In the early 1970s, Ridgway negotiated longstanding issues over fishing rights in
Brazil,
Peru and the
Bahamas. This led to her appointment in 1976 as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
Oceans and
Fisheries. During her tenure, she negotiated the 200-mile (370 km) fishing rights treaty. Ridgway's subsequent negotiations led to the return of property of U.S. citizens from
Czechoslovakia. As Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Negotiations and, subsequently, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, she was the lead negotiator at all four Reagan-Gorbachev summits. These brought the first substantive reductions in nuclear weapons, signaled the beginning of the end of Communism and the Cold War, and established the fundamental realignment of global power as America prepared to enter the twenty-first century. She is a member of the following organizations: •
Council on Foreign Relations •
Trilateral Commission •
Bilderberg Group •
National Geographic Society (Trustee) •
Brookings Institution (Trustee) She was president of the
Atlantic Council from 1989 to 1996, and currently the chairwoman of the
Baltic-American Freedom Foundation. ==Honors==