[1][2] As a youth in Chicago, Craig was an Eagle Scout, and also participated in both competitive swimming and judo.
While doing counterintelligence work for the United States Army in 1946 and 1947, he was stationed in Miyazaki and in Kyoto.
Craig earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy in 1949 at Northwestern University, where he was member of Phi Beta Kappa.
He did his doctoral dissertation at Harvard University under the supervision of Edwin O. Reischauer and also worked with John K. Fairbank.
[1] In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Albert Craig, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 60+ works in 200+ publications in 7 languages and 8,000+ library holdings.