Biden to Lead Tributes to Madeleine Albright

WASHINGTON — President Biden and far of the nation’s high management will collect on Wednesday to pay tribute to former Secretary of State Madeleine Ok. Albright at a time when the West is confronting the very rise of authoritarianism she typically warned about.

Mr. Biden, who’s main a world coalition backing Ukraine in its struggle in opposition to Russian invaders, will be part of former Presidents Invoice Clinton and Barack Obama and a number of lawmakers, diplomats and different luminaries for a memorial service at Washington Nationwide Cathedral a month after Ms. Albright died of cancer at age 84.

As an immigrant fleeing Communism in Japanese Europe who rose to change into America’s ambassador to the United Nations and the primary lady to function secretary of state, Ms. Albright spent a lot of her profession specializing in the perils of autocracy and advocating resolve by the world’s democracies. In her final guest essay for The New York Times in February earlier than the Russian invasion, she known as for “forceful diplomatic pushback and rising financial and navy assist for Ukraine.”

The cathedral service at 11 a.m. will carry collectively a who’s who of the Democratic political and overseas coverage institutions together with some Republican admirers. Along with Mr. Biden, tributes will probably be delivered by Mr. Clinton, who named her secretary of state in 1997, and Hillary Clinton, who as first woman was instrumental in pushing for her appointment and later crammed her workplace on the State Division herself.

Ms. Albright was the third former secretary of state to die in simply over a yr, following George P. Shultz and Colin L. Powell, and her friends will probably be represented by the present secretary, Antony J. Blinken, simply again from a visit to Ukraine, in addition to former secretaries Condoleezza Rice and John F. Kerry. Susan E. Rice and Samantha Energy, who each adopted her on the United Nations and now maintain senior posts within the Biden administration, additionally plan to attend.

Different senior officers anticipated embody Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority chief; Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III; Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees; William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director; and Jake Sullivan, the nationwide safety adviser. A lot of in the present day’s key nationwide safety figures counted Ms. Albright as a mentor.

Ms. Albright had a protracted relationship with the cathedral. All three of her daughters attended the Beauvoir College and graduated from the Nationwide Cathedral College, each affiliated with the cathedral, and she or he led the Beauvoir board of administrators within the 1970s. On the time of her demise, she served on the Cathedral Chapter, the establishment’s governing board.

Her daughters — Anne Ok. Albright, Alice P. Albright and Katharine M. Albright — will provide memorials to her. Readings will probably be provided by Condoleezza Rice; Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state and a protégé of Ms. Albright; Rabbi David N. Saperstein, a former ambassador at massive for worldwide spiritual freedom; and Winifred S. Freund, a university classmate of the previous secretary and her closest good friend.

The pallbearers will probably be former members of her safety element on the United Nations and State Division, and musical numbers will probably be provided by two performers she befriended, Chris Botti, the trumpeter, and Herbie Hancock, the pianist.