Obituaries memorializing the diplomatic achievements of Ambassador Harry G. Barnes, Jr., who died in Vermont on August 9 at the age of eighty-six, have focused on his role in Chile, where his promotion of democratic institutions famously incurred the wrath of General Augusto Pinochet, the country’s military dictator. They ought to have paid more attention than they did to Barnes’s outstanding record as U.S. envoy to India. As the first career ambassador to hold that position in a generation, he played a major role during his 1981-1985 assignment in New Delhi in substantially improving ties between the two countries.
