Week wherever books are sold and watch for many of the authors in the near future on book tv on cspan2. History and biography is sponsored bywells fargo. [music] welcome everyone, everywhere here with Madeleine Albright, 64th secretary of state and here to talk about her new book Madeleine Albright hell and other destinationsand i just finished reading it and i look forward to having a conversation with Madeleine Albright about it. Welcome to our broadcast today. Great to be with you david, i enjoyed talking with you anytime. I am at the Jefferson Building in the library of congress, madeleine is at her home in the washington area. We had a longstanding relationship because madeleine and i were young staffers in the white house under president carter and i followed her career ever since then with great admiration so madeleine, this is her seventh book since you left as secretary of state so did you ever imagine when you finished as secretary of state first woman to ever serve as secretary of state that you would write seven books in addition to the other things were going to talk about you done since you left as secretary of state. It never occurred to me i would write so many but i didnt think it was important for people who had served in office to write their memoirs because that is the basis of people really understanding what happened and everybody writes a somewhat different version of what they saw and its up to researchers to figure out what happened so i had planned always to write a memoir. I see behind you in your home you have a lot of books. Youre obviously a big reader and a writer as well but the most obligatory thing people do when they leave as secretary of state is like the memoirs of their time as secretary of state and you wrote that book called madam secretary. How long did it take you to write that and was it difficult to bring back all the memories and did you enjoy writing it and after it was over did you sayone is enough . I have to tell you it took me quite a while because it was something i had to figure out based on the calendar, what i had doneand to really look at it. And the thing that happened is i think youll remember this in many ways the Clinton Administration really didnt take an awful lot of notes so i had these scratchy pads of things and i finally, when i saw my schedule it was like a Rosetta Stone and i could figure out whatit is i had done. But i did think it was important to write it. I have to tell you without showing off, i had met governor Garcia Marquez and he said to me when you write your memoirs, dont be angry and i thought it was very good advice. Its not the time to take out whatever problems you hadwith somebody and i think its important to do it. It did not occur to me i would write any other books but there was always a reason to write them because i needed to elaborate on that memoir in madam secretary so then i wrote a book about my childhood dog winter which was also part of a memoir and then his last book is my post Public Service memoir so i have written quite a few and by the way, to be totally honest, iobviously had help. I worked with him when i was in the government and we worked together and its important to get the notes right and to really know what youre talking about and recollected as best you can on one of the booksyouve written about is your 10, youre wearing one today. Youre pretty famous for the pins. What was the genesis of wearing pins and why did you write a bookabout that. Say i clearly like jewelry and what happens is when i got to the United Nations in 1993, was after the gulf war. The ceasefire had been translated into a sanctions resolution. I was an instructor than an ambassador and my instructions were to make sure that the second state on but i said something awful about senator hussein every day. He deserved it, and all of a sudden something appeared in the papers in baghdad comparing me to many things but among them an unparalleled purpose so i started wearing this great pin when we talk about direct and oppressed picked it up. As you know the ambassadors would go out and theyre suppressible and one of the reporters said why are you wearing pins i went to the fact that i had been here on the surface and i said this is fun so i went out and i bought a lot of Costume Jewelry to reflect what i thought we were going to do on any given day so on good days i were brown,. And on bad days a lot of carnivorous animals and spiders. Other ambassadors would say to me what are you going to do today i said read like you and the reason that i thought it was worth writing a book about and having to travel and election was that i always try to make foreign pauses and all the kids that are in the collection are in the book have some kind of foreignpolicy story. And i explain it so thats the reason and by the way the state department has been opening a Diplomacy Museum and im giving the whole collection been. Thats generous. Let me bring everybody up to see who may not have followed your career. You worked Oncapitol Hill for senator muskie. How was your first job as a professional might say out of the house after your children were raised then after that he went towork in the white house where i met you , working for Steve Brezinski who had been a professor of yours when you got your phd at columbiaafter graduating from wellesley. And then you ultimately started advising other candidates but you were not advising bill clinton closely but you openly were picked to be his un ambassador, is that correct . In the first four years he served as his ambassador. I wasnt as interesting, im working a lot of president ial campaigns but not in the clinton one because i was adding a 501 c 3 think tank and besides, he had a lot of advisors but i had met him when i was working for my michael to caucus and bill clinton was governor of arkansas and came up and prepared to caucus for the debates and then we kind of had interim talks and he had gone gone to georgetown and i was teaching at georgetown in the80s and that was our connection. Un ambassador for years and thats where the pins started and then when the term came along, or in christopher had been secretary of state announced his retirement. There was some competition who was going to be the next secretary of state and no woman had ever been as secretary of state. If you think president clinton was going to be picking a woman . I didnt think it was going to happen. There was this series of the great mentioning and my name was mentioned because i was a cabinet member and ive actually been doing a lot of tv and stuff and then somebody said well, no woman can ever be secretary of state because leaders will deal with a woman and the arab ambassador and i got together and said we had no problems dealing with ambassador albright, we wouldnt have any problems dealing with Terry Albright and then what happened is somebody at the white house and i never want to know who said madeleine is on the list and she secondtier so itruly do not believe that it would happen. And i was less surprised when it did happen and theres a whole story that goes with it. And ursula chief of staff called me in december and he said in 92 and said if the president , im sorry, 96. If the president of the United States you would you take the call. If the president of the United States were to ask you to be safe you say yes. So i obviously said yes to both things and erskine said go home, the president will call you in the morning and it took a long time to take the call and im sure he had changed his mind and idid not would happen. That did happen and when you served as secretary of state before we get into the subject of this book , what would you say is the greatest accomplishment youre proud of having done the job as secretary of state other than the first woman. I was so thrilled to be able to represent the United States. The un and the secretary and really fascinating time. And by the way, i was the last secretary of state ofthe 20th century and the first of the 21st. The only problem is that saying several months after i was in presumptuously at the president would treat me for four years and he did and so i am. But i think it was the fascinating time and teresa, what happened in the first cold war period and what the United States was going to be my background is so crazy and the history part is important area my father had been ambassador through yugoslavia, and i actually understood the balkans and i understood the language. So i do think that the most, the thing im proudest of an idea is helped to end the ethnic cleansing in cozumel. And its 20 years now that this happened. And i think that its something that i am really proud of. The election is held, george w. Bush was elected president. And you are stepping down as secretary of state, youre succeeded by colin powell. What advice you give himabout the job of secretary of state . powell and i knew each other well. He had actually been chairman of the joint chiefs in the first part of the Clinton Administration and he had had some discussions about the use of force and we had known each othervery well. And his name secretary and by the way, was the same period because it took solong to count votes. So i have always believed that transition is a very important period so and i had quite a few conversations about. I did leave a note for them when i left the office at his desk saying we had tried to clean up and make sure it was unique but basically he had the best job in the world so we talked about what it was like to be secretary of state and we specifically talk about something we were in the middle of i had just come from north korea, talking to kim jongil, father of the current guy about the importance oftrying to resolve that problem. Colin was going to work on that and then what happens frankly is that there was a headline in the post saying how the clinton policies on north korea but and i spent a lot of time together and i think that one of the important aspects is for secretaries of state deal with their predecessors and because its a job that is one that can one can be very proud of and having contact with the ones predecessors in. The newly secretary of state you get Service Protection for another so. The drive you around, what was it like the first week after you left. Decision that i was going to have the Diplomatic Security. And then colin called me and says there really are correct sowere taking away. No eye, its really strange because ive lived in washington a long time i sort of knew how to drive around washington and i had driven and eight years so they have to take me from this counterterrorism driving course and then its strange having been surrounded by a group of people or such a long time to all of a sudden feel naked going out. And the people that were very nice to me during that time were cabdrivers who would yell out the window thank you for having helped our country but it was really very strange after the protection and they had all lived in my garage and they were around. So there were very nice people and i got to be good friends with them when your former secretary of state, the people laugh at your jokes as much or the people pay as much homage or did you find it was different the wave people treated you after you left as secretary of state . Very different for sure but i have funny stories about things that happened and i have a couple of them in the book if i might tell one. I was at Heathrow Airport which i think you probably know is one of the more difficult ones to get through and all of a sudden im picked on in order to be the person that has to take everything out of the suitcase and im there on the floor everything out i finally had and i said excuse me, but you know who i am mark and he said no but we can find a doctor that can help you figure it out and it was really hard not to laugh at that. And i rarely go around saying that im the former secretary of state but i couldnt resist doing it at that moment. One of the things you did is starting Consulting Firm at a wellknown Consulting Firm inwashington dc. Have you had any experienceas a private sector consultants before and did you get nervous about starting a business . One of the questions one what was i going to do when i left office because i always this mantra that whatever i was doing next had to be more interestingand i just finished. Its hard to do if your secretary of state. I said, excuse me . You need the government to get Market Access and regulations, and then the opposite happened. Ive been in china and this book to the american chamber, got he audiences and i learned nothing. Ive been asked to meet with the representatives of our corporations in china, and they had a very different view of the kinds of things that were going on from some of the diplomats. I came back to the department and i established a price for american corporations that would i got busted by the whole system of Publicprivate Partnerships. Thats basically what our Consulting Firm is based on, we work abroad, we dont lobby our work in the United States, but basically trying to help corporations sort out what is happening abroad, but its something that came through my experience as secretary, understand the Publicprivate Partnerships. When president obama, for instance, spoke in cairo about having a different with muslim majority countries, secretary clinton wanted to expand on it and wanted to do something commercially with muslim majority countries and chest me to do that. I have been fascinated by the Publicprivate Partnership aspect of what can and should be done. So you are still the chair and leading, the firm is called Albright Stonebridge group is that right . Thats correct. You also mention your heading ndi, National Democratic institute. What is that . It something by the way that was begun by ronald reagan. He spoke in the early 80s in london at parliament and said that democracies were not real good about explaining themselves. He came back to the United States and started the endowment for democracy which has four institutes, business business and labor, democrats and republicans. And so i was made the first vice chair of the National Democratic institute, and it is now, really i had worked out before i went into the government and it helped in terms of promoting democracy. You cant impose democracy. Thats an oxymoron. We are now in 70 countries, and one of the issues thats always out there is what comes first, Political Development or Economic Development . They clearly go together because democracy has to deliver. Because people want to vote and eat, and so ive been very interested in the kinds of things that ndi is doing. Where in 70 countries and we are working in a time when as you know democracy is under threat in a lot of different places. One of the things you have also done is an institute has been set up at her alma mater, wellesley college, and how did you happen to go to wellesley . You were growing up in denver after you came to the United States. How did you happen to pick wellesley as a place to go to school . What happened was when we came to the United States we lived in, on long island. My father was it diplomat who defected and at that stage the Rockefeller Foundation was finding jobs for people in Central European intellectuals and the panama job at university of denver. With no idea what denver was. Anyway, we moved to denver at it went to a private school there where, on scholarship, where there were two teachers that uganda wellesley. They talked about wellesley an awful lot and at one point when i was in cambridge in massachusetts i went to see the campus and thought it was fantastic. It never occurred to me that i really would be able to go there. I went to school, college on scholarship and they gave me a wonderful scholarship. One of the most important things i ever did was to go to wellesley. It is been the basis of the kinds of things that are learned and friendships, and im dedicated to that college in many ways. By the way hillary also went to wellesley. She is ten years younger than i am so we try to do things together. The institute, what does the institute do . The institute in order to train young women in global leadership, and what we do always between semesters in january, and this is under normal times, the campus is empty and would bring back 40 albright fellows that have been chosen mostly juniors and seniors in order to do projects together. They live on campus together. They get to know each other, and the part that i like about it is multidisciplinary. They are chosen on the basis of the majors so there are probably science and econ majors but also cited majors poly science e majors and then internships and come back to wellesley and describe what they learn out of it. Theres no a cohort, we are ten years old so there about 400 albright fellows out there. Women are not sort of networking as men are so they have all met. They mentor other, work together, and a very, very proud of it. I was just talking to the organizers and were going to do a whole thing virtually, and i try to get speakers to, and a great discussions. Im very, very proud of the albright institute. You also are very active on the speaking circuit, and what was that like when you first had a speaking agent and destroy to send you here and there . Did you enjoy that or did you say it wasnt as attractive as y