 Elliott Abrams, the United States assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, once called Barnes “a world-class ambassador.”

Harry George Barnes, Jr. was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 5, 1926.He graduated from Amherst College, earned a Master's Degree in history from Columbia University, and served in the U.S. Army from 1944–46.Barnes entered the United States Foreign Service as consular officer in Bombay in 1951 and was head of the consular section in Prague in 1953–55.