Karen Hughes Biography
Karen Hughes is the global vice-chair of the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. She served as the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the U.S. Department of State and as a counselor to President George W. Bush.
She was born in Paris, France, Hughes is the daughter of American parents Patricia Rose (Scully) and Harold Parfitt, the last U.S. Governor of the Panama Canal Zone. After graduating from W. T. White High School in Dallas, Texas, Hughes earned a bachelor’s degree at Southern Methodist University in 1977 where she was a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority.
Karen Hughes Facebook
Karen Hughes Bush
Hughes has worked with George W. Bush since 1994. She was the first director of his campaign for the office of governor of Texas, and then as a counselor from 2001 to 2002, while he was President of the United States.
Hughes left the Bush administration in July 2002 to return to Texas, but remained in daily contact with the Bush reelection campaign by telephone and e-mail, and spoke personally with Bush several times a week. In August 2004, Hughes returned to full-time service with the Bush campaign, setting up an office on Air Force One, from where she planned the 2004 Republican National Convention and the late stages of the 2004 election. She has been praised by The Dallas Morning News as “the most power.
Karen Hughes Ten Minutes From Normal
In March 2004, Hughes published Ten Minutes from Normal, which includes an account of her decision to leave the White House. While promoting her book, she appeared on CNN on April 25, 2004 – the same day as the March for Women’s Lives – and said “I think after September 11th the American individuals are valuing life additional and realizing that we need policies to worth the dignity and value of each life.
And President Bush has worked to mention, let’s be reasonable, let’s work to worth life, let’s try to reduce the number of abortions, let’s increase adoptions. And I suppose those are the sort of policies that the American individuals can support, particularly at a time when we’re facing an enemy, and really the fundamental difference between the United States and the terror network we tend to fight is that we value each life.
It’s the founding conviction of our country, that we’re endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, the right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Karen Hughes State Department
On March 14, 2005, Bush announced his intention to nominate Hughes for the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy with the rank of ambassador — a job focused on changing foreigners’ perceptions about America. The Senate confirmed her nomination in July 2005. In her new capacity, Hughes spoke of improving the world’s perception of the United States via the creation of a “rapid-response unit” and a plan to “forward-deploy regional SWAT teams”.
During a town hall meeting on Sep eight, 2005, a State Department worker complained that “recently, we’ve had a tremendous amount of difficulty in some cases getting clearance for our ambassadors to talk.” Hughes replied, “If they make statements based on something I sent them, they’re not going to be called on the carpet.”
At the top of her tenure within the State Department, Hughes said that one among her greatest accomplishments had been “transforming public diplomacy and creating it a national security priority central to everything we do in government”. Hughes was the keynote speaker on October 22, 2007, Public Relations Society of America’s International Conference and discussed, “Waging Peace — The New Paradigm for Public Diplomacy.”
Karen Hughes Tour To Middle East
Starting with September 26, 2005, stop in Egypt, Hughes went on a “listening tour” of the Middle East to speak with leaders and people from the region. This was a response to growing fears in America about rampant anti-Americanism in the Middle East.
Hughes was the third person chosen for this task by President Bush, following unsuccessful attempts by Charlotte Beers and Margaret Tutwiler.
For her tour, Hughes asked two Citizen Ambassadors to accompany her: a college student, Tina Karima Daoud, and William O’Brien, a retired high school geography teacher.
On her September 27 stop in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during a talk with female students, she expressed her wish that women could “fully participate in society” as they do in the United States. In response one of the women said, “The general image of the Arab woman is that she isn’t happy […] Well, we’re all pretty happy.”
In a press conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, Hughes incorrectly stated that Saddam Hussein “had murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people using poison gas.”
Conventional sources attest that Saddam did order the deaths of several hundred thousand Iraqis during the al-Anfal Campaign and other violent suppressions, but casualties from his infamous gas attack on Halabja numbered in the thousands.
Karen Hughes Breast Cancer Research Advocacy
Hughes met business representatives from the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) to create the U.S.-U.A.E. Partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research. It will develop breast cancer awareness campaigns and expand research in the Middle East by linking U.S. medical experts, fundraisers, health research activists, and businesses with their U.A.E. counterparts.
Karen Hughes Post White House
In late October 2007, Hughes made it known that she would be resigning from her position in the Bush White House. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was quoted as saying she accepted the resignation “with an excellent deal of unhappiness however additionally an excellent deal of happiness for what she has achieved.”
Hughes is presently the worldwide vice chair of Burson-Marsteller, a public relations company