It is with sadness that I learned of the death of Madeleine Albright on March 23rd. The media has well covered her extraordinary journey and the important role she has played over the years, including as United States Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001. I had the privilege of working with Ms.me Albright in 2009-2010.
Posted yesterday at 2:00 p.m.
I was about to finish my assignment as Ambassador to Austria and to the international organizations based in Vienna when the NATO Secretary General at the time, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, telephoned me to ask me to join the Group of Experts independent bodies he had decided to create to prepare a draft new strategic concept for the Alliance.
Rasmussen explained to me that the time had come to take a broader approach to security issues and that my experience in the field of human security, which Canada had strongly championed, would be useful to the group. He also added that this group of 12 experts would be chaired by Madeleine Albright. How to refuse such an opportunity? I obviously hastened to reply that I would be honored to participate in such a reflection exercise.
So I found myself at NATO headquarters in the fall of 2009, a bit anxious to meet the 11 other members of that group who all had direct experience of NATO because they had served there as ministers or as ambassadors.
And then, Madeleine Albright took the floor to explain her approach to us. From the outset, she was able to put us all at ease by saying that we should address each other by our first names and that no subject was taboo. We were there to explore new ideas and think outside the box (think outside the box).
For about six months, our group met at intervals in Brussels and in various capitals of NATO member countries. We only made one visit outside the NATO zone, that was to Russia. Mme Albright felt it was important to talk to the Russians and explain to them the approach that we were going to propose to the member states of the Alliance.
Our visit to Moscow in January 2010 was quite difficult, in particular our meeting with Sergei Lavrov, the ineffable Russian foreign minister, who received us with a flurry of invective on NATO’s treachery.
That was the only time I saw M.me Albright lose some of his countenance. It took a lot of effort for him to keep calm and get Lavrov to stop talking about the past and look to the future. But she succeeded because she was a diplomat at heart.
With finesse and humor but above all with formidable efficiency, Madeleine Albright was able to lead us to formulate a report that was both dense and resolute entitled Guaranteed security: a dynamic commitment, which contained observations and recommendations notably on collective defence, crisis management, cooperative security and relations with Russia. This report served as the basis for the negotiations that led to the adoption of NATO’s Strategic Concept at the Lisbon Summit in November 2010, a concept still in force today.
Madeleine Albright was 72 when I met her. Thinking of her, I can’t help but remember her incredible energy (she could chair our meetings in Brussels after a flight from New York without going through her hotel) and her various fancy brooches with which she brightened up her sober suits. and which one suspected reflected his mood if not his thinking at the time.
I also remember the tasty anecdotes she regaled us with during our more informal moments. I was the only other woman in the group of experts, which allowed me to develop a certain bond with this exceptional woman who taught me a lot about the art of conciliation, which we so need in this troubled period.