Albright Puts Levity to Music in Swan Song

BANGKOK, Thailand —  In 1997, Madeleine Albright gave Asia an object lesson in American moxie by dressing up as Madonna, tucking a red rose behind her ear, and poking fun at some of Asia’s most-buttoned-down leaders in a song set to the tune of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.”

On Friday, the secretary of state did it again, this time with a sayonara ditty set to the tune of “Thanks for the Memories.” Tuxedo-clad and brandishing a cane, Albright took a swipe at Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad, warned China to make nice with Taiwan, jabbed at Asian values and poked fun at her own historic first handshake with the foreign minister of North Korea.

“Thanks for the memories

Dr. Mahathir said don’t you interfere

But I’ve learned I can’t go wrong if I do it in a song

That’s the ASEAN way!”

Albright crooned to a standing-room only audience of diplomats and dignitaries gathered for the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations’ regional forum on security issues. After an acronym-drenched day discussing missiles and nuclear weapons, international drug trafficking and North Korea, foreign ministers at the gathering also took their turn at the microphone in what has become a closing-night banquet tradition.

Journalists were strictly forbidden, and advance details of the performance were guarded by the U.S. delegation as closely as any nuclear secret. But the strains of Madame Albright’s swan song drifted out of the ballroom at the ritzy Sheraton Royal Orchid hotel, as did waves of laughter and cheers.

To the Chinese foreign minister, she sang:

“So thanks for the memories

Tang Jiaxuan, one of my favorite men

But when you’re not so sweet, I call the Seventh Fleet

That’s the American way!”

Albright was referring to the 1996 dispatch of a U.S. naval armada to the Taiwan Strait after China fired warning missiles across the bow of the Taiwanese independence movement.

Albright was scheduled to travel to Tokyo today to make amends for missing the Group of 8 foreign ministers summit earlier this month to attend the Middle East peace talks at Camp David, Md. She sang an almost-apology to the host she had stood up, Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono:

“At the G-8 I was a no-show

But skippin’ Camp David’s a no-no, those Israelis have the go-slows

That’s the Middle East way!”

Ever the diplomat, she did not fail to mention North Korea’s foreign minister, Paek Nam Sun, who participated in the meeting for the first time:

“So thanks for the memories

Just had my first handshake with Foreign Minister Paek

Used to think he was a rogue, but here . . . he’s so in vogue

(Welcome)

To the ASEAN way!”

According to a Thai official, Paek did not attend the performance.