Former Nieman Head, China Scholar Dies

A former curator of Harvard’s prestigious journalism foundation, known for his advocacy of engagement with Communist China and his support of women in journalism, died Sunday of cardiac arrest. He was 70.

James C. Thomson, who led the Nieman Foundation from 1972 to 1984, was known for his work in both government, journalism and academia, and his desire to bridge the gap between different groups.

“My academic friends think of me as a journalist; my journalist friends think of me as an academic,” Thomson told a group of Nieman alumni in 1972, his first year at the foundation.

An American who spent much of his life studying modern China, Thomson was an advocate for rapprochement between Communist China and the West at a time when such a suggestion was not mainstream, earning himself the nickname of “Mao Ze-Thomson, my favorite dove” from President Johnson’s National Security Advisor McGeorge M. Bundy.

Thomson’s work with the Nieman Foundation, which awards fellowships for mid-career journalists to study at Harvard, was “absolutely the highpoint of his working life,” said his stepdaughter, Anne Butler in a press release.

Thomson was a self-proclaimed “journalizer,” which he defined as “one who has hovered and nibbled at the fringes of journalism for most of my life.”

Co-workers said he coupled the charming style of a European “gentleman” with contemporary ideals of equality for women and minorities.

“He was quite charming, a gentleman,” said Lois F. Fiore, assistant to the publisher of the Neiman Foundation, who has worked at the foundation for nearly 30 years.

Fiore said Thomson took steps to bring more women, minorities and journalists from small news organizations to Harvard as Neiman Fellows. He also stopped the use of “he” or “men” as generalized references in Nieman Foundation publications.

“He fully supported woman’s issues,” Fiore said. “He wasn’t afraid of strong women and allowed me to flourish in my work.”

Fiore said he expanded the operation while maintaining a close-knit working environment.

“His leadership style was to treat the staff as a family,” she said. “When I started working here in 1973 there were only three of us—Jim, an executive director, and me—and we just clicked as a team.”

Prior to his work at the Nieman Foundation, Thomson served in the State Department in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and was known for his strong advocacy of engagement with Communist China, and his opposition to the war in Vietnam.

The youngest of four children, Thomson spent his childhood years in Nanking, China, where his father was a college chemistry teacher. His mother and two older sisters had a great impression on his life and his attitudes toward women, Fiore said.

Thomson studied at Yale University, where he was chair of the Yale Daily News. He also received degrees from Cambridge University.

In the midst of his Harvard graduate studies in modern Chinese history, Thomson left the University for politics in 1956 to work on Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson’s second campaign for the presidency. For one Stevenson speech on foreign policy, Thomson coined the term “brinksmanship” to describe Secretary of State John F. Dulles’s claim to bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war in order to block Soviet expansion. The term has since become standard foreign policy jargon.

After finishing his doctorate at Harvard, Thomson went on to work in the Far Eastern Bureau of the State Department.

In 1964, National Security Advisor Bundy put Thomson in charge of analyzing, he said, “waifs and strays of East Asia, nations neglected because of our total preoccupation with Vietnam.”

After leaving government, Thomson wrote an article in 1968 that critiqued the Vietnam War.

The article, “How Could Vietnam Happen?” earned him an Overseas Press Club award and has been anthologized in several books.

After resigning from his 12-year curatorship in 1984, Thomson returned to teaching as a professor of international relations, history and journalism at Boston University.

—Staff writer Stephanie M. Skier can be reached at skier@fas.harvard.edu.