542 • THOMSON, SIR BASIL
fense and in 1961, having been permanent secretary for defense for
two years, headed the British Advisory Mission to Vietnam. His
book,Defeating Communist Insurgency, based on his acknowledged
experience during theMalaya Emergency, became the standard
textbook on the subject, but his recommended strategy was not
adopted in Vietnam.THOMSON, SIR BASIL.Educated at Eton and New College, Oxford,
Basil Thomson was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1890 and
later served as prime minister of Tonga and the governor of Dartmoor
Prison and Wormwood Scrubs. In 1913 he was appointed assistant
commissioner of theMetropolitan Police, and in 1919 he styled
himself director of intelligence. He was forced to resign in 1921 by
the commissioner, General Sir William Horwood, when, in an egre-
gious breach of security that had enraged the prime minister, the
prime minister’s country home Chequers had been daubed with Irish
republican graffiti. Thomson’s flamboyant career came to an end in
December 1925 when he was arrested with a prostitute in Hyde Park
and was convicted of gross indecency, despite character references
from AdmiralReginald Halland Reginald McKenna, the former
home secretary who had appointed him in 1913.
Thomson’s colorful professional life came to a premature conclu-
sion without him realizing his ambition of combining the Security
Service with his organization, but he did have the opportunity to
meet and interviewMata Hari. He became a successful author with
The Secret Service in GreeceandQueer People. Later he was to be a
friend of Maundy Gregory and to contribute to hisWhitehall Gazette.
Thomson died in 1939.
THURLOE, JOHN.In December 1652 Oliver Cromwell appointed a
36-year-old lawyer, John Thurloe, as his secretary of state and
granted him a budget of £70,000. Thurloe intercepted the mail of
known royalists and placed a conspirator, John Hewitt, under surveil-
lance in Paris and arranged for his arrest. The dispatch of an agent in
Jamaica, reporting the departure of the Spanish fleet, also led to its
destruction by the Royal Navy at Tenerife, and Thurloe was credited
with saving Cromwell’s life by preventing him from opening a letter
mailed from France containing poison. Thurloe retired soon after the
accession of Charles II to the throne in 1660.