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Friday February 14, 1997

Media handled Albright story as if secretary had an affliction

Douglas M. Bloomfield

The announcer on Washington, D.C.'s all-news radio station was probably just reading somebody else's copy last week when he assured listeners that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's newly revealed Jewish heritage "will not hamper her."

NBC's Tom Brokaw announced that she is "struggling" with the idea of being Jewish. A CNN/Time Magazine broadcast said it is difficult enough being a woman in foreign policy -- being Jewish too would only make matters worse.

The New York Times called the news a "thunderbolt," declaring that it "should have no bearing on American foreign policy."

One reporter covering the State Department who obviously is open-minded enough to believe Albright is innocent until proven guilty, asked about her "alleged Jewish ancestry."

Nicholas Burns, the department spokesman, assured the world, "It's not going to have an impact on the way she does her job."

What a relief.

This line of reasoning is akin to declaring that FDR's polio would not interfere with being president, nor would Eisenhower's bad heart, JFK's youth or Reagan's age.

Albright's story is a poignant one that deserves to be told, but the way it was handled by many in the media suggests that having a Jewish background is some kind of affliction.

The Washington Post spent thousands of dollars investigating the true roots of the first female (though not the first foreign-born) secretary of state. It sent a reporter to Prague and elsewhere to dig out seemed to many an "exposé" rather than a profile.

When the State Department spokesman was quizzed about why this was not already known to the government and hadn't turned up in her background and security checks, he shot back, "It would have been highly intrusive and inappropriate."

Albright reacted "very calmly" to the news of her Jewish heritage, which she accepted as factual but called "a major surprise," according to published reports.

Becoming the first woman secretary of state has been one of the "great moments of happiness" in her life, she said, but it is accompanied "by moments of sadness" in learning the fate of her grandparents and many other relatives who were Holocaust victims.

More than a dozen family members were killed by the Nazis; three grandparents perished at the Auschwitz and Teresienstadt death camps.

Albright was born Jewish in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on May 15, 1937. Her father, Josef Korbel, a Czech diplomat, fled to England with his family in early 1939 as the Nazis occupied his country. While in England, Joseph and his wife, Mandula, converted to Roman Catholicism and raised their children in that faith, apparently never telling them of their Jewish roots.

They did not convert to escape Hitler; they already were out of harm's way in England. The family apparently was not very religious to begin with; like many assimilated European Jews, Albright's parents were already on their way out of their unobserved faith when Hitler came along. Many just continued their slide into no faith; others, like the Korbels, actually converted.

Whether Albright considers herself a Jew or is one by Jewish law is her own business.

In any case, the first Jewish secretary of state was Henry Kissinger, who will be remembered for kneeling in the Oval Office to pray with Richard Nixon and being seemingly oblivious on other occasions when Nixon and his chief of staff spewed anti-Semitic sentiments that were captured on secret White House tapes.

Many Jewish community leaders are puzzled about why a scholar of Albright's stature who specialized in that period of history and that part of the world was not more curious about her own background and the fate of relatives she was simply told had died "in the course of the war."

They also are privately skeptical about whether she was surprised by the news, but are hesitant to say anything publicly lest they begin their relationship with the new secretary on the wrong foot.

Whether Albright knew or sought to find out about her heritage is irrelevant; Albright's views have been molded over the past 59 years and are not likely to change because of what has been revealed in the last week or so.

She has been a strong supporter of Israel, a vigorous advocate of human rights and has enjoyed close ties to the Jewish community.

In the Middle East, which has not been one of her career priorities, Ambassador Dennis Ross will still be in charge of the peace process, and Martin Indyk will remain the ambassador to Israel; both men are openly Jewish and well respected by Albright.

Arab and Jewish extremists may not let the facts intrude on their judgments, however.

One Arab publication called Albright "Clinton's Jewess," and a commentator in another Arab publication said her appointment "will virtually make Tel Aviv the capital of the United States, and not Washington."

A veteran of Mideast diplomacy said that if Albright runs into trouble in the Arab world it will more likely be because she is a woman. He noted that Kissinger was able to deal effectively with the King of Saudi Arabia and other Arab leaders at a time when all were much more hostile toward Israel and Jews.

Some Arabs will no doubt fear that Albright will try to make up for lost time and lean over backwards for "her people," while there will also be Jews who will be quick to accuse her of leaning over backwards to show she is not "too Jewish."

Both, of course, will be wrong.

Nothing can stop people from judging Albright's actions through the prism of their own prejudices, but people who have worked with her -- friends, former colleagues and journalists who have covered her career -- insist it will make no difference.

However her Jewish identity shapes up, when it comes to the job one observer said, "She'll call it as she sees it."

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