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.