While distinctly on the left of South African politics, he was perceived to be on the right-wing of the PFP mainly due to his favouring strong military defence and his insistence that political change must take place without the disruption of law and order, which earned him the nickname "Harry the Hawk". He often found himself in dispute with some members of the original Progressive Party, particularly Helen Suzman. Colleagues would often refer the clashes they had in the parliamentary caucus meetings as "the Helen and Harry show". Suzman wrote of her relations with Schwarz in her autobiography, In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir: following the merger between the PP and Schwarz's Reform Party "I stayed in the party, but relations between Harry Schwarz and myself were very strained for some time thereafter. They improved only in 1986 when Frederik van Zyl Slabbert resigned from Parliament and the Progressive Federal Party. Harry Schwarz and I were the two most outraged members of the caucus, and our other differences faded into insignificance as a result. We developed a mutual respect for one another. Schwarz was an extremely able MP with a good financial brain, and a hard worker who could devastate National Party members in Parliament, especially Ministers of Finance, who feared his vigorous attacks. Like me, he could be unpleasant both in and out of the House. The differences we had were not on racial policy, but on his hawkish support of the South African Defence Force."
