Albright attends premiere of documentary about her father in Prague

Prague, Oct 2 (CTK) - Former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright along with former Czech President Vaclav Havel attended a premiere of a documentary film on her father, Czech diplomat and university professor Josef Korbel (1909-1977), in Prague yesterday.

The film titled "A Man with a Pipe" was directed by Josef Cisarovsky on the basis of Albright's memoirs Madeleine.

Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and other diplomats also came to the premiere.

"My father has always been a good Czechoslovak patriot. He has taught me a lot," Albright said before the screening.

The documentary reminds of the legacy of a democrat and, in his daughter's words, "a great intellectual humanist."

Korbel was primarily influenced by the first Czechoslovak democratic president Tomas Garrigue Masaryk (in office 1918-1935).

His conviction about the necessity to work for a better and more just world as well as historical twists and turns made him leave his homeland twice. First he fled from the Nazis in 1939 and then when communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in 1948.

Korbel was not very much known in the Czech Republic until recently though he educated two U.S. secretaries of state - his daughter and Condoleezza Rice who was his student.

The documentary on his life and work is based on the testimonies of Albright and other family members, her sister and brother. It is also a contemplation about the role of democracy in the current world.

Public Czech Television (CT) will broadcast the documentary on October 17.

Josef Korbel was born in Czechoslovakia in September 1909.

In 1936-1939 he worked as press attache in Belgrade. During World War Two he headed the BBC Czechoslovak service in London. After the war, he was appointed Czechoslovak ambassador to Yugoslavia and Albania.

He left Czechoslovakia after the February 1948 communist coup and he sought asylum in the United States.

He lived in Denver, Colorado, where he was lecturing at the Graduate School of International Studies that now bears his name. He died in 1977.