UPDATE 2-State Department's image guru Karen Hughes quits

(Adds more details, announcement)

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department's public diplomacy chief and image guru Karen Hughes, one of the last survivors of President George W. Bush's original inner circle, said on Wednesday she would quit and return to Texas.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Hughes would step down in mid-December but the former television reporter would remain a consultant for the State Department.

"She will obviously leave a very big hole and big shoes to fill," said Rice, with Hughes at her side. "She will remain a valued adviser to me."

Hughes, who was sworn in as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy in September 2005, has sought to combat negative opinions about the United States following the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and its chaotic aftermath.

"I feel that I have done what Secretary Rice and President Bush asked of me by transforming public diplomacy and making it a national security priority," Hughes said.

However, opinion polls around the world continue to show high levels of anti-Americanism, which the Pew Research Center in Washington says is strongest in the Muslim world.

In five predominantly Muslim countries in the Pew 2006 global study on America's image abroad, fewer than one-third of those surveyed had a favorable view of the United States.