Rose Gottemoeller was sworn in as the Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation on April 6, 2009. A longtime expert in nuclear weapons proliferation and arms control, Gottemoeller will be personally responsible for negotiating the new strategic arms-control treaty that Presidents Baraack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev, of the United States and Russia respectively, have announced would further cut each nation’s long-range nuclear arsenal. Gottemoeller starts that task with considerable respect from her Russian counterparts, one of whom recently wrote that she “has been dealing with nuclear issues for quite some time and is known as a brilliant professional. It would be difficult, almost impossible to outplay her. For Russia a draw would be almost like a victory.”
Gottemoeller was born in Columbus, Ohio, circa 1953, the daughter of an insurance executive. A lifelong linguaphile, Gottemoeller earned a B.A. in Russian from Georgetown University in 1975 and an M.A. from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University in 1981. Shortly after graduation in 1975, Gottemoeller began work at the Department of Commerce’s
National Marine Fisheries Service, where her work concerned the Soviet fishing fleet, and where she met her husband, career State Department official Raymond Arnaudo.
Leaving government service in 1979, Gottemoeller found employment as a
social scientist at the
RAND Corporation, where she worked on international relations generally and U.S.-Soviet relations in particular, and remained until 1993. Gottemoeller joined the Clinton administration in 1993, serving on the
National Security Council (NSC) as director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs, with responsibility for denuclearization in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. She left the NSC in 1994, and worked for three years as Deputy Director of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Returning to government in November 1997, she served for three years at the
Department of Energy, dealing with issues of
nuclear nonproliferation, eventually rising to be Deputy Undersecretary of Energy for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, a post she vacated after the election of George W. Bush.
Gottemoeller has taught on Soviet military policy and Russian security at Georgetown University, and is fluent in Russian. She and her husband have two sons. A Democrat, Gottemoeller contributed $3,850 to Democratic candidates and causes from 2000 to 2008, including $850 to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential campaign, $800 to Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign, and $750 to Governor Bill Richardson’s 2008 Presidential campaign.
- Matt Bewig
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