Harry G. Barnes Jr. | Former ambassador, 86

Harry G. Barnes Jr., 86, a high-ranking U.S. diplomat who as President Ronald Reagan's ambassador to Chile in the 1980s aggressively promoted democracy there and clashed frequently with the country's dictatorial president, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, died Aug. 9 in Lebanon, N.H.

The cause was an infection, his daughter Pauline said.

In a long career, Mr. Barnes was ambassador to Romania and India as well as to Chile. During the Carter administration he was director general of the Foreign Service, serving as a policy adviser to Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance.

He was best known for his years in Chile.

On July 12, 1985, when Mr. Barnes presented his credentials to Pinochet, leader of the military coup that overthrew socialist Salvador Allende in 1973, he offered blunt advice: "The ills of democracy can be cured only with more democracy."

Mr. Barnes was born in St. Paul, Minn., on June 5, 1926. He graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College and earned a master's degree in history from Columbia. He entered the Foreign Service in 1950 and, starting in Mumbai, rose through the ranks, going on to serve in Prague, Moscow, Nepal and Romania.

He retired from the Foreign Service in 1988 and went on to teach at several universities and to help plan and carry out the human-rights efforts of the Carter Center in Atlanta from 1994 to 2000.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Barnes is survived by his wife, the former Elizabeth Ann Sibley; two other children; and a grandson. Another daughter died in 2003. - N.Y. Times News Service