Charles William Maynes served as president of the Eurasia Foundation from 1997 to 2006 and as President Emeritus from 2006 until his death. 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.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Maynes served as the editor of Foreign Policy magazine for 17 years. During his editorship, the journal won five awards for editorial excellence.
In 1988, he served as a commentator on the McNeil-Lehrer program for the U.S. presidential debates.
As assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs from 1977-80, Maynes supervised all U.S. policy toward the United Nations and its specialized agencies. During his tenure, he managed the U.S. participation in the Namibian Contact Group at the UN, 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 UN 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 UN.
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 endowment's Senior Fellows Program, which lasts to this day.
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-OK), served as staff director of the Ad Hoc Committee on Senate Reform and authored policy papers for the Members of Congress for Peace through Law while serving on the staff of F. Bradford Morse (R-MA). 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 was part of the Clinton-Gore Transition Team for the Treasury Department.
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 and rose to be the chief non-project economist for the USAID mission in Laos.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, Maynes was one of eight students in his class elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. He received a Rhodes scholarship to attend Merton College at the University of Oxford and graduated with first class honors in politics, philosophy and economics.
He was 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.
Articles and Speeches by Charles William Maynes
Partnership with the Business Community for Institutional and Human Capacity Building
OSCE Prague Conference, June 2004
Uzbekistan at a Crossroads
International Herald Tribune, April 2004
Losing Russia
Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed, February 15, 2004
This is not the time to abandon Russia
International Herald Tribune, February 2004
Philanthropy's Response to Globalization
Moscow, Russia, October 2002
The New American Patriotism
Aspen Institute Italia Review, January 29, 2002
Who Lost Russia? Why Not Try Saving It?
Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed, October 11,1998
