Freddie Dalton Thompson (August 19, 1942 – November 1, 2015) was an American politician, attorney, lobbyist, columnist, actor, and radio personality. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States senator from Tennessee from 1994 to 2003. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the Republican Party presidential primaries for the 2008 United States presidential election.
He chaired the International Security Advisory Board at the U.S. Department of State, was a member of the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a visiting fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, specializing in national security and intelligence.American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Scholars & Fellows .
Usually credited as Fred Dalton Thompson, he appeared in a number of movies and television shows including Matlock, The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard 2, In the Line of Fire, Days of Thunder, and Cape Fear, as well as in commercials. He frequently portrayed governmental authority figures and military men. In the final months of his U.S. Senate term in 2002, Thompson joined the cast of the NBC television series Law & Order, starring as Manhattan District Attorney Arthur Branch.
Early life and education Fred Thompson was born on August 19, 1942, at Colbert County Hospital (now Helen Keller Memorial Hospital) in Sheffield, Alabama. He was the son of Ruth Inez (née Bradley) and Fletcher Session Thompson, a used car salesman born in Lauderdale County, Alabama, on August 26, 1919, and who died in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, on May 27, 1990. Thompson was of primarily Scottish and some English and distant Dutch, ancestry.Fred Dalton Thompson Biography (1942–), filmreference.com
He was raised in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, where he attended public schools and graduated from Lawrence County High School in 1960. During high school, he played football, and afterward worked during the day at the local post office and at night in the Murray bicycle assembly plant.
Thompson was raised attending churches of the Churches of Christ, and often credited his values to both his family upbringing and church teachings. In a 2007 interview, he stated, "I attend church when I'm in Tennessee. I'm [living] in McLean right now. I don't attend regularly when I'm up there." Later in life, he occasionally attended Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, Virginia. He rarely spoke about religion during his 2008 presidential campaign, saying, "Me getting up and talking about what a wonderful person I am and that sort of thing, I'm not comfortable with that, and I don't think it does me any good."
In September 1959, at age 17, Thompson married Sarah Elizabeth Lindsey after learning she was pregnant. Their first child, Freddie Dalton "Tony" Thompson Jr., was born in April 1960. Two more children, Daniel and Elizabeth, followed soon after.
Thompson initially enrolled at Florence State College (now the University of North Alabama), becoming the first in his family to attend college., via imwithfred.com (archived official site, July 13, 2007). He later transferred to Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis), where he earned a double major in philosophy and political science in 1964. He was then awarded a scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University Law School, earning his Juris Doctor degree in 1967. During this time, both he and Sarah worked to support their growing family and cover his education expenses. The couple divorced in 1985.
Career as an attorney Thompson was admitted to the state bar of Tennessee in 1967. At that time, he shortened his first name from Freddie to Fred. He worked as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1969 to 1972,Fred Thompson Hometown Biography , Lawrenceburg Tennessee successfully prosecuting bank robberies and other cases. Thompson was the campaign manager for Republican U.S. Senator Howard Baker's re-election campaign in 1972, and was minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee in its investigation of the Watergate scandal (1973–1974).
In the 1980s, Thompson worked as an attorney, with law offices in Nashville and Washington, DC, handling personal injury claims and defending people accused of white collar crimes.Vogel, Kenneth. "Rivals Take Aim At Thompson", CBS News (June 12, 2007). Retrieved July 8, 2007. He also accepted appointments as special counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1980–1981), special counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee (1982), and member of the Appellate Court Nominating Commission for the State of Tennessee (1985–1987).
His clients included a German mining group and Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation. Thompson served on various corporate boards. He also did legal work and served on the board of directors for engineering firm Stone & Webster.
Role in Watergate hearings
In 1973, Thompson was appointed minority counsel to assist the Republican senators on the Senate Watergate Committee, a special committee convened by the U.S. Senate to investigate the Watergate scandal. Thompson was sometimes credited for supplying Republican Senator Howard Baker's famous question, "What did the President know, and when did he know it?" This question is said to have helped frame the hearings in a way that eventually led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon. The question remains popular and is often invoked by pundits commenting on political scandals.
A Republican staff member, Donald Sanders, found out about the White House tapes and informed the committee on July 13, 1973. Thompson was informed of the existence of the tapes, and he, in turn, informed Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt. "Even though I had no authority to act for the committee, I decided to call Fred Buzhardt at home," Thompson later wrote, "I wanted to be sure that the White House was fully aware of what was to be disclosed so that it could take appropriate action."
Three days after Sanders's discovery, at a public, televised committee hearing, Thompson asked former White House aide Alexander Butterfield the famous question, "Mr. Butterfield, were you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President?" thereby publicly revealing the existence of tape recordings of conversations within the White House. National Public Radio later called that session and the discovery of the Watergate tapes "a turning point in the investigation.""Thompson's Watergate Role Not as Advertised" by Peter Obervy. National Public Radio. Published November 5, 2007
Thompson's appointment as minority counsel to the Senate Watergate committee reportedly upset Nixon, who believed Thompson was not skilled enough to interrogate unfriendly witnesses and would be outfoxed by the committee Democrats. According to historian Stanley Kutler, however, Thompson and Baker "carried water for the White House, but I have to give them credit—they were watching out for their interests, too ... They weren't going to mindlessly go down the tubes [for Nixon]."
Journalist Scott Armstrong, a Democratic investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee, is critical of Thompson for having disclosed the committee's knowledge of the tapes to Buzhardt during an ongoing investigation, and says Thompson was "a mole for the White House" and that Thompson's actions gave the White House a chance to destroy the tapes. Thompson's 1975 book At That Point in Time, in turn, accused Armstrong of having been too close to The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and of leaking committee information to him. In response to renewed interest in this matter, in 2007 during his presidential campaign, Thompson said, "I'm glad all of this has finally caused someone to read my Watergate book, even though it's taken them over 30 years." and
Corruption case against Tennessee governor In 1977, Thompson represented Marie Ragghianti, a former Tennessee Parole Board chair, who had been fired for refusing to release felons after they had bribed aides to Democratic Governor Ray Blanton to obtain clemency.Fred Rolater, Leonard Ray Blanton, Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, 2002. Retrieved July 31, 2007. With Thompson's assistance, Ragghianti filed a wrongful termination suit against Blanton's office. In July 1978, a jury awarded Ragghianti $38,000 ($139,165.09 in 2016 dollars) in back pay and ordered her reinstatement.
Career as a lobbyist
Thompson earned about $1 million in total from his lobbying efforts. Except for the year 1981, his lobbying never amounted to more than one-third of his income.Locker, Richard. "Thompson tells why lobbyist pay rose with GOP-led Senate", Commercial Appeal (November 5, 1994). According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal:
Fred Thompson earned about half a million dollars from Washington lobbying from 1975 through 1993 ... Lobbyist disclosure records show Thompson had six lobbying clients: Westinghouse, two cable television companies, the Tennessee Savings and Loan League, the Teamsters Union's Central States Pension Fund, and a Baltimore-based business coalition that lobbied for federal grants.
Thompson lobbied Congress on behalf of the Tennessee Savings and Loan League to pass the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, which deregulated the savings and loan industry. A large congressional majority and President Ronald Reagan supported the act, but it was said to be a factor that led to the savings and loan crisis.Leibold, Arthur. "Some Hope for the Future After a Failed National Policy for Thrifts" in Barth, James et al. The Savings and Loan Crisis: Lessons from a Regulatory Failure, pages 58–59 (2004). Leibold cites Strunk and Case, Where Regulation Went Wrong: A Look at the Causes Behind Savings and Loan Failures in the 1980s, pages 14–16 (1988). Thompson received $1,600 for communicating with some congressional staffers on this issue.
When Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in 1991, Thompson made a telephone call to White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu advocating restoration of Aristide's government, but said that was as a private citizen, not on a paid basis on Aristide's behalf.Vogel, Kenneth. "'Law & Order' And Lobbying", Politico (April 2, 2007).
Billing records show that Thompson was paid for about 20 hours of work in 1991 and 1992 on behalf of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, a family planning group trying to ease a George H. W. Bush administration regulation on abortion counseling in federally funded clinics.The records show he spent much of that time in telephone conferences with the president of the group. He also spoke to administration officials on its behalf three times for a total of about three hours, but when or with whom in the administration Thompson spoke is unclear. When the work became controversial in 2007 in light of Thompson's anti-abortion stance and 2008 presidential campaign, a Thompson spokesperson said, "The [lobbying] firm consulted with Fred Thompson. It is not unusual for a lawyer to give counsel at the request of colleagues, even when they personally disagree with the issue." See Jo Becker, Records Show Ex-Senator's Work for Family Planning Unit, The New York Times, (July 19, 2007). Retrieved December 22, 2007.
After Thompson was elected to the Senate, two of his sons followed him into the lobbying business, but generally avoided clients where a possible conflict of interest might appear. When he left the Senate, some of his political action committee's fees went to the lobbying firm of one of his sons.Mullins, Brody. "Thompson PAC Benefits Son More Than Republicans," The Wall Street Journal (April 21, 2007).
Initial acting career