The Foreign Service Journal, September 2012

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 11 eating tiger theory, followed by specu- lation about a hit-man sent by a Thai business rival. Then there was the theory that Chinese communists in the Malaysian underground had kid- napped Thompson for information about U.S. intelligence operations. The tiger theory was dismissed by Malaysian police: tigers are messy eaters and no body parts were strewn in the jungle. The hit-man theory was improbable: Thailand, not Malaysia, was the preferred site for a contract murder. Similarly, the communist the- ory was discredited because Thomp- son’s information had become obsolete after his time with the Office of Strategic Services. Recently, however, I came across a fourth explanation that I find most credible. A friend and colleague, re- tired FSOGordon Murchie, proposed it to me over a glass of Viognier wine at the Foreign Affairs Day luncheon in May. During embassy assignments in northeast Thailand and in Bangkok as liaison to the Thai government’s Com- munist Suppression Operations Cen- ter, Murchie and his wife, Anita, became friends with Jim Thompson. The Murchies were familiar with Thompson’s regular trips to the Cameron Highlands, but they them- selves only visited occasionally. They would stay at the main lodge, not far from the separate, secluded cottage frequented by Thompson and his other friends. This cool jungle re- treat was reached by taxi up the moun- tains with one of the many waiting ethnic Indian Malaysian drivers, most of whom had the last name of “Singh.” Murchie believes that Jim Thomp- son’s last taxi ride to the Cameron Highlands was probably with a crime lord disguised as an ordinary taxi L E T T E R S