[2][3] Before becoming governor, he was a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a Tennessee attorney.
[4] He served as the first lieutenant governor of American Samoa for two years prior to his governorship.
This arose from his firing of Mere Betham, a native who had been serving as Samoan Director of Education, an action he defended as necessary to improve education on the island, but others decried as racist; Barnett reinstated Betham one week after dismissing her.
[5] Barnett stepped down early at the request of the United States Department of the Interior, which sought the return of former Governor H. Rex Lee to ensure a smooth transition between Interior-appointed and locally elected governors.
[6] Lee was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to modernize American Sāmoa and eliminate its reputation as “America’s shame in the South Pacific.”[7] Barnett graduated from Knoxville High School in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1950.