to help. In the end, seventeen countries participated to the tune of $17 billion for four years. The Marshall Plan was credited with speeding European recovery by perhaps a decade. The Soviet Union declined to participate and refused to let its satellite countries do so, dooming them to even more backwardness than the Communist economic system that held them down. Marshall for the second time became Times Man of the Year in 1947, and six year later he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work."

"While he was in Europe, Marshall traveled around and was appalled by what he saw- wrecked homes and buildings, people on the verge of starvation, recession, black markets, begging in the streets, and black despair. He began to realize that if something were not done t alleviate the situation Europe might fall into the abyss. By this time, following the death of Franklin Roosevelt, politically, the honeymoon was over for Harry S. Truman. Marshall knew that, in the present air of austerity, Congress was unlikely to make any large appropriation in the president's name to assist the situation in Europe. So on June 5, 1947, at the graduation ceremonies at Harvard where he was receiving an honorary degree, Marshall surprised the world by announcing the need for a European recovery program led by the United States. It was broad, expansive, and expensive. All European nations were invited to participate, including the Soviet Union and its new satellites, though Marshall added, "Any government that maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us." The Europeans that applied for help, he said, must come up with their own plan, and America would support the program "as far as it may be practical for us to do so." European reporters had been alerted to the speech and it caused a great stir in the press. One of Truman's advisors suggested to his boss it ought to be named the Truman Plan, but the president was politically savvy enough to know that would be difficult if not impossible to get past the Republicans in Congress. "Call it the Marshall Plan," Truman said."

"Several premises shaped the Marshall Plan: that the gravest threat to western interests in Europe was not the prospect of Soviet military intervention, but rather the risk that hunger, poverty, and despair might cause Europeans to vote their own communists into office, who would then obediently serve Moscow’s wishes; that American economic assistance would produce immediate psychological benefits and later material ones that would reverse this trend; that the Soviet Union itself would not accept such aid or allow its satellites to, thereby straining its relationship with them; and that the United States could then seize both the geopolitical and the moral initiative in the emerging Cold War. Stalin fell into the trap the Marshall Plan laid for him, which was to get him to build the wall that would divide Europe."