For Immediate Release Sunday, May 9, 1999
Albright At War
"Up until the start of the conflict, the military served to back up our diplomacy. Now, our diplomacy serves to back up our military," Albright Tells TIME New York, NY - "More than anyone else, [Secretary of State Madeleine Albright] embodies the foreign policy vision that pushed these men into this war," writes TIME's managing editor Walter Isaacson. "And she is the one most responsible for holding the Allies- and the Administration - firm in pursuit of victory." Isaacson spent last week with Albright in Europe, reporting a day-by-day account of her crucial meetings with Russian diplomats as she worked to gain their support in the deployment of an international military force in Kosovo. "It was important to bring Russia into what we were doing," Albright tells TIME. "There were two tracks: keeping NATO together and bringing the Russians in closer. I think we've managed to do that." The story, "Madeleine's War," appears in TIME's May 17th issue (on newsstands Monday). Isaacson, who also wrote the biography Kissinger, observes that Albright lacks "Kissinger's ability (or desire) to conceptualize overarching strategic frameworks and analyze how an action in one corner of the globe can ripple around the world as through a spider web." He also notes that Albright does not have the same access to the President as was afforded previous Secretaries of State. Albright still resents the fact that the President allowed her to defend him on the Monica Lewinsky scandal without knowing all of the facts. "Asked if he owes her a public apology, if he has anything he wants to say about that, the President stares coldly for a few seconds and his face hardens. 'No.' Long pause. 'No. I have nothing more to say on that,'" reports Isaacson.