After Negotiating India Nuclear Deal, State Dept. Official Gets Lucractive Job Lobbying For India

Think Progress
Jan. 14, 2007

Stephen G. Rademaker, U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control, is leaving the State Department for a lucrative lobbying job at the firm of Barbour Griffith & Rogers.

While assistant secretary of state, Rademaker negotiated a controversial deal allowing the United States to sell nuclear technology to India, which is not a member of the important nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Critics argued that the Bush administration “abandoned the one incentive states have to stay in the NPT, without providing an alternative framework to sustain the effort to control proliferation.”

Less than a month after that deal was ratified by Congress during its lame duck session in December, Rademaker is leaving the State Department to join Barbour — which lobbied on behalf of the Indian government for the nuclear pact.

In Sept. 2005, Barbour signed a one-year, $700,000 contract with India to work on “developing, refining and expanding relationships between Indian officials and the U.S. foreign policy-making apparatus in the Executive and Legislative Branches.” Mainly though, Barbour was one of two firms hired by the Indian government with the aim of “pushing the [nuclear] deal through Congress.”

The Sunlight Foundation has more on the Bush administration and the revolving door.