Futility Closet

In 1967, Jim Thompson left his silk business in Thailand for a Malaysian holiday with three friends. On the last day, he disappeared from the cottage in which they were staying. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the many theories behind Thompson's disappearance, which has never been explained. We'll also borrow John Barrymore's corpse and puzzle over a teddy bear's significance. Intro: A 1969 contributor to NPL News suggested that orchestras were wasting effort. Robert Wood cleaned a 40-foot spectrograph by sending his cat through it. Sources for our feature on Jim Thompson: William Warren, Jim Thompson: The Unsolved Mystery, 2014. Joshua Kurlantzick, The Ideal Man: The Tragedy of Jim Thompson and the American Way of War, 2011. Matthew Phillips, Thailand in the Cold War, 2015. Taveepong Limapornvanich and William Warren, Thailand Sketchbook: Portrait of a Kingdom, 2003. Jeffery Sng, "The Ideal Man: The Tragedy of Jim Thompson and the American Way of War by Joshua Kurlantzick