[3] From 1977 to 1979, Mathews was director of the Office of Global Issues of the National Security Council, covering nuclear proliferation, conventional arms sales policy, chemical and biological warfare, and human rights.

[4] Mathews served on the editorial board of the Washington Post from 1980 to 1982, covering energy, environment, science, technology, arms control, health, and other issues.

Later, she became a weekly columnist for the Washington Post, writing a column that appeared nationwide and in the International Herald Tribune.

[6] On April 9, 1996, Mathews delivered the Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World Affairs Fellowship Lecture in the David L. Call Alumni Auditorium of Kennedy Hall at Cornell University.

[8] From 1997 to 2015, she was President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, D.C.[1] She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.