Carl Green

Carl J. Green, a lawyer who opened the Ford Foundation's representative office in Tokyo and devoted a lifetime to US-Japan relations, died on July 25, 2025, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He was 85.

Mr. Green enjoyed a long and prominent career in law, business and the non-profit sector, with a focus on Japan. After graduating magna cum laude in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, Mr. Green first travelled to Japan in 1961 on a Knox Travelling Fellowship. He later obtained a JD degree from Yale Law School and accepted a position with the law firm Baker & McKenzie. After a tour at the US Department of Transportation, which included a six-week stint in Vienna working on international traffic signage, and additional legal work in Washington, DC, 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 at the U.S. firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.

After relocating to Washington in 1989, Mr. Green was the Founding Director of the Eastern Asian Legal Studies Centre at Georgetown University Law School, before moving to Hitachi, Ltd's Washington Office, where he served as senior advisor from 1998 to 2016. At Hitachi, Mr. Green was a driving force behind the Council on Foreign Relations' International Affairs Fellowship in Japan, which sends mid-career American professionals in a variety of fields to Japan for 3-12 months of research and relationship-building.

In Washington, Mr. Green served in a number of non-profit roles, including as President of the Japan-American Society DC (JASWDC) 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 JASWDC tribute, Mr. Green was known for his gentle, modest demeanor and wonderful sense of humour [and] served as a mentor to many of the current generation of American-Japan hands.

He is a life-time member of Cosmos Club, Council on Foreign Affairs, University Club N.Y.C., Ken Wood County, Maryland, and Four Streams Golf Club, Maryland.

He is survived by his wife of nearly 50 years, Pamela Wattenberg Green, sons: Adam Mitchel Greem, Brian Geffery Green, Anthony Loeb Green and five grandchildren.