ALBRIGHT NOMINATION PASSES FIRST MUSTER.

Byline: Associated Press

Madeleine Albright won unanimous approval Monday from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which sent her nomination as secretary of state to the full Senate where quick confirmation is expected.

Albright, the first of President Clinton's new Cabinet nominees to pass Senate committee scrutiny, will become the nation's first female secretary of state. The Senate is to take up her nomination Wednesday.

During a Jan. 8 confirmation hearing, the committee, chaired by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., questioned Albright for almost eight hours. On Friday, she submitted the answers to 215 additional written questions asked by members of the panel after the hearing.

Although much of the questioning was amicable, Albright appeared to antagonize Helms by insisting that Congress increase the foreign operations budget and pay the $1.4 billion the United States owes the United Nations.

Helms, a leading budget-cutter who has conditioned payments to the world body on sweeping reforms in its organization, responded by saying he believed Albright was ``sincerely wrong.''

Still, the spat did not seem to affect Albright's chances for confirmation by the Republican-controlled Congress.