- James C. Thomson, Jr.
James Claude "Jim" Thomson Jr. (
September 14 1931 —August 11 2002 ) was an Americanstatesman ,historian andjournalist .Born in Princeton, New Jersey, to Congregationalist
missionary parents only temporarily home from theRepublic of China , he soon moved with them and his siblings toNanjing . His siblings were Anne (who goes by Nancy), Sydney, and John, and he was a friend and brother in law to theologianRobert McAfee Brown , Sydney's husband. (Only Nancy and Sydney are still alive.)Thomson was a student at the
University of Nanking , and later graduated with a B.A. fromYale University in 1953. As a Yale-Clare Fellow atCambridge University , he received a B.A. in history in 1955, and an M.A. in 1959. He received hisPh.D. in history fromHarvard University in 1961. When not inWashington, D.C. , he lived in Cambridge,Massachusetts with his wife, Diana, whom he had married in 1959.cite web |url= http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2003/0302/0302mem1.cfm|title= In Memoriam: James C. Thomson Jr.|last=Reed|first=James|accessdate=2006-04-20 |month=February | year=2003|work= Perspectives|publisher=American Historical Association ]A member of the Democratic Party, Thomson was an assistant to
Chester Bowles during theAdlai Stevenson presidential campaign of 1956. He held various jobs relating to East Asian Affairs in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, resigning in 1966 in protest of theVietnam War . His article "How Could Vietnam Happen?" in the April 1968 Atlantic Magazine examined and condemned American involvement in Vietnam in terms of State Department bureaucratic politics, the purging of expertise in the McCarthy era, and Democratic administration remembrance of the "loss of China" charges. [ [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/196804/vietnam How Could Vietnam Happen? An Autopsy ] ] Thomson appeared briefly on ABC duringRichard Nixon 's visit to thePeople's Republic of China , and he demonstrated the use ofchopsticks for the American public.He wrote two books; one, published 1969, was "While China Faced West: American Reformers in Nationalist China, 1928-1937",cite web |url= http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/thomson.htm|title= Review of While China Faced West|accessdate=2006-09-01|year=2000 |last=Schmalzer|first=Sigrid|work= Studies of Modern Chinese History: Reviews and Historiographical Essays|publisher=
University of California, San Diego ] and the other in 1981, "Sentimental Imperialists: The American Experience in East Asia", along with co-authors Peter W. Stanley and John Curtis Perry. He was a lecturer in history atHarvard University starting in 1970, and in 1972 he was appointed curator of theNieman Foundation for Journalism . He taught atBoston University from 1984 until 1997. His death in 2002, two years after his wife's, was due to a heart attack. Both of their funerals were held in the Memorial Church of Harvard University, and they are both buried in Heath, Massachusettes.cite web |url= http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Archives+and+Manuscripts/fa_thomson.htm |title= James C. Thomson|accessdate=2006-04-20 |work= Historical Resources|publisher=John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum]References
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