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Rozanne L. Ridgway
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1985-0310-140, Leipzig, Frühjahrsmesse, Honecker, Ridgway (cropped).jpg
Rozanne L. Ridgway, 1985
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs
In office
July 19, 1985 – June 30, 1989
President Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Preceded by Richard Burt
Succeeded by Raymond Seitz
United States Ambassador to East Germany
In office
January 26, 1983 – July 13, 1985
President Ronald Reagan
Preceded by Herbert Okun
Succeeded by Francis Meehan
Counselor of the United States Department of State
In office
March 20, 1980 – February 24, 1981
President Ronald Reagan
Preceded by Matthew Nimetz
Succeeded by Robert McFarlane
United States Ambassador to Finland
In office
August 5, 1977 – February 20, 1980
President Jimmy Carter
Preceded by Mark Austad
Succeeded by James Goodby
Personal details
Born
Rozanne Lejeanne Ridgway

(1935-08-22) August 22, 1935 (age 89)
Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S.
Political party Republican
Alma mater Hamline University

Rozanne Lejeanne Ridgway (born August 22, 1935) is an American diplomat who served 32 years with the U.S. State Department, holding several posts, including ambassador to Finland and to East Germany, and finished her career as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs.

Ridgway has been an American foreign policy leader since the Richard Nixon administration. She has acted as an international negotiator on behalf of the United States.

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.

Between Ridgway's positions at the Department of State, she served as America's Ambassador to Finland from 1977 to 1980 and as the Ambassador to the German Democratic Republic between 1983 and 1985.

She is a member of the following organizations:

She was president of the Atlantic Council from 1989 to 1996, and currently the chairwoman of the Baltic-American Freedom Foundation.

In 1998, Ridgway was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

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