[3] Suddarth joined the United States Foreign Service in 1961 and served as third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Bamako, Mali, from 1961 to 1963.
[3] Suddarth returned to State Department Headquarters as the Libyan desk officer until 1972, when he took university training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating with a Master of Science in 1972.
[3] He then participated in the senior seminar for a year before becoming deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
[4] Suddarth was Deputy Inspector General of the Department of State from 1991 to 1994 and International Affairs Advisor and Professor at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island from 1993 to 1994.
[5] Suddarth also served as president of the American-Iranian Council[6] as on the Board of Advisors of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.