
The last full working day of Bill Clinton’s presidency ended with a dreary Washington winter afternoon. Wind-swept rain and sleet pounded on the windows of Madeleine Albright’s seventh-floor office at the State Department, obscuring her usually clear view of the Lincoln Memorial.
Next door, in the office of her chief of staff, Albright had joined a small group to commemorate the end of her term as America’s first female secretary of state and her time as the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government.