By: John Richardson – June 15, 2026
Prologue
On July 18, 2017 the Washington Post included a section describing:
“Notable Deaths in the Washington, area”
“Alan James, lawyer, State Dept. officer
Alan James, 96, a lawyer who specialized in admiralty law and a State Department officer who served as a delegate to international panels on laws of the sea, died June 13 at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. The cause was heart ailments, said a daughter, Anne James.
Mr. James, a Bethesda resident, was born in Brooklyn. In the 1950s, he began his State Department career as an administrative and political counselor specializing in maritime matters. He was a political counselor at U.S. embassies in London and Paris as well as a delegate to laws of the seas treaty conferences. From 1982 to 1995, he chaired the State Department Board of Appellate Review, which reviews individual nationality cases. He was an avocational scholar who specialized in the works of Henry James (no relation).”