Charles F. (Chuck) Hunter became the Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus in August 2009. Immediately prior to that posting he spent two years as Deputy Director for Western European Affairs, part of the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
Mr. Hunter joined the U.S. Information Agency in 1990. He was posted to Cairo as a junior officer trainee (1991-92) and then to Algiers as Assistant Public Affairs Officer (1992-93). After additional Arabic study in Tunis, he spent three years as Public Affairs Officer in Muscat before returning to Washington in 1998 as public diplomacy desk officer for the Levant. In 2000-2001 he directed the press office in the Bureau of Public Affairs, serving occasionally as the State Department’s acting spokesman. Through an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship he worked for Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) in 2002.
His next posting was as Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem from 2002 to 2005. While there he also served numerous stints as Acting Deputy Principal Officer, including during the post’s ordered departure in the spring of 2003. Upon completing that assignment he became the director of the Bureau of Legislative Affairs’ Congressional Liaison Office, then went to Iraq as the Babil Provincial Reconstruction Team Leader, based in Al-Hillah, from August 2006 to August 2007.
Mr. Hunter speaks Arabic and French. He holds a B.A. (French) from Lawrence University and an M.A. and Ph.D. (French and Humanities) from Stanford University.
