John Christopher Stevens (April 18, 1960 – September 12, 2012) was an American diplomat and lawyer who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Libya from June 2012 to September 12, 2012.Stevens was killed when the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked on September 11, 2012.
Stevens was born in 1960, in Grass Valley, California, the eldest of three siblings born to Jan S. Stevens, a California Assistant Attorney General,and his wife Mary (née Floris) J. Stevens, a Chinook Indian and cousin of Chinook elder Catherine Troeh.Stevens had two younger siblings, Anne (b. 1962) and Thomas (b. 1965); all were raised in Northern California.Stevens and his siblings are direct descendants of Chinook Chief Comcomly.
Stevens' parents divorced in 1975, and both remarried. He had a half-sister, Hilary (b. 1980), from his father's second marriage.His mother, a cellist, joined the Marin Symphony Orchestra (1976—2004), and in 1976 married Robert Commanday, a music critic with the San Francisco Chronicle.
Stevens was an AFS Intercultural Programs exchange student in Spain during summer of 1977, and graduated from Piedmont High School in 1978. He earned a B.A. in history in 1982 at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a member of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. From 1983 to 1985, he taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. He graduated with a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1989, and received an M.S. degree from the National War College in 2010. He spoke English, Arabic, and French.
Prior to joining the United States Foreign Service, Stevens was an international trade lawyer based in Washington, D.C. He was admitted as an active member of the State Bar of California on January 26, 1990; he went on inactive status on August 1, 1991, and remained an inactive member for the remainder of his career.
Stevens joined the United States Foreign Service in 1991. His early overseas assignments included: deputy principal officer and political section chief in Jerusalem; political officer in Damascus; consular/political officer in Cairo; and consular/economic officer in Riyadh. In Washington, Stevens served as Director of the Office of Multilateral Nuclear and Security Affairs; Pearson Fellow with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; special assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs; Iran desk officer; and staff assistant in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.
He had served in Libya twice previously: as the Deputy Chief of Mission (from 2007 to 2009) and as Special Representative to the National Transitional Council (from March 2011 to November 2011) during the Libyan revolution. He arrived in Tripoli in May 2012 as the U.S. Ambassador to Libya.
In 2007, Eliza appeared in her first feature film, I Think I Love My Wife, a romantic-comedy written, directed, and starred in by veteran comedian Chris Rock. She then made her television debut in an episode of MTV's short-lived satire Nick Cannon Presents: Short Circuitz. Coupe also had guest-starring stints as Bret's girl on HBO's Flight of the Conchords and as Todd's ex-girlfriend on Samantha Who?. In 2009, she joined the wacky gang of Sacred Heart Hospital in the eighth season of Bill Lawrence's Scrubs.
