THAILAND TO CLOSE CASE OF MISSING AMERICAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100100107-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 107
• Publication Date: March 26, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

. it--
STAT-'`
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/02 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100100107-4
rrt_0c-t1l5 J UN POST
2 G MAR 1974
age sound of a deck chair
.
after World War 11 as an officer in -are some of the most impen-
t.he Office of Strategic Scqices? the etrable jungles it the world.
forerunner of the Central Intelligence It was first assumed that
.Agency. lie decided to stay on in the Thompson had lost his WaY
East and built the t;aavin; of silk in or perhaps wandered off the
.Thailand up from a small and dcitig trail. The following morning
cottage industry into a multimillion the search began with Po-
dollar business, known all over the ;!icemen, soldiers, volunteers
world. He was a great raconteur and . and even local aborigines
entertained often in his beautiful and .from the forests joining in.
theatrical Thai-style House on a canal. : The woods were combed
He became a legendary local char- for 10,days, but nothing was
--after and during the 1950s and early ?:found. It was then that
lt60s an intraduction to Jim Thonip- minds began to turn toward
son was eagerly sought-after by visi- more 'sinister suspicions.
tors to Bangkok. Alight there have been foul
On-_llarch 26, 1937, Thompson was play, perhaps a kidnaping'
visiting friends in the Cameron High- '\iyriads of mystics and local
lands resort in \lalaysia. It was Easter 'witch doctors descended on
Sunday and, following a picnic lunch,' the highlands. A Dutch
the: house party of four' returned to clairvoyant named Peter
tl.h'ir cottage in the early afternoon TLilrkos. who had becoltie fa-
:for a nap. Thompson play have at .oos for his eerie revela-
out on the lawn while Be others dozed ,ti mons daring the Boston
in their rooms, it is not certain, but
shortly after 3 p.m, his friends heard stn angler murder case,
showed up in the highlands
By 1-1. D. S. Greont?,ay being placed on Be veranda
P:;,thin;nun PosC? ore:~n service '?
BANGKOK, March 26-On Tuesday and the sound of footsteps
and fantasies concerning his disap- gain of gaustores.'-
pcaranec have become one of the The Cameron Highlands
more romantic and controversial mys-_.:are well laid out for bikers
teries of the East. -'with numerous footpaths,
'The We of this American expatriate were his cigarettes and
Was itself improbable and the facts .sonde pills he took to kill the,
been solved. for Thompson was never
Not a sinflr. clue has proved reliable -teen or heard from again.
and, as one of his close friends said later his suit coat Was
last neck. ":\11 the theories are inn-
probable and some of them are WON fiound over the back of the
lous." .deck chair and in his room
it will be seven years to the day since going down the gravel drive
James I1. 11'. Thompson disappeared Jo the road.
without a trace in the Cameron High- It was presumed that the
lands of. \lalaysia. After seven years, .footsteps were Thompson's
the courts are entitled to declare hint .anal that he was going for a
legally dead, but the' case has never -stroll. But no one is sure,
'Thompson carte to Bangkok.'-t-igh
t
and said that. Thompson had
.'been kidnaped by someone.
.known to him, drugged and
taken to Cambodia.
All Thouipson's earlier
FOSS days were recalled as
'was his association with the
'former Thai Premier Pridi
Phanhontyong, leader of
`the anti-Japanese under-
ground in Thailand during
"the hvar, who. when
't'hump.
son disappeared. was in cx-
'ilc in China. It was rccallt?d Later it was sueeestetl
that during the late I91Us that he had Bern ]idnaped
. Jhompson also knew mane and murdered to cover up
anti-hrenrlt Victrarliese, some dark secret in Thai-
,('antbodians and Laotians as land, the nature of ?itich
has never liven agreed 'upon.
If.'I'honipson was not kid- The conspiracy cold tnurder
l`y'
was brutally murdered is
her house in Pennsylvania.
As the years passed noth-
ing appeared either to prove
or disprove any of these the-
orics. In recent years, the
secret mission theory has
(late, favors the theory that
faded liven that the'Ameri-
can troop withdrawal from
Vietnam and the Paris
agreements have . taken
place apparently without
Jim Thompson's help. But
the murder theory has cut
abated even though no one
has come up with a concrete
motive.
By Ken Binges.-The Washington Post Thompson's friend and bi-
Thompson was last seen
in Cameron llighiancls.
-perhaps he had been kid-
naped for political reasons.
Perhaps he had gone volun.
tarily on some secret mis-
sign.
'Thompson was 61 when he
disappeared and it had been
20 years since his cloak and
dagger days. Nonetheless,
the idea that he might have
been involved in some high-
legel espionage persisted.
Early in the case, a well-
known British jungle ex-
pert, Richard Noone, de-
clared that it was most un-
likely that Jim Thompsou
had been lost in the jungle.
Nome knew the Cameron
Highlands well from his ex-
perience as an anti-guerrilla
fighter, and soon after
Thompson's disappearance
he went Ihere to talk to the
aboriginal tribes who Iive in
the forest. Noone's position
was that you just do not
lose a elan in Be jungle, not
if you ]chow how to read the
signs. If Thompson had been
eaten by a titer or fallen in
a ravine, the aboriginals
would have found scar.(
trace, Nome said. Yet there
was nothing--no spots of
])food. not even a vulture
wheeling in the sky.
whose book "The Legendary ?
American" is the most corn- .
plete study of the case to
date, favors the theory that
Thompson Was lost in the
jungle as the least improba-
ble of the many theories
that have been presented.
Richard '\oone nohvith-
standmg Warren feels that
the thoroughness of the
search has been exagger-
ated, given the extreme dif-
ficulty of4he terrain.
Connie Monskau. an old
friend who accompanied
Thompson on his Malaysian
holiday seven years ago,
says that she does not be-
lieve that Jim Thompson is
still alive. She ]cans toward
the Warren theory that if
Thompson- is ever found it
will probabl': be in the Catn-
eron Ilig glands.
During the war. Tim
Thompson had been trained
to parachute into Thailand
behind the Japanese line,
but the Japanese surren-
dered literally as Thomo.
son's n!nnc was in the air.
He had attended St. Paul's
School and Princel,oit T:r:-
versile and during the 19ns
he lived a fashionable life in
New Wk But his brief
nlarria:::' did not snrvivc the
war anal h'n,_turned his hack`
on his life to sable
in Il,inahuk,
His Crcat emn.,norcial su -'
COSS v::s in Ot'g:u:i;:!n,^,
acm ire ink) on indu.;'Iry
and selling the- product
ovetScas, .1Iany :\nicricans?
first noticed the hcautiful
text urns anti rich ('mgrs r,f
Thai AN Won .lirn '1'Itnntp-
stin's silk v,'as egos' n .`ur the
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