Madeline Albright, the first woman to serve as Secretary of State when she was chosen by former President Bill Clinton, brushed away any talk that Hillary Clinton will have any difficulty working with strong-minded members of Barack Obama ’s national security team or Obama’s choice of Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice.

When it comes to James L. Jones, the former Marine commandant who will be National Security Adviser, or Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Albright said on MSNBC, “I expect things to be very collegial . . . but also that there will be a requirement laid down by the president-elect and then president of having his team present their views.”

“I believe that Senator Clinton will be a leader of this team, that she will play a very, very important role, which is appropriate for the secretary of state, that she has already a good relationship with President-elect Obama,” Albright said. “And she certainly knows Secretary Gates and she knows General Jim Jones.”

Clinton’s relations with Rice, who was an Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration, were said to be strained by her support for Obama during the campaign. At one point, when Clinton was trying to contrast her foreign policy experience against Obama’s, Rice said. “She was never asked to do the heavy lifting” when meeting with foreign leaders during her years as First Lady.

“She wasn’t asked to move the mountain or deliver a harsh message or a veiled threat,” Rice had said. “It was all gentle prodding or constructive reinforcement. And it would not have been appropriate for her to do the heavy lifting.”

But Albright dismissed reports about tensions between the two as “much ado about nothing” and specifically derided a report that Rice wanted to have her own transition team within State and that Clinton had denied it.

“I have seen many inaccurate stories in my life as secretary of state and U.N. ambassador, but I have rarely seen a story that had so many inaccuracies in it in terms of describing the relationship of the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and the secretary of state,” she said.

Albright, who had also served as envoy to the U.N., said, “When I came in as U.N. ambassador, I had a transition office in the State Department, I had Cabinet rank, and I was a member of the principals committee . . . And I presume that that is exactly the relationship that Ambassador Rice is going to have within the State Department, as well as her relationship with Secretary Clinton and with the president of the United States.”

When Obama announced the selections of Clinton and Rice last week, he said, “As in previous administrations, the UN ambassador will serve as a member of my Cabinet and in integral member of my team.”