Madeleine Albright: Read My Pins
In an exclusive look at her new book, Read My Pins, Madeleine Albright shares with The Daily Beast her favorite pins and the remarkable stories they bring to mind.
“Naturally, not every diplomatic encounter demands a sunny attitude. If I wanted to deliver a sharp message, I often wore a bee. Muhammad Ali used to boast that he would ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’; my message was that America would try to resolve every controversy peacefully, but if pushed into a corner, we had both the will and a way to strike back.”
“Nelson Mandela represented a new hope in Africa in the mid-1990s. I wore my favorite zebra pins when I met him at his estate in Pretoria, South Africa, in December 1997.”
“I wore the boldest American flag pin I had when meeting with Kim Jong-Il.”
“In December 1996, President Clinton nominated me to serve as America’s 64th secretary of State. For the announcement, I wore this pin as a pendant.”
“While in government, I thought first when selecting a pin about the utility it might have in diplomacy. This is because some figures are laden with meaning. The lion, for example, has been linked to power and the sun since the days of ancient Greece.”
“I was proud to be the first woman to serve as secretary of State and delighted when Secretary Clinton became one of my successors. This is a pin showing the glass ceiling in its ideal condition: shattered.”
“One of my most original pieces is a silver pin of the head of Lady Liberty. It has two watch faces for eyes, one of which is upside down—allowing both me and my visitor to see when it is time for an appointment to end.”
“On my 65th birthday, Elaine Shocas, my State Department chief of staff, gave me 65 pins, each costing less than $3. One of the gifts was in the shape of a high-heeled shoe. This was in commemoration of a comment I made when I was designated by Bill Clinton as the successor to Secretary of State Warren Christopher: ‘I only hope my heels can fill his shoes.’”
“This pin was a gift from Barbara and Bill Richardson during his time as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.”
“In a less-troubled world, we would ordinarily think of jewelry as sending a friendly message, or at least not a violent one. In the post-9/11 era, however, even bottles of mouthwash and tubes of toothpaste can be considered threats. Perhaps I should not have been surprised, then, when a security agent stopped me at an airport gate and asked to examine a brooch I had just purchased in Turkey. The pin is of a slithery dragon wrapped around a small silver sword. Nothing to worry about, except that the sword is removable. The security agent glanced at me, then peered at the pin while shaking his head. ‘No weapons,’ he said.”
“Perhaps it is my imagination, but this pin always seems to end the day higher on my jacket than where it began.”
By Madeleine Albright
176 pages. Harper. $40.
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