United States Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs | |
---|---|
Reports to | Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs |
Nominator | President of the United States |
Inaugural holder | William Walton Butterworth |
Formation | 1949 |
Website | Official website |
The assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs is the head of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs within the United States Department of State. The assistant secretary guides operation of the U.S. diplomatic establishment in the countries of the Asia-Pacific region and advises the secretary of state and the under secretary for political affairs on matters relating to the area.
The Department of State established the position of assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs in 1949, after the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of Government recommended that certain offices be upgraded to bureau level and after Congress increased the number of Assistant Secretaries of State from six to ten. On November 1, 1966, the department by administrative action changed the incumbent's designation to assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs. The Division of Far Eastern Affairs, established in 1908, was the first geographical division to be established in the Department of State. [1]
# | Image | Name | Assumed office | Left office | President served under |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | William Walton Butterworth [2] | September 29, 1949 | July 4, 1950 | Harry S. Truman | |
2 | Dean Rusk | March 28, 1950 | December 9, 1951 | Harry S. Truman | |
3 | John Moore Allison | February 1, 1952 | April 7, 1953 | Harry S. Truman | |
4 | Walter S. Robertson | April 8, 1953 | June 30, 1959 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | |
5 | J. Graham Parsons | July 1, 1959 | March 30, 1961 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | |
6 | Walter P. McConaughy | April 24, 1961 | December 3, 1961 | John F. Kennedy | |
7 | W. Averell Harriman | December 4, 1961 [3] | April 3, 1963 | John F. Kennedy | |
8 | Roger Hilsman | May 9, 1963 | March 15, 1964 | John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson |
# | Image | Name | Assumed office | Left office | President served under |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
9 | William Bundy | March 16, 1964 | May 4, 1969 | Lyndon B. Johnson | |
10 | Marshall Green | May 5, 1969 | May 10, 1973 | Richard Nixon | |
- | G. McMurtrie Godley | [4] | Richard Nixon | ||
11 | Robert S. Ingersoll | January 8, 1974 | July 9, 1974 | Richard Nixon | |
12 | Philip Habib | September 27, 1974 | June 30, 1976 | Gerald Ford | |
13 | Arthur W. Hummel, Jr. | July 12, 1976 | March 14, 1977 | Gerald Ford | |
14 | Richard Holbrooke | March 31, 1977 | January 13, 1981 | Jimmy Carter | |
15 | John H. Holdridge | May 28, 1981 | December 9, 1982 [5] | Ronald Reagan | |
16 | Paul Wolfowitz | December 22, 1982 | March 12, 1986 | Ronald Reagan | |
17 | Gaston J. Sigur, Jr. | March 12, 1986 | February 21, 1989 | Ronald Reagan | |
- | Richard Armitage | [6] | George H. W. Bush | ||
18 | Richard H. Solomon | June 23, 1989 | July 10, 1992 | George H. W. Bush | |
19 | William Clark, Jr. | July 10, 1992 | April 23, 1993 | George H. W. Bush | |
20 | Winston Lord | April 23, 1993 | February 18, 1997 | Bill Clinton | |
21 | Stanley O. Roth | August 5, 1997 | January 20, 2001 | Bill Clinton | |
22 | James A. Kelly | May 1, 2001 | January 31, 2005 | George W. Bush | |
- | Evans J.R. Revere (acting) | February 1, 2005 | April 8, 2005 [7] | George W. Bush | |
23 | Christopher R. Hill | April 8, 2005 | April 21, 2009 | George W. Bush and Barack Obama | |
24 | Kurt M. Campbell | June 2, 2009 | February 8, 2013 | Barack Obama | |
25 | Daniel R. Russel | July 12, 2013 | March 8, 2017 | Barack Obama and Donald Trump | |
- | Susan Thornton (acting) | March 9, 2017 | July 7, 2018 [8] | Donald Trump | |
- | W. Patrick Murphy (acting) | July 2018 | June 2019 | Donald Trump | |
26 | David R. Stilwell | June 20, 2019 | January 20, 2021 | Donald Trump | |
- | Sung Kim (acting) | January 20, 2021 | June 4, 2021 [9] | Joe Biden | |
- | Kin W. Moy (acting) | June 15, 2021 | September 24, 2021 | Joe Biden | |
27 | Daniel Kritenbrink | September 24, 2021 [10] | Incumbent | Joe Biden |
David Michael Satterfield is an American diplomat and ambassador, who has served extensively in the Middle East, including the Persian Gulf area, Lebanon, and Iraq. He later served as a senior advisor on Iraq for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and was director general of the Multinational Force and Observers, the peacekeeping force for the Sinai Peninsula from June 2009 until August 2017. He was chargé d'affaires to Egypt from August 2013 to January 2014 and was subsequently Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Libya. From September 2017 to June 2019 he served as the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and was confirmed as U.S. ambassador to Turkey on June 27, 2019.
Assistant Secretary of State (A/S) is a title used for many executive positions in the United States Department of State, ranking below the under secretaries. A set of six assistant secretaries reporting to the under secretary for political affairs manage diplomatic missions within their designated geographic regions, plus one assistant secretary dealing with international organizations and one equivalent as the coordinator/ambassador at large for counterterrorism. Assistant secretaries usually manage individual bureaus of the Department of State. When the manager of a bureau or another agency holds a title other than assistant secretary, such as "director", it can be said to be of "assistant secretary equivalent rank". Assistant secretaries typically have a set of deputies, referred to as deputy assistant secretaries (DAS).
The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), also known as the Bureau of Near East Asian Affairs, is an agency of the Department of State within the United States government that deals with U.S. foreign policy and diplomatic relations with the nations of the Near East. It is headed by the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who reports to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
The assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs is the head of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs within the United States Department of State. The assistant secretary guides the operation of the U.S. diplomatic establishment in various countries of North Africa and the Middle East and advises the secretary of state and the under secretary of state for political affairs.
The Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs is a position within the United States Department of State that leads the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs charged with implementing American foreign policy in Europe and Eurasia, and with advising the Under Secretary for Political Affairs on matters relating to diplomatic missions within that area.
The assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs is the head of the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs within the United States Department of State, which handles U.S. foreign policy and relations in the following countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Sung Yong Kim is an American diplomat of Korean descent who has served as the United States Special Representative for North Korea Policy since 2021, and previously from 2014 to 2016. He has also served as the acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from January to June 2021.
Scot Alan Marciel is an American diplomat and served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs until February 2016. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be the United States Ambassador to Burma on January 28, 2016.
Robert Frank Godec is an American diplomat who has served as the United States ambassador to Thailand since October 2022. He formerly served as the United States ambassador to Kenya from 2013 to 2019 and the United States ambassador to Tunisia from 2006 to 2009. He also served as acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs from January to September 2021.
Virginia Evelyn Palmer is an American diplomat who has served as the United States ambassador to Ghana since 2022. Palmer is the former United States ambassador to Malawi. She was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate, beginning that assignment in January 2015.
W. Patrick Murphy is a career U.S. diplomat. A Senior Foreign Service Officer, he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2018 to 2019, fulfilling the duties of Acting Assistant Secretary, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia and Multilateral Affairs, 2016–2018. He previously served as Chargé d'affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in the Kingdoms of Thailand and Lesotho. He was nominated on January 16, 2019 to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Cambodia.
Alina L. Romanowski is an American career diplomat who has served as the United States Ambassador to Iraq since June 2022. She previously served as the United States Ambassador to Kuwait from February 2020 to April 2022.
Thomas Laszlo Vajda is an American diplomat who had served as the United States Ambassador to Myanmar between 2021-2022.
Julie Jiyoon Chung, birth name as Chung Ji-yoon, is a Korean-American diplomat who has served as the United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka since 2022. She previously served as Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the United States Department of State's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA). Her first overseas assignment was in Guangzhou, China. Chung has later served in several posts in Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Colombia and Iraq.
Elizabeth Moore Aubin is an American diplomat and State Department official who has served as U.S. ambassador to Algeria since February 9, 2022. She previously served as acting principal deputy assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary for regional multilateral affairs from January 20, 2021 to June 7, 2021. In June 2024, Aubin was nominated to serve as the United States ambassador to Cameroon.
Elizabeth Anne Noseworthy Fitzsimmons is an American diplomat who had served as the United States Ambassador to Togo. She has serve Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Conflict and Stabilization Operations since August 12, 2024.
Steven H. Fagin is an American diplomat who has served as the United States ambassador to Yemen since 2022.
Michael J. Adler is an American diplomat who has served as the United States ambassador to South Sudan since 2022.