SVI Timeline

Early 2001
Colin Powell asks Charlotte Beers to be Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs for George W. Bush.

Sept. 11, 2001
Terrorists attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Oct. 2, 2001
Charlotte Beers is sworn in and charged with the task of "selling America's core values to the Muslim world."

May 2002
The State Department forms the Council of American Muslims for Understanding (CAMU).

Oct. 28, 2002 to Dec. 8, 2002
Television ad campaign runs in Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Kuwait and on pan-Arab satellite. Al-Jazeera Television and key Arab countries refuse to run the spots.

Jan. 16, 2003
The Wall Street Journal reports that the campaign was suspended because it failed. Beers tells CNN that campaign would continue.

Feb. 3, 2003
The State Department reports that ads stopped running in December and were being revised.

March 3, 2003
Beers resigns for "health reasons."

After March 2003
Media, Congress, industry and administration criticize SVI and distance themselves from Beers.