text: HAVEL PRAISES CZECH NATIVE ALBRIGHT AS FRIEND. Klara Gajduskova 
   PRAGUE 1996-12-06 
   Czech President Vaclav Havel on Friday welcomed the appointment of Madeleine Albright, who is of Czech extraction, as the United States' first woman Secretary of State. In a statement Havel, who is recovering from cancer surgery, said: " Madeleine Albright is a distinguished friend, a tested diplomat, and a true American of fine origins. " 
   " I look forward to continuing our good relations. . . with the United States and with the first woman ever to hold the position of Secretary of State. I wish her well, " Havel said in a statement to Reuters. Havel, who helped lead the " velvet revolution " that ousted the Communist regime in Prague in 1989, invited Albright, then working for a private foreign policy think tank, to advise his new democratic government in 1990. Havel had a small malignant tumour removed from his lung on Monday and is recovering in hospital. Albright, born Marie Korbelova to a Czechoslovak diplomat in 1937, fled with her family to the United States after the Communists came to power in a coup in 1948. As an academic, Albright studied and lectured on Europe's 20th century problems before becoming U. S. ambassador to the United Nations. Czech diplomats, seeking to have their country included in the expected expansion of NATO, praised the selection of Albright, known to be a strong supporter of alliance's integration of former Soveit-bloc countries. " The nomination. . . is a clear signal that one key of the lines of foreign policy will be the strengthening of the trans-Atlantic cooperation, a creation of strategic partnership between Europe and the US, " Foreign Minister Josef Zieleniec told Reuters. " (Albright) is a convinced advocate of NATO enlargement and of stabilisation of security structures. " 
   Czech ambassador to the United Nations, Karel Kovanda, told the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes that Albright " is a little light in our diplomatic heaven, " but warned against expecting her to exert any influence in favour of the Czechs.
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