 | BIOGRAPHY
Karen P. Hughes
Under Secretary, Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
Term of Appointment:
07/29/2005 to
12/14/2007
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Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes leads America’s efforts to communicate with foreign publics and confront ideological support for terrorism. As one of the State Department’s top officials, she leads several thousand public diplomacy employees worldwide, oversees the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Public Affairs and International Information Programs, and participates in foreign policy development.
During her tenure, public diplomacy has become a national security priority that is now viewed as central to the work of America’s diplomats worldwide. Hughes aggressively expanded public diplomacy and international communications programs, won increased funding for them and initiated numerous innovations and institutional changes.
Ambassador Hughes’ current work in public diplomacy and public affairs follows her work as a longtime advisor to President Bush. She served as Counselor to the President for his first 18 months in the White House. As Counselor, she was involved in major domestic and foreign policy issues, led the communications effort in the first year of the war against terror, and managed the White House Offices of Communications, Media Affairs, Speechwriting and Press Secretary.
Ambassador Hughes returned to Texas in 2002 but continued to serve as an informal advisor to the President and was a communications consultant for his 2004 re-election campaign. She is the author of Ten Minutes from Normal, the story of her experiences working for President Bush, and she helped write the President’s autobiography, A Charge to Keep.
Ambassador Hughes is a former Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas and a former television news reporter for KXAS-TV, the NBC affiliate in Dallas/Fort Worth. Mrs. Hughes is a Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude graduate of Southern Methodist University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Journalism. She is a wife and mother and an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
Released on November 1, 2007
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