Exit the Silkmaker: The CIA and Jim Thompson (Studies in Intelligence, 1993)
Jim Thompson rebuilt the Thai silk industry after the war, filled a famous house in Bangkok with art, and in 1967 walked into the Malaysian highlands and was never found. He had also worked for the OSS. This is the CIA's own account of what he did and did not do for them, written for its in-house journal in 1993 and released after an appeal in 2018.
Jim Thompson served in the OSS, stayed in Thailand after the war, and rebuilt its silk industry into an export business. In March 1967 he walked out of a holiday cottage in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia and was never found. The disappearance has carried a permanent rumour that the agency he once worked for knew more than it said.
This is that agency's account of him, written by the historian Nick Cullather for its in-house journal in 1993 and classified Secret. Someone appealed for its release in 2018. The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel ruled:
DECLASSIFY SOME PORTIONS OF THE DOCUMENT AND AFFIRM THE CLASSIFICATION OF OTHER PORTIONS
What arrives, then, is the CIA's own history of a man who vanished, with passages blacked out under E.O. 13526, section 3.3(b)(1).
Provenance
- Original source
- https://www.governmentattic.org/62docs/CIAetstcajt1993.pdf
- Collected
- This copy
- 1.3 MB · 12 pages · archived here
- Rights
- Work of the US federal government, not subject to copyright (17 U.S.C. 105).
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