When Czech President Vaclav Havel was in Washington last month, he told MADELEINE ALBRIGHT that he had a novel idea: when his current term ends, she should become President of the Czech Republic. As Secretary of State, Albright is nominally in line for the U.S. presidency, but as a foreign-born citizen, she cannot hold the office. Not so in the Czech Republic, where Albright was born. The idea of Albright's succeeding Havel, who has been found to have lung cancer, was being touted by Havel's friends in a Czech magazine called The New Presence. "It isn't a completely absurd idea... A politician of her caliber, as well as her energy and political experience, would take her former countrymen by storm," the article argued. "I'm honored, but it is not my life," she told TIME last week. "I love being an American, and representing the U.S. is the greatest job I could ever have in my life." Not exactly a denial.

Cover Date: October 12, 1998

• Career guidance
• A place at the table
• Bowles bids adieu
• Eulogy: Tom Bradley
• A nice guy in a nasty fight
• On the fast track to impeach
• Kosovo crisis
• Rwandan tragedy, Lewinsky farce
• The unreachable Starr

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