Pins – Politics Plus

The passing of Madame Secretary Madeleine Albright on March 23, 2022, at the age of 84 prompted me to wonder how best to pay tribute to her many history-making accomplishments.

President Bill Clinton first selected her as our U.S Ambassador to the United Nations and then in 1997 elevated her to Secretary of State, thus becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of U.S. government.

While some people are said to wear their heart on their sleeve, Madame Secretary wore it on her chest as a brooch from her astonishing collection of pins.

Sec. Albright explains: “I clearly have always liked jewelry, but it had not occurred to me that they could, in fact, become part of diplomacy. It all began with Saddam Hussein.”

As ambassador to the United Nations in 1994, she criticized and pressured Mr. Hussein to allow ongoing weapon inspections. This prompted the state-controlled media in Baghdad to call her “an unparalleled serpent.”

The next time she met with Iraqi diplomats she bravely wore her magnificent gold serpent brooch. (Although she admits she does not like snakes at all.) She thereby transformed her brooch collection into her own personal semaphore which she expertly used to convey a message or a mood.

The media constantly asked her how high-level talks were going, so she decided to transform “Read my lips” to “Read My Pins” – which became the title of one of her best-selling books.

Originally, I had hoped to provide a detailed translation of her collection. But since it numbers well over 200 brooches (most of them simple, inexpensive costume jewelry), it was clearly too much.

Suffice it to say that when she’s in a good mood or conveying high hopes, Albright would wear ladybugs, flowers, suns and hot-air balloons. On bad days she’d sport spiders and carnivorous animals. If she felt progress was slower than she wanted she’d wear a snail or maybe a turtle pin. And if she was dealing with crabby people, she’d don a crab.

Albright had toyed with the idea of an exhibit of her pins, but several galleries in Washington, DC turned the idea down cold. But the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC thought it had possibilities and curated a show that has since travelled to her alma mater (Wellesley), virtually every presidential library from FDR on and highlighted at the Smithsonian.

This is how a typical exhibit is showcased:

To view a wider variety of her pins I’ve divided them into categories – but with no further details, as it was just too overwhelming. But you’ll easily pick out the gold serpent brooch that set her on this path.

I’ll note two unique ones: One of her favorites is the clay heart made by her five-year-old daughter that she wears every Valentine’s Day. And the other is the “Shattered Glass Ceiling” that she wore when Hillary Clinton gave her acceptance speech at the 2016 DNC.

After tonight, this pin will be the only piece of glass ceiling left at #DNCinPHL! #tweetmypins #ImWithHer pic.twitter.com/sm5UUQiVw4

— Madeleine Albright (@madeleine) July 28, 2016