West Lecture Series examines international security and arms control

CHARLESTON, SC – The John C. West Lecture Series in the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice will host two of the nation’s leaders in international security and foreign policy in April.First , Ellen Tauscher, under secretary of state for arms control and international security, will meet with cadets to discuss current issues in arms control at 10 a.m. Monday, April 4 in Bond Hall, Room 165. At 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 7, John Gastright, vice president for government affairs at DynCorp, will speak in Copeland Auditorium in Grimsley Hall. Both lectures are free and open to the public.

Gastright’s and Tauscher’s visits are made possible by Don Fowler, former national chairman of the Democratic National Committee who now serves as the John C. West Professor of Government and International Relations at The Citadel. The John C. West Professorship is endowed by former S.C. Gov. John C. West, a 1942 Citadel graduate, and by The Citadel Foundation.

Tauscher is a former six-term Congresswoman from the 10th District of California. Before winning a seat in Congress, Tauscher spent 14 years working on Wall Street. She was one of the first women to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and later served as an officer of the American Stock Exchange. As under secretary she leads the interagency policy process on nonproliferation and manages global U.S. security policy, principally in the areas of nonproliferation, arms control, regional security and defense relations, and arms transfers and security assistance.

Gastright has had a distinguished career in both the public and private sectors since graduating from The Citadel in 1987. He served as projects director for the late Sen. Strom Thurmond and as a deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs. Currently he is the vice president of government relations for DynCorp International, a global government services provider in support of U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives. Gastright formerly was the director of House Affairs, Bureau of Legislative Affairs at the Department of State. His State Department service also included a brief term as the acting coordinator for Afghanistan in 2004. He first joined the Department of State as the special assistant to the deputy secretary of state, Richard L. Armitage. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1988 to 1994 and as a City of Charleston police officer from 1987 to 1988.