Madeleine Albright, the first woman to become the US Secretary of State, has died, according to a statement from her family.
Albright was 84, and the cause of death was cancer, his family said.
"She was surrounded by family and friends. We have lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend," the statement said.
He served as Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001 during the Clinton administration.
Former President Bill Clinton said in a statement Wednesday afternoon: "Hillary and I are deeply saddened by the passing of Madeleine Albright. She was one of the finest Secretaries of State, an outstanding Ambassador to the United Nations, a brilliant professor and an extraordinary human being. was." , "Some leaders have adapted perfectly to the time in which they have served."
Albright was born in what was then Czechoslovakia and fled with his family after the Nazis captured the country in 1939.
According to a biography by the State Department of the Historian, Albright's father Joseph was part of the Czechoslovak Foreign Service and became ambassador to Yugoslavia.
President Biden commented on the challenges Albright faced as a young woman.
"She was an immigrant fleeing persecution. A refugee in need of safe haven. And before — and after — she was a proud American. To make this country she loved even better — she broke convention and repeatedly broke barriers," Biden said in a statement on Wednesday. "Madeleine was always a force for goodness, grace and decency, and for freedom."
Biden has also ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and American public buildings and grounds to honor Albright.
The historian's office said that his family moved to Denver, Colo., in 1948 after the communist coup in Yugoslavia. Albright became a US citizen in 1957 and earned a bachelor's degree in political science with honors from Wellesley College in 1959. He did Ph.D. in Public Law and Government from Columbia University in 1976, the office added.
Albright's career in politics began as chief legislative assistant to the late Sen. Edmund Muskie, Democrat of Maine, from 1976 to 1978. She continued to serve as a White House staff member for former President Jimmy Carter and the National Security Council. From 1978 to 1981, the office added.
Before serving as Secretary of State, he was appointed ambassador to the United Nations by Clinton in 1993.
"As Secretary of State, Albright promoted the expansion of NATO into former Soviet bloc nations and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons from former Soviet republics to rogue nations," the historian's office wrote.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the current US ambassador to the United Nations, called Albright "a trailblazer and a luminary" during Wednesday's meeting of the General Assembly's emergency special session on Ukraine.
Thomas-Greenfield said, "He left an indelible mark on the world and the United Nations. Our country and our United Nations stand strong for his service."
Albright spoke with NPR last June ahead of a meeting between Russian and American leaders in Geneva. Albright recalled that she first met Russian President Vladimir Putin in 1999. He was "trying very hard to align himself with President Clinton," she said.
"Well, my first impression was that he was trying to find out who he was. But my impression in the second two meetings was that he loved the background of living in the Kremlin with all his history, that He was smart, that he was prepared and he had a vision of how things were going," Albright told NPR.