Alexander Sandy Calhoun

1925 - 2025

Alexander Sandy Calhoun
06/13/1925 - 11/25/2025
Alexander "Sandy" Dewey Calhoun, Jr., corporate attorney credited with opening post-war business ties to Japan and philanthropist involved with the launch of the Asian Art Museum, died at home in San Francisco on November 25, 2025. He was 100 years old.
Sandy was "one of the grand old men of international law," according to Joan Garvey, the highly respected San Francisco tax attorney and leading figure in the American Bar Association. He lauded Sandy in a 1988 San Francisco Banner article: "Sandy was one of the very, very earliest to look west to Asia."
The eldest of two boys, Sandy was born June 13, 1925, in Shanghai to Alexander "Cal" Calhoun, Sr., an employee of a Citibank predecessor, and Minna Schick, a mathematics instructor who met Alexander while teaching at the University of the Philippines. Sandy was considered a "serious child" who said his happiest childhood years were spent in Shanghai where he rode to school in a rickshaw, and in Manila where he learned to play polo.
The family left Shanghai in 1937 and his parents enrolled Sandy in a Swiss boarding school, where regular skiing expeditions fostered his love of the great outdoors. Two years later, Sandy rejoined his parents in Manila and attended Manila American High School for two years. But the family's circumstances shifted in 1941 when the Japanese interned Alexander in a Philippine prison camp. Minna moved her sons to the United States in 1941 - Sandy's first time living in the U.S. - and enrolled Sandy in Phillips Academy, Andover, from where he graduated in 1943. His father remained imprisoned for the duration of the war. "We lived through very troubled times," Sandy recalled in a 2004 Daily Journal profile.
During a legal career spanning nearly 75 years, Sandy grew from specializing in maritime, shipping and labor law to working on mergers and acquisitions, contracts, licensing and corporate transactions with companies including Bank of Tokyo, Union Bank of California, Tokyo Mitsubishi, Japan Airlines and Hitachi. A "rainmaker…who created the international corporate practice at Graham & James," where he was a partner from 1959-1992, Sandy "made [the firm] what it was, which was the premier firm serving the Pacific Basin," said Nicholas Unkovic of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, successor to Graham & James, where Sandy was Senior Counsel until 2013. He then joined Taylor & Company Law Offices where he practiced in a consulting capacity into his early 90s.
Sandy's professional career began in earnest in 1955 when he sailed to Japan with a one-way ticket on the U.S.S. Young American as an early associate for what was then Graham & Morse, a small firm specializing in the maritime industry. According to journalist Michael J. Hall, the trip was "a turning point in California law practice and the beginning of an international focus by the state's major firms, but at the time, nobody knew what it would bring."
Sandy's interests were not only professional but cultural. No one knew that his experience would also help shepherd a cultural turning point for the country, rejuvenating the tattered postwar bond between Japan and the U.S. In recognition of Sandy's contribution to promoting mutual understanding between the U.S. and Japan, and for his protection of classic Kabuki theater during the postwar period, he was awarded 'The Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Ray with Neck Ribbon' Medal of Honor (kunsho) by the government of Japan in 1994. He received a similar declaration from the Republic of South Korea, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Japan Society of Northern California in 2006.
Sandy joined the Asia Foundation's Board of Trustees and served as chairman of the foundation's Give2Asia non-profit arm. He was past president and director emeritus of the Japan Society of Northern California, helping revive it in the 1960s after dormancy during and after World War II; chairman emeritus of the San Francisco-Osaka Sister City Committee; and a member of the San Francisco-Shanghai Sister City Committee. He also served on the advisory board of UC Davis Extension, a director of Wonders Info Corporation, on the Board of Directors of the 1990 Institute, and was a founder in 1971 of the Pacific-Indonesian Chamber of Commerce, now the California- Asia Business Council (Cal-Asia).
But Sandy's biggest contribution to U.S.-Japan cultural relations came as commissioner of San Francisco's Asian Art Commission, the group responsible for bringing the Asian Art Museum to the city. His early responsibilities included help in securing, safekeeping and sponsoring the collection, which culminated in the building of the museum at the Civic Center. Sandy was an Asian Art Commissioner from 1969 to 2025, for which Mayor Lurie presented him a Certificate of Honor in April for his 56 year tenure serving under 12 San Francisco Mayors.
Sandy's success in linking the U.S. to Asia was no doubt a testament to his upbringing in China and the Philippines, coupled with his taking Japanese language courses after being drafted but before reporting for duty in World War II. Sandy credited his mother with effectively saving his life thanks to those classes, which likely pulled him from the front lines. "'You're a high school graduate. You don't know anything. You'll be dog meat,'" he remembered her saying. "'You want to try to get some qualification."
Her guidance changed his life's trajectory. The summer language course at Columbia University found its way into his Army record, so rather than being sent into battle, Sandy reported to the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence Service Language School at the University of Michigan where he studied Japanese language and culture before being sent to Manila - his boyhood home - in 1945.
Sandy was in the Philippines when the war ended, after which he was stationed in Tokyo until 1947 as part of the Civil Censorship Detachment under Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur. MacArthur oversaw the occupation of Japan; Sandy was involved in censorship of anti-American material in the Japanese press, film and live entertainment.
According to Consular General Ryozo Kato, who presented Sandy with the medal of honor in 1994, Sandy specifically oversaw the arts, including Kabuki theater; ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging; and the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Sandy recalled feeling the weight of tremendous responsibility when, at so young an age, he was put in charge of protecting the centuries old Japanese arts. Sandy helped persuade the authorities in charge of censorship not to ban classic Kabuki plays.
After being discharged in 1947, Sandy spent a week touring the Bay Area. He thought it was beautiful, "a really nice place," but Harvard College was waiting for him. The university honored all his language credits, allowing Sandy to graduate in two years with a degree in Far Eastern history, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He studied Asian history and political science under acclaimed professors Fairbank and Reischauer, two of the country's most distinguished Asia scholars; he was also Captain of the Harvard Polo Club's Crimson team. After graduation, Sandy joined the reserves and enrolled at Harvard Law School on his remaining GI Bill credits.
In 1951, at the start of his second year in law school, the Army recalled Sandy for the Korean War. His language skills came in handy again, and the Army stationed him at what is now the National Security Agency working on communications intelligence. He transferred from Harvard Law School to George Washington University Law School, and took night classes for the next year.
Sandy was a member of the District of Columbia Bar (1952), the New York State Bar (1953), the State Bar of California (1954), and a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was also licensed to practice law in Japan as a "junkaiin" by the Japanese Supreme Court (1955), a program soon abolished, making him the last person with this qualification.
While finishing his studies in Washington DC, Sandy's upbringing, studies, and military experience converged serendipitously when he "got a letter out of the blue" from a small law firm in San Francisco that specialized in maritime law. The firm had written to Harvard Law School looking for someone with an interest and background in Asia, and the placement office remembered Sandy. He caught an Army flight to San Francisco and interviewed with the firm.
In a 2013 interview with the University of California Berkeley's Bancroft Library staff, as part of its Asian Art Museum Oral History Project, Sandy said, "Everybody I knew was going to New York or Washington…or their hometown, if they had a hometown. Well, by now, my hometown, Manila, was an independent country and I would have had to become a Philippine citizen and give up American citizenship. So I thought, 'Well, let's try San Francisco.'"
Sandy expanded his mentorship in law to include academia as a lecturer on the Japanese legal system and on international business transactions. He lectured at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, served for years as an adjunct professor of banking law at the University of San Francisco School of Law, and became a visiting lecturer at the Beijing Institute of Foreign Trade.
Beyond Asia, Sandy was involved in structuring the Constitutional Convention and election arrangements in Afghanistan, providing general corporate counsel to a nonprofit organization supporting the process for Afghanistan's Constitutional Loya Jirga (grand council), which adopted that country's first constitution. He was honored by Cal-Asia in the 2000s as a pioneer "for his role in globalizing legal services to increase the ease of doing business across the Pacific and his wise mentoring included such matters as the importance of showing 'good citizenship' in local communities."
Remembered fondly as an academic and intellectual, Sandy was a "quiet lion who held a lot of power in a quiet way," according to family. Edward Kallgren, former president of the Bar Association of San Francisco who worked with Sandy in the 1950s, recalled thirty years later that Sandy was a "careful, competent lawyer."
Sandy met his late wife, Cornelia (Connie) Jones, in 1953 at a mutual friend's party in San Francisco. They left the party for dinner at the Buena Vista Café and were engaged to be married three weeks later. They moved to Japan in 1955 when Sandy opened the law office for Graham, James & Rolf. Connie gave birth to three of their four children there; twins Peter and Thomas in 1955, and Mari in 1957. In 1959, Sandy and Connie returned to San Francisco where their fourth child, Alexander III, was born in 1963.
Sandy and Connie shared a love of birding, The couple traveled to destinations including Alaska, Borneo and Latin America to enjoy nature. They loved backpacking and favored heavy outdoor backcountry trips in the High Sierras, sleeping under the stars for a week or two at a time, over resort-style vacations. They completed the John Muir Trail, twice.
In his 60s, Sandy reclaimed his love of riding. He continued through his 80s, enjoying life on horseback in West Marin and Bolinas, competing in both speed-focused Ride & Tie events and endurance riding where he and his horse would trot for 25 miles along the Point Reyes National Seashore trails.
While he loved outdoor pursuits, Sandy maintained an active social life back in the city. He was a member of The Pacific-Union Club, Villa Taverna, The Bohemian Club and the Inverness Yacht Club.
Sandy is survived by his four children, Peter (Marianne), Thomas (Emilie), Mari, and Alexander III (Katie); eight grandchildren, Natalie (Max), Eli, Walker, Marie, Ray, Dorothy, Charles, and Virginia; one great-grandchild, Leah, extended family and numerous dear friends. He was predeceased by his brother Thomas Calhoun in 1993 and by his wife, Connie, who also died on November 25th, in 2023.
In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to any cause you feel passionate about. A private celebration of life will be held at a later date.