Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs  has been tasked by President Bush with leading efforts to promote America's values and confront ideological support for terrorism around the world. She oversees three bureaus at the Department of State: Educational and Cultural Affairs, Public Affairs, and International Information Programs, and participates in foreign policy development at the State Department.

A longtime advisor to President Bush, Ambassador Hughes 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.

Source: US Department of State

As of February, 2006