Nomination of Charles Franklin Dunbar To Be United States Ambassador to the Yemen Arab Republic

The President today announced his intention to nominate Charles Franklin Dunbar, of Maine, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, as Ambassador to the Yemen Arab Republic. He succeeds William Arthur Rugh.

Mr. Dunbar was a statistical coding clerk with the Department of Transportation from 1961 to 1962. He joined the Department of State in 1962 and first worked as a clerk in the Office of Communications. From 1962 to 1963, he took consular and Persian language training at the Foreign Service Institute. His first assignment abroad was as third secretary-vice consul at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, 1963-1964, followed as vice consul at our consulate in Isfahan, 1964-1967. He was then assigned as second secretary-political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, 1967-1970. Mr. Dunbar returned to Washington in 1970 as an associate watch officer, then staff officer, in the Executive Secretariat until he took Arabic language training at the Foreign Service Institute in 1972. He was assigned as first secretary-political officer in 1973 at the U.S. Embassy in Rabat, Morocco, and then at the U.S. Embassy in Algiers, Algeria, as chief political officer, 1975-1978. From 1978 to 1980, he was Deputy Chief of Mission in Nouakchott, Mauritania, and then became a midcareer fellow at the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs, 1980-1981. Mr. Dunbar was acting Deputy Chief of Mission, then acting Charge d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, 1981-1983. In 1983 he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the state of Qatar, where he served until 1985, when he returned to the State Department as special assistant for Afghanistan in the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.

Mr. Dunbar graduated from Harvard College (A.B., 1959) and Columbia University School of International Affairs (M.I.A., 1961). He was born April 1, 1937, in Cambridge, MA. Mr. Dunbar is married, has three children, and resides in Washington, DC.