OBITUARIES : Robert R. Barry; Ex-Congressman

Robert R. Barry, a former congressman from New York and a representative to NATO before he moved to California, is dead at 73.

Barry died of cancer Tuesday in Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City. He was an executive of several businesses in New York before his election as a Republican congressman from Westchester and Putnam counties.

He served three terms and was defeated for reelection in 1964.

While in the House, he was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and represented the United States at NATO parliamentary conferences. He was also a U.S. delegate to UNESCO.

Barry, a one-time member of the International Seaman’s Union, organized the International Chamber of Commerce.

A native of Omaha who was reared in Chicago, Barry was educated at Dartmouth and New York University and served during World War II as a financial analyst in the office of the undersecretary of the Navy.

Active in California Republican politics since the 1960s, Barry was a former president of Calicopia Corp., which had timber and copper holdings in the Sierra. In 1972 he unsuccessfully opposed California Republican Rep. Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey’s reelection bid.