WASHINGTON -- Long before the greatest step of her career Thursday, Secretary of State-designate Madeleine Albright walked into the hearts of thousands of South Floridians by blasting communist killers and donning black to mourn their victims.
A master of the memorable phrase, it was Albright who provided the Clinton administration's piquant retort to Cuban air force pilots who boasted in February of shooting down two unarmed civilian planes of Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue: ``This is not cojones, this is cowardice.''
Never mind that the Spanish slang word for testicles was vulgar; brutal acts took tough talk. When the stout diplomat showed up in black at the Orange Bowl to pay homage to the four dead pilots, Cuban Americans embraced her as one of their own.
In many ways she was. Born Maria Jana Korbelova in Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, Albright was twice exiled from her homeland -- first by Hitler, then by Stalin -- before she sought asylum in the United States.
``She watched her world fall apart,'' President Clinton said Thursday. ``And ever since, she has dedicated her life to spreading to the rest of the world the freedom and tolerance her family found here in America.''
By her own admission, she is not a great intellect, just someone who works doubly hard. She is at once pragmatic and partisan and idealistic. Her candor is refreshing to some, abrasive to others. After four years of dour, pin-striped Warren Christopher, Albright stepped up to the microphone Thursday in a dress that was fire-engine red.
In her role as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Albright found a bully pulpit, staring down Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, decrying a military regime in Haiti as ``a puppet show,'' and urging the United States deeper into seemingly distant problems like Bosnia because they might one day haunt our doorstep.
``Albright is all right,'' said Miami Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican. ``She has come to know and love our community.''
Albright nodded Thursday to so many other refugee tales like her own.
``The story of my family has been repeated in millions of variations over two centuries in the lives not only of immigrants, but of those overseas who have been liberated or sheltered by American soldiers, empowered by American assistance, or inspired by American ideals,'' she said.
Copyright © 1996 The Miami Herald