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Henry Pleasants (1910—2000) was an American music critic. Born on May 12, 1910, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, Pleasants studied voice, piano and composition at the Curtis Institute of Music, from which he received an honorary doctorate in 1977. In 1930, at age 19, he became a music critic for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and was the paper's music editor from 1934 to 1942, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army.

In 1948-49, he re-entered the military as an army liaison officer with the Austrian government. He left the army to enter the Foreign Service in 1950, serving as an intelligence officer in Munich, Bern, and Bonn. He was involved in espionage during the Cold War, living with Reinhard Gehlen, a former Nazi general and a top intelligence official for West Germany, to evaluate his "suitability." The Gehlen Organization, which the former general led, became the forerunner of the postwar West German Federal Intelligence Service.

Following the end of the war, from 1945 to 1955, Pleasants contributed articles on European musical events to The New York Times. He also wrote regularly for Opera Quarterly, was London editor for the magazine Stereo Review, and for 30 years, beginning in 1967, was the London music critic for the International Herald Tribune. In 1964, he retired from the service and settled in London with his wife, Virginia Pleasants, a harpsichordist and fortepianist.

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