Ralph Harry
Australian jurist and diplomat
Ralph Lindsay Harry (10 March 1917 – 7 October 2002) was one of Australia's pioneer diplomats and intelligence specialists. He was recognised as a skilled diplomatic professional with a mastery of the traditional conventions and methods of diplomacy and politics. Having acted early in his career for three years as Director of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, he was also known as an insightful intelligence analyst and cryptographer.
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.
Family, youth and education
Ralph Harry was born in Geelong, Victoria on 10 March 1917, the youngest of four children. The son of Arthur Hartley Harry, a senior classics master at the Geelong College, and Ethel Roby Holder; the family's circumstances were modest. Harry was brought up to be frugal, reticent and hardworking and in an atmosphere of reverence for academic achievement and the value of education. The family was Presbyterian and teetotal.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q12354389. VIAF identifies the subject as 52986371. The Library of Congress control number is n80063939. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917 and 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ralph Harry” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.