Sir Robert Thompson
   HOME
*





Sir Robert Thompson
Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thompson (1916–1992) was a British military officer and counter-insurgency expert who "was widely regarded on both sides of the Atlantic as the world's leading expert on countering the Mao Tse-tung technique of rural guerrilla insurgency". His 1966 book ''Defeating Communist Insurgency'' played an important role in popularizing the " hearts and minds" approach to counterinsurgency. Biography Thompson was the son of Canon W. G. Thompson. He went to Marlborough College and took an MA at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, he joined the University Air Squadron learning to fly. He was commissioned into the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1936. In 1938, he joined the Malayan Civil Service as a cadet. At the start of World War II, Thomson joined the RAF, and was serving in Macao when the Japanese attacked. He escaped the Japanese and with a suitcase full of money and a knowledge of Cantonese, he gambled his way across China to Burma. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allied victory over the Central Powers in 1918, the RAF emerged as the largest air force in the world at the time. Since its formation, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history. In particular, it played a large part in the Second World War where it fought its most famous campaign, the Battle of Britain. The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (MOD), which are to "provide the capabilities needed to ensure the security and defence of the United Kingdom and overseas territories, including against terrorism; to support the Government's foreign policy objectives particularly in promoting international peace and security". ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by the Supermarine Spitfire during the Battle of Britain in 1940, but the Hurricane inflicted 60 percent of the losses sustained by the Luftwaffe in the campaign, and fought in all the major theatres of the Second World War. The Hurricane originated from discussions between RAF officials and aircraft designer Sir Sydney Camm about a proposed monoplane derivative of the Hawker Fury biplane in the early 1930s. Despite an institutional preference for biplanes and lack of interest by the Air Ministry, Hawker refined their monoplane proposal, incorporating several innovations which became critical to wartime fighter aircraft, including retractable landing gear and the more powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The Air Ministry ordered Hawker ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His five years in the White House saw reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the first manned Moon landings, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early, when he became the only president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal. Nixon was born into a poor family of Quakers in a small town in Southern California. He graduated from Duke Law School in 1937, practiced law in California, then moved with his wife Pat to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government. After active duty ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. Throughout history, leaders have used peacemaking and diplomacy to establish a type of behavioral restraint that has resulted in the establishment of regional peace or economic growth through various forms of agreements or peace treaties. Such behavioral restraint has often resulted in the reduced conflict, greater economic interactivity, and consequently substantial prosperity. "Psychological peace" (such as peaceful thinking and emotions) is perhaps less well defined, yet often a necessary precursor to establishing "behavioural peace." Peaceful behaviour sometimes results from a "peaceful inner disposition." Some have expressed the belief that peace can be initiated with a certain quality of inner tranquility that does not depend upo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Strategic Hamlet Program
The Strategic Hamlet Program (SHP; vi, Ấp Chiến lược, link=no ) was a plan by the government of South Vietnam in conjunction with the US government and ARPA during the Vietnam War to combat the communist insurgency by pacifying the countryside and reducing the influence of the communists among the rural population.Tucker, Spencer, ''The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History'', ABC-CLIO, 2011, p. 1070. In 1962, the government of South Vietnam, with advice and financing from the United States, began the implementation of the Strategic Hamlet Program. The strategy was to isolate the rural population from contact with and influence by the National Liberation Front (NLF), more commonly known as the Viet Cong. The Strategic Hamlet Program, along with its predecessor, the Rural Community Development Program, played an important role in shaping of events in South Vietnam during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both of these programs attempted ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as " Supermac", he was known for his pragmatism, wit and unflappability. Macmillan was badly injured as an infantry officer during the First World War. He suffered pain and partial immobility for the rest of his life. After the war he joined his family book-publishing business, then entered Parliament at the 1924 general election. Losing his seat in 1929, he regained it in 1931, soon after which he spoke out against the high rate of unemployment in Stockton-on-Tees. He opposed the appeasement of Germany practised by the Conservative government. He rose to high office during the Second World War as a protégé of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In the 1950s Macmillan served as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under Anthony Eden. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tunku Abdul Rahman
Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah ( ms, ‏تونكو عبد الرحمن ڤوترا الحاج ابن سلطان عبد الحميد حليم شاه, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset; 8 February 19036 December 1990) was a Malaysian statesman and lawyer who served as the 1st Prime Minister of Malaysia and the head of government of its predecessor states from 1955 to 1970. He was the first chief minister of the Federation of Malaya from 1955 to 1957. He supervised the independence process that culminated on 31 August 1957. As Malaya's first prime minister he dominated politics there for the next 13 years. In 1963, he successfully incorporated the Federation of Malaya, British North Borneo (renamed Sabah), Sarawak, and Singapore into the state of Malaysia. However, tensions between the Malay and Chinese communities resulted in Singapore's expulsion in 1965. His poor performance during race riots in Kuala Lumpur in 1969 led to ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of the Cold War after the 1954 division of Vietnam. It first received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon (renamed to Ho Chi Minh City in 1976), before becoming a republic in 1955. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. The end of the Second World War saw anti-Japanese Việt Minh guerrilla forces, led by communist fig ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm ( or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955), and then served as the first president of South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) from 1955 until he was captured and assassinated during the 1963 military coup. He was born into a prominent Catholic family, the son of a high-ranking civil servant, Ngô Đình Khả. He was educated at French-speaking schools and considered following his brother Ngô Đình Thục into the priesthood, but eventually chose to pursue a civil-service career. He progressed rapidly in the court of Emperor Bảo Đại, becoming governor of Bình Thuận Province in 1929 and interior minister in 1933. However, he resigned the latter position after three months and publicly denounced the emperor as a tool of France. Diệm came to support Vietnamese nationalism, promoting an anti-communist and anti-colonialist " third way" op ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tun Abdul Razak
Tun Haji Abdul Razak bin Dato' Hussein ( ms, عبد الرزاق بن حسين, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset; 11 March 1922 – 14 January 1976) was a Malaysian lawyer and politician who served as the 2nd Prime Minister of Malaysia from September 1970 until his death in January 1976. He also served as the first deputy prime minister of Malaysia from August 1957 to September 1970. He is referred to as the Father of Development (''Bapa Pembangunan''). Abdul Razak was the figure responsible for setting up Barisan Nasional (BN), which is the ruling coalition of political parties that held power in Malaysia. Abdul Razak is also renowned for launching the Malaysian New Economic Policy (MNEP). His eldest son, Najib Razak, became the sixth prime minister in 2009; Najib is the first prime minister of Malaysia to be a descendant of a former prime minister. Early life and education Born in Kampung Pulau Keladi, a village located northwest of Pekan, Pahang on 11 March 1922, Ab ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Federation Of Malaya
The Federation of Malaya ( ms, Persekutuan Tanah Melayu; Jawi: ) was a federation of what previously had been British Malaya comprising eleven states (nine Malay states and two of the British Straits Settlements, Penang and Malacca)''See'': Cabinet Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. 21 February 1956 that existed from 1 February 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957,The UK Statute Law DatabaseFederation of Malaya Independence Act 1957 (c. 60)/ref> and in 1963, Malaysia was formed when the federation united with the Singapore, North Borneo, and Sarawak Crown Colonies. History From 1946 to 1948, the eleven states formed a single British crown colony known as the Malayan Union. Due to opposition from Malay nationalists, the Union was disbanded and replaced by the Federation of Malaya, which restored the symbolic positions of the rulers of the Malay states. Within the Federation, while the Malay states were p ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Gerald Templer
Field Marshal Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer, (11 September 1898 – 25 October 1979) was a senior British Army officer. He fought in both the world wars and took part in the crushing of the Arab Revolt in Palestine. As Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the professional head of the British Army between 1955 to 1958, Templar was Prime Minister Anthony Eden's chief military adviser during the Suez Crisis. He is also credited as a founder of the United Kingdom's National Army Museum. Templer is best known for implementing strategies that heavily contributed to the defeat of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) during the Malayan Emergency. Some historians have described his methods as a successful example of a "hearts and minds" campaign, while other scholars have dismissed this as a myth due to his over-reliance on population control and coercion. Templer also oversaw and personally approved of many controversial policies and numerous atrocities committed by his t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]