Fletcher Thompson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Georgia's 5th district
In office
January 3, 1967 – January 3, 1973
Preceded byCharles Weltner
Succeeded byAndrew Young
Member of the Georgia Senate
from the 34th district
In office
January 11, 1965 – January 9, 1967
Preceded byCharlie Brown
Succeeded byW. Armstrong Smith
Personal details
Born
Standish Fletcher Thompson

(1925-02-05)February 5, 1925
College Park, Georgia, U.S.
DiedSeptember 13, 2022(2022-09-13) (aged 97)
Marietta, Georgia, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
EducationEmory University (AB)
Woodrow Wilson College of Law (LLB)[1]
OccupationLawyer, politician
Military service
AllegianceUnited States
Branch/serviceUnited States Army
United States Air Force
Years of service1943–1953
UnitU.S. Army Air Corps
Battles/warsWorld War II
Korean War

Standish Fletcher Thompson (February 5, 1925 – September 13, 2022) was an American lawyer, World War II veteran and Republican politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1967 to 1973 from the 5th Congressional District of Georgia.

Early life

Thompson was born near Atlanta in College Park in Fulton County, Georgia. He graduated from Russell High School in East Point, Georgia. While at Russell High School, Thompson was the president of the Model Airplane Club.

Military service

Thompson completed Basic Training with the 90th Infantry Division before he was transferred to the Aviation Cadet Training Program in Wichita Falls, Texas. Thompson qualified as both a pilot and as a navigator. A growing need for Army Air Corps navigators resulted in his assignment as a navigator within the 6th Emergency Air-sea Rescue Squadron. Over the next several years, Thompson would earn seven service stars along with an Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal.[2] On demobilization, he attended the Methodist-affiliated Emory University in Atlanta, from which he graduated in 1949. During the Korean War, Thompson re-enlisted in the United States Air Force as a pilot.

Professional career

On returning from South Korea, Thompson graduated in 1957 from the now-closed Woodrow Wilson College of Law in Atlanta. The following year he was admitted to the Georgia bar and established a law firm in East Point. He was also president of an aviation insurance firm.

Politics

Georgia State Senate

In the November 3, 1964 general election, in which Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona became the first Republican presidential nominee to win Georgia's electoral votes, Thompson defeated then senior Democratic State Senator Charlie Brown in District 34.[3] Thompson was one of only four Republican members of the upper chamber of the legislature at the time. He was selected by the Democratic majority to represent Fulton County in the drafting and sponsorship of the Metropolitan Rapid Transit Authority Act.

U.S. House of Representatives

Two years later, Thompson ran for Congress, becoming the first Republican since the Reconstruction era to represent Atlanta and the 5th Congressional District in the United States House.[4] The Democratic Executive Committee chose Archie Lindsey, then the chairman of the Fulton County Commission. Lindsey had three weeks to mount a campaign. Thompson prevailed, 55,423 (60.1 percent) to Lindsey's 36,751 (39.9 percent).[5] Thompson netted some 30% of the Black vote. Thompson was the only member of the state's congressional delegation to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1968.[6] Thompson was re-elected in 1968 and 1970, when he defeated Andrew Young, who after the next election in 1972 in a revised district succeeded Thompson in the Fifth District.

U.S. Senate campaign

In 1972, Thompson ran for the U.S. Senate. Sam Nunn defeated David H. Gambrell in the Democratic primary; Gambrell had been appointed by then Governor Jimmy Carter to succeed the late Richard B. Russell Jr. Thompson lost to Nunn, 362,501 votes (46.5 percent) to 404,890 (52 percent).[7]

Post-political career and death

After leaving the U.S. House, Thompson returned to his law firm in Atlanta. In 1985, he was made a member of the Atlanta Regional Commission. From 2009 until 2011, Thompson served as the Commander of the Atlanta World War II Roundtable, an organization that was created in 1986 "to hear and record the war experiences of World War II and to pass on to posterity the knowledge of World War II and the price – human and material – that was paid by our nation for the preservation of freedom in the United States and the world".[8]

Thompson died on September 13, 2022, aged 97.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Georgia Official and Statistical Register, 1971–1972 – page 988
  2. ↑ Short, Bob (Interviewer) (April 6, 2009). Fletcher Thompson, Reflections on Georgia Politics. University of Georgia.
  3. ↑ "Members Of The General Assembly Of Georgia – 1966 Term". State of Georgia. January 11, 1966. Retrieved May 3, 2018.
  4. ↑ Billy Hathorn, "The Frustration of Opportunity: Georgia Republicans and the Election of 1966", Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South, XXI (Wintger 1987–1988), p. 43
  5. ↑ Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections, p. 1277
  6. ↑ "TO PASS H.R. 2516, A BILL TO ESTABLISH PENALTIES FOR INTERFERENCE WITH CIVIL RIGHTS. INTERFERENCE WITH A PERSON ENGAGED IN ONE OF THE 8 ACTIVITIES PROTECTED UNDER THIS BILL MUST BE RACIALLY MOTIVATED TO INCUR THE BILL'S PENALTIES".
  7. ↑ Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections, p. 1441
  8. ↑ "Officers | the Atlanta World War II Roundtable". Archived from the original on 2018-03-28. Retrieved 2018-03-28.
  9. ↑ "Standish Fletcher Thompson". Dignity Memorial. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
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