[1] Together with Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd, Baring played a significant role in the government's efforts to deal with the rebellion, and see Kenya through to independence.

He then joined Britain's Foreign Office, where he was sent first to Southern Rhodesia before being posted in South Africa as High Commissioner.

[2] In 1949, while serving as High Commissioner for Southern Africa, Baring played a key role in preventing Seretse Khama, the heir to the throne of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, from assuming the throne; doing so on the ground that Khama's marriage to a white woman, Ruth Williams, was opposed by the white-minority government of South Africa, a neighbouring state which had recently implemented a system of racial segregation known as apartheid.

[3] Working in close collaboration with Percivale Liesching, who was serving as Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs at the time, Baring was able to persuade government ministers to prevent Khama from assuming the throne of Bechuanaland, instead mandating him to stay in a government-imposed exile in London, which lasted until 1956.

[4] Baring's administration created the "dilution technique", a system of assaults and psychological shocks to detainees, to force the compliance.