Sunday, May 13, 2012
On May 7, U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter announced to his embassy staff in Pakistan that he’d be quitting in the summer after serving less than two years on the job. Tensions have been rising between the United States and Pakistan recently, but an embassy official denied that Munter is resigning because of poor relationships between the two governments.
However, during his tenure Munter, who was sworn in on October 6, 2010, has had to contend with a series of incidents that have upset the Pakistani population. On January 27, 2011, CIA contractor Raymond Davis was arrested after he shot to death two people on the streets of Lahore. After difficult negotiations, the Obama administration managed to secure Davis’ release on March 16 of last year. The very next day, a CIA drone strike killed 50 civilians in North Waziristan. Then, on May 2, 2011, U.S. Special Forces entered Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden, allegedly without consulting the Pakistani government.
The son of Helen-Jeanne and Leonard Munter, Cameron Munter was born in Claremont, California, in 1954. Munter attended Claremont High School, where he distinguished himself as a distance runner on the cross-country and track teams. His college education took place at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and universities in Freiburg and Marburg in Germany. He received a doctoral degree in modern European history in 1983 from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Munter began his career as a college professor, teaching European history at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1982-1984. He directed European studies at the Twentieth Century Fund in New York (1984-1985) before joining the Foreign Service.
His first overseas assignment took him to Warsaw, Poland (1986-1988). He returned to Washington, DC, in 1988 to serve as a staff assistant in the State Department’s Bureau of European Affairs and then as country director for Czechoslovakia. In 1991, he was a Dean Rusk Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
The following year he was sent to Prague in the Czech Republic, serving there until 1995. It was then onto Bonn, Germany (1995-1997), before becoming chief of staff in the NATO Enlargement Ratification Office.
In 1998, Munter was director of the Northern European Initiative and then executive assistant to the counselor of the State Department (1998-1999). He served as director for Central Europe at the National Security Council until 2001.
Beginning in 2002, Munter began taking on larger roles in U.S. embassies, first as deputy chief of mission in Warsaw until 2005 and then in Prague from 2005 to 2007.
In 2006, he led the first Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mosul, Iraq.
His first ambassador assignment was in Belgrade, Serbia, from 2007 to 2009. The posting was not without difficulties, as Serbian rioters upset over the American position on Kosovo, set fire to the embassy on February 21, 2008. The protests sparked a strong response from Munter, who warned the Serbian government not to allow any more attacks on the diplomatic mission.
He returned to Iraq in 2009, this time at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. He served as political-military minister-counselor, then as deputy chief of mission for the first half of 2010, directing strategic planning and American civil-military coordination during the military pullout.
Munter’s wife, Marilyn Wyatt, is the author of A Handbook of NGO Governance. She has served as Director of Communications at the Aspen Institute and Director of Global Programs as BoardSource. The couple has a son, Daniel, and a daughter, Anna.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
To Learn More:
Official Biography (State Department)
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