Charles William Maynes

Charles William Maynes has held senior positions in the Department of State, U.S. Congress, the publishing world, and the foundation community and since 1997 has served as President of The Eurasia Foundation. EF was launched in 1992 with a major grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. With continuing support from USAID and a growing number of other donors in Europe and Russia, the Eurasia Foundation, which is privately managed, has made more than 7,000 grants totaling $140 million in the twelve countries of the former Soviet Union since 1993. In Russia, since 1993 the Eurasia Foundation has awarded more than $64 million to support local initiatives in civil society, private enterprise development, and public administration and policy.

"Mr. Maynes is a member of the National Academy of Public Administration, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, and the United Nations Association.

"For 17 years, Mr. Maynes served as editor of Foreign Policy, regarded as one of the world’s pre-eminent journals of international affairs. During his editorship, the journal won five awards for editorial excellence.  Mr. Maynes himself wrote frequently for his own journal and for newspapers and magazines around the world, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, Foreign Affairs, The Nation, and the Washington Monthly among others.  He appeared frequently over television and radio.  In 1988 he served as one of the commentators on the McNeil-Lehrer Program for the Presidential Debates. A 2000 survey by the Library of Congress of the most important articles published in recent years on America’s national interest cited three articles by Maynes, the only author cited that often.  A 2004 study by the World Affairs Councils of America listed Maynes as one of the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy.

"As Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 1977-80, Mr. Maynes supervised all U.S. policy toward the United Nations and its Specialized Agencies. During his tenure, he managed U.S. participation in the Namibian Contact Group at the United Nations, which succeeded in drafting the framework agreement that subsequently led to the independence of Namibia.  He managed the development of the peacekeeping mandate for the United Nations in southern Lebanon.  He was the last assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs that persuaded the Congress to give full funding for the United Nations.

"Maynes served as the Secretary of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1972 to 1977. In that position, he wrote widely on international issues and developed the Senior Fellows Program of the Endowment, which lasts to this day.  He was the senior advisor to the Endowment’s president and board throughout this period.

"In Congress, Maynes worked for both Democratic and Republican Members while serving as a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association. He became the Senior Legislative Assistant to Senator Fred R. Harris (D. -Okla.). He was staff director of the Ad Hoc Committee on Senate Reform.  He authored policy papers for the Members of Congress for Peace through Law while serving on the staff of F. Bradford Morse (R-Mass).
 * In 1972 he joined the campaign of Sargent Shriver, then the Democratic Candidate for Vice President, as head of his issues staff. In 1976 he served as a member of the Carter-Mondale Transition Team for the State Department.  In 1992 he served as a member of the Clinton-Gore Transition Team for the Treasury Department.

"Mr. Maynes was a Foreign Service Officer for nine years, serving in the Bureau of International Organizations in Washington and the USAID mission in Laos. He received a Departmental Award for his work on the funding crisis in the United Nations.  He rose to be the chief non-project economist for the USAID mission in Laos during his tenure there.

"Mr. Maynes is a Magna cum Laude graduate of Harvard College, being one of eight students of his class elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. He received a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Merton College at Oxford University and graduated with First Class Honors in Politics, Philosophy and Economics." 


 * Advisory Board, Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society