Ralph Harry

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Ralph Lindsay Harry

Harry was the Acting Head of the Department of External Affairs and concluded his career as Australia's Ambassador to the United Nations. He made a lifelong emotional commitment to the promotion of the interests of Australia and the betterment of his fellow men and women through the promotion of international law and institutions. There was little he did or said that was not aimed in this direction.^[1]

Family, youth and education

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Ralph Harry was born in

Harry had been attracted to evangelical Christianity in his youth and continued that interest through University. He made a quick visit to Amsterdam and The Hague in the summer of 1939 to a World Christian Youth Movement congress. In one of his many letters to his family during this period, he recounted how he visited the Hall of Justice of the Palace of Peace on 29 August 1939, the day on which the Dutch Government mobilised its armed forces for the Second World War. He described the scene of panic on the streets during the mobilization and the desertion of the Hall of Justice. He explained to his family that, as he stood in the empty building, he promised himself that:^{[citation needed]}

“I for one would not lose faith in the ultimate triumph of Peace and Justice for which the Palace of Peace has been and shall again be in the centre.”

He spent the rest of his life working in one way or another to realize that ideal. He maintained a profound belief in the banishment of all forms of war, poverty and oppression; but rather than repeat high principle he recognized that he would need to devote himself to particular spheres of activity where he felt able to make change. These included the promotion of collective security between nations through the United Nations; the foundation and development of regional groupings in the economic and security area; the development and enforcement of international law, particularly in trade, the rights of refugees and human rights; and the promotion of education. He was also convinced of the necessity for the involvement of youth in all of these policy arenas and was always willing to consider new and radical ideas.^{[citation needed]}

Professional career

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The outbreak of war complicated the completion of Harry's studies as many of his lecturers and tutors were rushing to enlist. He was however able to complete his degree in 1940 and after an unsuccessful attempt (because of his poor eyesight) to join the British army he returned to Australia to join the recently formed Department of External Affairs. He decided in 1942 that his responsibility was to join the AIF, which he did. He served as an officer in military intelligence until 1943. Most of his wartime experience was in New Guinea. He was then recalled to the Department of External Affairs to be posted to the Australian High Commission in Ottawa, Canada where he worked from 1943 to 1945.

The Allied powers convened a conference in 1945 in

The following few years were ones of intense activity in Australian foreign affairs. Decolonisation and independence had arrived in India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma and Indonesia; the communist revolution occurred in China in 1949; war in Korea broke out in 1950; French control in Indochina was being disputed. Percy Spender as Australian Minister for External Affairs succeeding Richard (later Lord) Casey promoted the need for a strategic alliance between the United States and Australia and Harry was co-opted into Spender's negotiating team with instructions to prepare the first draft of the ANZUS treaty. After an intensive negotiation the treaty was signed in September 1951 and remains one of the core underpinnings of Australia's security and defence position.

Harry's first diplomatic mission was as Consul-General and United Nations Representative in Geneva from 1953 to 1956, followed by his appointment as Australian Commissioner in Singapore from 1956 to 1957.

On the basis of his intelligence work in the AIF and External Affairs, Harry was asked by the then Minister for External Affairs, Richard Casey in 1957 to investigate and report on the structure and operation of the recently formed Australian Security Intelligence Service (ASIS). He moved to Melbourne late in 1957 to commence work on the report, which recommended substantial changes in the financing, operating structure and accountability of the service. He agreed to replace the then Director, Alfred Brookes, and to remain as the Director of the Service during the reconstruction period. His term was completed in 1960. His connection with ASIS was only revealed with the publication in 1989 of the book “Oyster”, an exposé by Brian Toohey of the Australian security intelligence apparatus. Not even his family was aware of his activities and he kept no records of ASIS of any kind in his personal papers-unlike Casey, who maintained an extensive political diary of his intelligence involvement. From 1960 until his retirement in 1978 Harry continued to serve Australia with distinction in many senior posts.

He led Australia's delegations to many United Nations conferences including the ILO, WHO, UNCTAD, and ECAFE; he also led Australia's delegation to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea which resulted in the adoption of a wholly revised Convention on the Law of the Sea. In that Conference he became the Chairman of the committee on dispute resolution and played a decisive role in the success of the treaty negotiation. He was also given responsibility within the Department of Foreign Affairs (as it had become by that time) for the management of Australia's Antarctic policy and treaty relationships and was Australia's principal negotiator of the Timor Gap treaty with Indonesia consequent on the resumption by the Indonesian Republic of the administration of East Timor. He was appointed as Australia's Ambassador to Belgium and the European Community from 1965 to 1968; to South Vietnam during the war years of 1968 to 1970; to the Federal Republic of Germany from 1971 to 1975; to the United Nations as Australia's permanent representative from 1975 to 1978.

After his retirement he was invited by Sir Garfield Barwick, whose acquaintance he made as Foreign Affairs Minister, to become the Director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He discharged that role until 1981. During his tenure at the Institute he also was a member of the Australia Day Committee.

Harry was a curious, careful, kindly and studious man. He was a fine bridge player, a keen gardener, cook and preserver; a passionate devotee of cryptic crosswords and mathematical puzzles. He followed international affairs and was regularly consulted on the history of Australian diplomacy and foreign affairs.^{[citation needed]}

Honours

In 1960 Harry was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).^[2] In 1963 he was appointed as a Commander of the Order (CBE).^[3] In 1980 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), "for public service, particularly as a diplomatic representative".^[4]

Esperanto

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Throughout his life Harry maintained an interest in the constructed international language Esperanto, which he began to learn as a student in 1937. He was an active evangelist for the Esperanto cause, and a prolific Esperanto writer, conference-goer, lexicographer, translator, administrator and a committed promoter of the potential of an international language to bring down the barriers of suspicion and intolerance that exist between nations.

His most notable contribution to Esperanto and its cause was when he was serving as the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations in 1977. NASA, the US space agency, had programmed the launch in that year of two space probes, Voyager 1 and 2, which were designed to take and send back to Earth images of the outer planets, then continue beyond the Solar System after escaping the Sun's gravitational pull to become the first man-made objects to leave it. NASA and the cosmologist Carl Sagan decided to create identical golden records to attach to each probe that were designed to tell the story of the Solar System and mankind, in case one of the two probes ever comes into contact with extraterritorial intelligent life. Engraved on each record is, among other things, a soundtrack containing a compilation of 54 peace greetings to the universe recorded in different languages by various UN delegates. Harry succeeded in persuading the UN and NASA to accept a message in Esperanto. It is located third-last on track 3 of the golden records, and says:

Ni strebas vivi en paco kun la popoloj de la tuta mondo, de la tuta kosmo.

“We strive to live in peace with the peoples of the whole world, of the whole Cosmos.”

Translation

Before the

Harry was the main translator of the "Aŭstralia Antologio" ("Australian Anthology", 1988) which brought excerpts of Australian literature to the Esperanto-speaking world. Inspired by the well-known Esperanto-cabaretist Raymond Schwartz, he published humorous short stories and memories from his professional life in many Esperanto periodicals. They were collected in the reader "La Diplomato kiu Ridis" (1997) ("The Diplomat Who Laughed").

Activities within the Esperanto movement

Although Harry declined positions in the international Esperanto bureaucracy, he presided over the Australian Esperanto Association (AEA) in 1960–61 and then for several years after his retirement in 1977. He was member of AEA's examination commission and funded several of its projects. With Ivo Lapenna, former president of UEA, he worked together in the Internacia Esperanto-Asocio de Juristoj (IEAJ) and contributed to its organ Internacia Jura Revuo (IJR), mainly on topics of international public law. In 1967 he was honoured by the Universal Esperanto Association with a rare membership in the Honora Patrona Komitato.^[5]

Publications

• 1990: (kun V. Gueltling) Auxstralia-Esperanta vortaro – Australian-esperanto dictionary. 3a eld. Bentley 1990. 54 p. – 21 cm. ilus.
• 1997: La diplomato, kiu ridis. The Esperano as a pdf, 77 p.
• 2000: (kun Brian Fox). Australian and New Zealand Esperanto Dictionary. Australian and New Zealand words not in other Esperanto Dictionaries. 4a plil. eld. Auxstralia kaj nov-zelanda Esperanto-asocioj, 2000. 98 p. – 21 cm (cx. 2.000 kapvortoj kaj esprimoj).

Literature

• 2002: Short biography and picture of Ralph Harry written by his son John Harry.
• Obituary by Trevor Steele in the UEA review "Esperanto" (Rotterdam), n-ro 1154.

References

External links

• Books and pictures related to Ralph Harry in the Collection of Planified Languages of the Austrian National Library, Viena.
• Articles by an about Ralph Harry in Elektronika Bibliografio de Esperantaj Artikoloj (EBEA).