Remembering Nieman curator, historian, writer<\/p>\n
Sabam Siagian, The Jakarta Post, Editor at Large, Nieman Fellow
\nClass '79<\/p>\n
Prof. James C. Thomson, former Nieman Foundation curator
\n(director), East Asia historian, college professor and a key
\nfigure in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations during the
\n1960s, died Sunday, Aug. 4, 2002, in Massachusetts at Newton-
\nWellesley Hospital of cardiac arrest after a brief illness. He
\nwas 70 years old.<\/p>\n
A memorial service was held on Sept. 12, 2002 at Harvard
\nMemorial Church followed by a reception hosted by the Nieman
\nFoundation.<\/p>\n
The Nieman fellowships were established at Harvard University
\nin 1938 as the first mid-term career education program for
\nworking journalists. A bequest of US$1 million from Agus Wahl
\nNieman, widow of the founder of the Milwaukee Journal, instructed
\nthe university to spend the money \"...to promote and elevate the
\nstandards of journalism...\" and educate persons deemed specially
\nqualified for journalism.<\/p>\n
Since Harvard's board of overseers did not quite know what to
\ndo with the money in concrete terms while establishing a school
\nof journalism was then considered below Harvard's dignity, advice
\nwas sought from Walter Lippmann, the prominent journalist and
\npolitical thinker.<\/p>\n
Lippmann advised that Harvard each year allow a number of mid-
\ncareer journalists to be part of the Harvard community for one
\nacademic year as a novel experiment. That advice was accepted and
\nimplemented.<\/p>\n
Each year, 25 journalists from the U.S. and abroad are
\nselected in a competition process and awarded Nieman Fellowships.
\nThe fellows spend one full academic year at Harvard, engaged in
\nthe intellectual life of the university. They can attend any
\ncourses they are interested in and have a wide range of choices,
\nfrom \"the History of American Jazz\" to \"War and Peace in the
\nNuclear Age\".<\/p>\n
During his 12 years as Curator (1972-1984), Jim Thomson
\nbroadened the Nieman Fellowships to include more minorities,
\nwomen and journalists from small news organizations and
\nbroadcasting.<\/p>\n
I was accepted as a Nieman fellow for the academic year of
\n1978-1979. My application was actually submitted way past the
\ndeadline, since I had to overcome the agonizing problem of
\nleaving my active job of deputy chief editor of a lively
\nafternoon newspaper and my family and yielding to the
\nirresistible temptation to be at Harvard as practically an
\n\"intellectual tourist.\"<\/p>\n
It was the late Ambassador Soedjatmoko, a Harvard alumni, who
\nurged me to take the opportunity and who wrote the necessary
\nrecommendations to secure the funding for my program.<\/p>\n
When I arrived in Cambridge, Mass., in early September 1978,
\nfoul weather had already set in. The Nieman Foundation had just
\nacquired its first home, a unique house built in the New England
\nstyle of architecture, which was the former home of the
\nuniversity's chief carpenter. It was appropriately named as
\nWalter Lippmann House.<\/p>\n
When I reported my arrival to Jim Thomson and thanked him for
\ncutting the university's bureaucratic red tape so that I could
\nstill be accepted on time, he responded with his sardonic wit
\nthat I was to become familiar with during the coming months.<\/p>\n
With a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other, he said,
\nhalf-seriously and half-humorously: \"Well, in the long history of
\nthis Nieman program you are the first Indonesian journalist
\naccepted.<\/p>\n
\"I persuaded my colleagues to be somewhat lenient in accepting
\nour first Indonesian since we need to indoctrinate him with our
\nAmerican democratic values, lest General Soeharto's regime
\ncorrupts the entire Indonesian press.\"<\/p>\n
A twinkle in his eyes told me he was just teasing. As a matter
\nof fact, during the entire academic year he never talked about
\nthe superiority of American values.<\/p>\n
Jim was the third curator (an esoteric name for director, as
\nif the Nieman fellows were museum pieces) of the Nieman
\nFoundation from 1972 to 1984. His parents were missionaries in
\nChina, teaching at the Christian College in Nanking. Jim was
\nbrought up in China until the age of six, but later continued his
\ninterest in China and was proficient in the Chinese language. The
\ntitle of his Phd dissertation that he wrote at Harvard is: \"While
\nChina Faces the West.\"<\/p>\n
When John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, Jim
\nThomson, like so many other bright, educated Americans, joined
\nthe government. He was working for the State Department under
\nSecretary Chester Bowles. In 1964 MacGeorge Bundy, the former
\ndean of Harvard College who was heading the National Security
\nCouncil at the White House, asked Jim to join him.<\/p>\n
As Jim told me, MacGeorge Bundy, who was known to have a
\nbrilliant and incisive mind and was an exponent of the Eastern
\nestablishment, said: \"Jim, this Vietnam business is getting more
\nserious. I need somebody who has at least some historical
\nbackground of the region and who has the intellectual honesty to
\nprepare for me an accurate assessment of the U.S. involvement. A
\nperson who is not easily over-awed, either by this place (the
\nWhite House) or its occupants.\"<\/p>\n
As it turned out, Jim Thomson became the in-house dissenter
\nwho had serious doubts whether the U.S. sacrifice in Vietnam
\nserved America's strategic interest. In 1966, he left the White
\nHouse totally exhausted, mentally and physically. He then joined
\nthe Harvard faculty as assistant professor of East Asian history.<\/p>\n
In April 1968, the Atlantic Monthly published Jim Thomson's
\nlong essay under the title How Could Vietnam Happen? - An
\nAutopsy. It was a brutal assessment of how a world superpower
\nthat possessed ample military strength and was governed by \"the
\nbest and brightest\" could stumble in a war that had no clear
\nstrategic purpose.<\/p>\n
It won the Overseas Press Club Award and influenced a
\ngeneration of reporters and policy analysts. MacGeorge Bundy was
\nvery upset about that article. It was not that he disagreed
\nentirely with Jim Thomson's analysis, but he thought it was a
\nserious breach, coming from a former White House official who
\nshould show loyalty to the president.<\/p>\n
In spring 1979, David Halberstam, the former New York Times
\ncorrespondent in Saigon who wrote what is now considered the best
\nbook on the U.S. involvement in Vietnam (The Best and the
\nBrightest), came to Walter Lippmann House to address the Nieman
\nfellows. From the exchanges between Jim Thomson and David
\nHalberstam I instinctively knew that Jim must have been the \"Deep
\nThroat\" for some intimate White House revelations in that book.<\/p>\n
After terminating his assignment as Curator of Harvard's
\nNieman's Foundation in 1984, Jim joined Boston University as
\nprofessor of international relations.<\/p>\n
Looking back, the experience that I consider most valuable
\nduring that one academic year at Harvard, besides attending the
\nclasses, is my getting acquainted with Jim Thomson. He was a man
\nwho at one time was involved in the highest councils of decision
\nmaking in the U.S., who knew about the trappings and temptations
\nof power centers, yet who maintained a balanced view and a sober
\nrealism about life. He told me once that what was important in
\noccupying a lofty bureaucratic position was to always maintain
\none's moral and intellectual courage to submit a realistic policy
\nrecommendation.<\/p>\n
I kept remembering Jim Thomson's words when I became
\nambassador to Australia (1991-1995), but I never had the chance
\nto thank him for that wise counsel. The Nieman fellows from
\nIndonesia in the succeeding years under different Curators are
\nGoenawan Mohamad (Tempo newsweekly), Ratih Hardjono (Kompas
\ndaily) and Andreas Harsono (Institute for Free Flow of
\nInformation Studies).<\/p>",
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