Henry P. Sailer was born in Beijing, where his father, Randolph C. Sailer ’19, was a professor at Yenching University. At age 12, he moved to the United States to attend Deerfield. Henry graduated from Princeton in 1951, when he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and earned honors in history.

Henry received a law degree in 1956 from Harvard Law School and joined the Washington law firm of Covington & Burling, taking a one-year leave in 1958 to clerk for Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan II. He retired as a partner in 1998.

He used his fluency in Mandarin as a member of the National Committee on United States-China Relations and on frequent travels to China. His marriage to Francesca Ramus in the 1950s ended in divorce.

He died June 22, 2010, of congestive heart failure.