Ralph Lindsay Harry (10 March 19177 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. Harry's mother was a committed Woman's Christian Temperance Unionist and became World President of the organisation while Harry was at school. Harry's father moved to Launceston, Tasmania in 1922 to become classics master of Launceston Grammar School. As he wanted to build a house for the family in Launceston, it was decided that his wife and the children would go to Adelaide to live with Ethel's mother, Lady Holder, the widow of Sir Frederick Holder. Sir Frederick was a journalist and preacher in the mining town of the Burra. He ultimately became Premier of South Australia. As a consequence of his deep involvement in the Federal movement in Australia in the last twenty years of the 19th Century, he was appointed as the first Speaker of the first Federal House of Representatives in 1901 before dying suddenly, in Melbourne, during a loud parliamentary debate in 1909. Sir Frederick was to become the most prominent role model in Harry's life. Harry attributed his commitment to public service to Sir Frederick's example of tireless and effective commitment to church and State and he was, throughout his life, proud of all that Sir Frederick had achieved. The