Fred Thompson

Freddie Dalton Thompson (August 19, 1942 – November 1, 2015) was an American politician, attorney, lobbyist, columnist, actor, and radio personality.

Thompson was born at Helen Keller Memorial Hospital in Sheffield, Alabama, on August 19, 1942, the son of Ruth Inez (née Bradley) and Fletcher Session Thompson (born Lauderdale County, Alabama, August 26, 1919, died Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, May 27, 1990), who was an automobile salesman.

Thompson had English and distant Dutch ancestry.

In September 1959, at the age of 17, Thompson married Sarah Elizabeth Lindsey.

He attended public school in Lawrenceburg, graduating from Lawrence County High School in 1960, where he played high-school football.

Thereafter, he worked days in the local post office, and nights at the Murray bicycle assembly plant.

Thompson was raised in the Churches of Christ.

According to Thompson, his values came from "sitting around the kitchen table" with his parents, and from the Church of Christ.

While talking to reporters in South Carolina, Thompson said, "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 on, in his adulthood, Thompson occasionally attended Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, Virginia.

Their son, Freddie Dalton "Tony" Thompson Jr., was born in April 1960.

Their son Daniel and daughter Elizabeth were born soon thereafter.

Thompson attended Florence State College (now the University of North Alabama), becoming the first member of his family to attend college.

He later transferred to Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis), where he earned a double degree in philosophy and political science in 1964.

He then received a scholarship to study law at the Vanderbilt University Law School, graduating with a Juris Doctor degree in 1967.

While Thompson was attending law school, he and his wife both worked to pay for his education and support their three children.

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, 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 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?"

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.

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 Motors Corporation.

Thompson served on various corporate boards.

He also did legal work and served on the board of directors for engineering firm Stone & Webster.

Thompson and his first wife would divorce in 1985.

A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1994 to 2003; Thompson was an unsuccessful candidate in the Republican Party presidential primaries for the 2008 United States presidential election.

He also 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.

As an actor, 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.

He did not speak much about his 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."