Larry Birns (born Lawrence Birns; July 22, 1929 – August 30, 2018[1]) was the director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a liberal, not-for-profit organization monitoring human rights and political developments in Latin America.
Before founding the Council in 1975, Birns taught at Hamilton College and served with a United Nations mission in Chile during the Salvador Allende government.
The Boston Globe described Birns as an analyst and a liberal critic of U.S. policy,[3] and The New York Times said the Council on Hemispheric Affairs was a liberal research group specializing in United States-Latin America relations,[4] and an organization critical of Reagan Administration policy in Latin America.
[5] Birns also wrote commentary on Latin American and Caribbean affairs, for instance, contributing an afterword to Paul Farmer’s book The Uses of Haiti.
[6] In 1991, Birns delivered the 8th annual Ellsworth Lecture at Northern Vermont University.