Carl J. Green, a lawyer who opened the Ford Foundation¡¯s representative office in Tokyo and devoted a lifetime to U.S.-Japan relations, died on July 25 at his home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He was 85.
Green enjoyed a long and prominent career in law, business and the nonprofit sector, with a focus on Japan. After graduating magna cum laude in East Asian studies from Harvard University, Green first traveled to Japan in 1961 on a Knox Traveling Fellowship. He later obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School and accepted a position with the law firm of Baker & McKenzie.
Following a tour in the U.S. Department of Transportation (which included a six-week stint in Vienna working on international traffic signage) and additional legal work in Washington, D.C., he moved to the Ford Foundation, setting up the U.S. philanthropy¡¯s representative office in Japan in 1975 and running the office for five years. He returned to Tokyo in 1987 as a lawyer for the U.S. firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.
Upon relocating to Washington in 1989, Green became the founding director of the Eastern Asian Legal Studies Center at Georgetown University Law School, before moving to Hitachi¡¯s Washington office, where he served as senior adviser from 1998 to 2016. At Hitachi, Green was a driving force behind the Council on Foreign Relations¡¯ International Affairs Fellowship in Japan, which sends midcareer American professionals in a variety of fields to Japan for three to 12 months of research and relationship-building.
In Washington, Green served in a number of nonprofit roles, including as president of the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C., from 1994 to 1996. In 2018, the Emperor of Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette.
As noted in a , Green ¡°was known for his gentle, modest demeanor and wonderful sense of humor (and) served as mentor to many of the current generation of American ¡®Japan hands.¡¯¡± He is survived by his wife of nearly 50 years, Pamela Wattenberg Green, three sons and five grandchildren.
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