By Mark Tooley

The Reagan Administration’s ambassador to Chile during the final years of General Augusto Pinochet’s rule died August 9. Harry Barnes, a career diplomat, was hailed in his Washington Post obituary for defending human rights in Chile and helping nudge Pinochet towards the 1988 plebiscite that led to the peaceful and democratic transition of 1990.

This narrative of the Reagan Administration’s role in peacefully democratizing Chile contrasts with the secular and Religious Left’s portrayal of the Pinochet years. “I think he [Ambassador Barnes] did a magnificent job,” the Post quoted Elliott Abrams, the Reagan era State Department official often demonized for his role in Iran-Contra.

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