Charles Thomson, agent led ATF probe into blasts
Charles Renfrew Thomson, who led the federal ATF investigations into the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, died July 3 in his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 61.
The cause of death was cardiovascular collapse, said Mr. Thomson's brother-in-law Dr. George Pentoliros of South Hampton, N.H.
In the 1980s, Mr. Thomson served as assistant special agent in charge of the bureau's Boston Field Division, which covered New England. He went on to other ATF assignments in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, and returned to the Bay State as director and special agent in charge of the Boston division in 1998 and 1999, when he retired from the bureau.
In his retirement, he lived in North Hampton, N.H., before moving to Virginia several years ago.
In his 28-year career with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Mr. Thomson was involved in a number of memorable events. On the day of the World Trade Center bombing, he had just driven his car out of the center's garage, which is next door to the ATF office, said his former wife, Diane Gould Thomson of South Hampton.
''We were going to our home in New Hampshire, and Charlie had driven to our apartment nearby to pick me up," she said. ''He called me on the phone from outside and said, 'That sounded like a bomb.' I ran down with the dog and got into the car, and we drove back to the Trade Center."
Mr. Thomson held the respect of the teams he headed. There was nothing he would ask his staff to do that he would not do himself, colleagues said.
''At the time of the 1993 bombing, people were willing to go the extra mile to get the job done for Charlie," said Delano A. Reid, assistant special agent-in-charge of the New York Field Division, who was on Mr. Thomson's Trade Center team. ''He was a truly dedicated man, well-loved by everyone. A born leader."
After serving in leadership roles in the Army during the Vietnam War, he found that all the corporations he applied to for jobs ''only wanted to know what fraternities he belonged to at Dartmouth," said his wife, Louise Lindblom Thomson. ''Charlie didn't want to sit down behind a desk," she said. ''He loved serving his country and believed he could do that as an ATF agent."
Mr. Thomson was born in New York. He was a descendant of Josiah Bartlett, a New Hampshire signer of the Declaration of Independence. He grew up in Amesbury and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1965 with a bachelor's degree in history.
As a captain in the Army from 1967 to 1970, Mr. Thomson first served as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, leading a helicopter gunship platoon. He then worked in surveillance of the border between East and West Germany. Part of that job involved monitoring the movement of nuclear warheads.
He joined the ATF in 1971 as an undercover field agent in the New England area, based in Providence, his former wife said.
His brother-in-law recalled that in those days Mr. Thomson was ''like Serpico, wearing a stocking hat with a shotgun in the backseat of the car."
In his undercover work, his wife said, Mr. Thomson followed motorcycle gangs around New England, hung out in their bars and got to know them in order to find gun traffickers.
In 1980, as assistant special agent in charge of the Washington Field Division, he headed a task force on the bombings of 10 abortion clinics, which led to the conviction of the attackers and won him a leadership award from the secretary of the treasury.
Mr. Thomson worked out of the Boston ATF office from 1985 to 1989, investigating and enforcing gun laws and heading arson teams on the East Coast, according to his former wife.
From Boston, he went to New York, where he served as special agent in charge of the New York division until 1993. Later in 1993, he became associate director for law enforcement at ATF headquarters in Washington. In that role, he had oversight of the ATF responses to the Oklahoma City bombing, an investigation for which he received the Presidential Rank Award.
Despite his career, Mr. Thomson was a quiet and unassuming man who loved to fish in the trout stream behind his New Hampshire yard, his family said. ''He never once bragged to me about his distinguished career in law enforcement," said his son Eric of Durham, N.C.
Mr. Thomson's brother Eric of Amesbury recalled a ski trip the two took in Jackson Hole, Wy. He said: ''We got caught in a storm at the top of Jackson Hole. Charlie fell and thought he lost his credentials. Turns out, they had fallen out of his parka at breakfast. They were turned in to the local sheriff who happened to be having an arson seminar going on. They got the best arson investigator in the ATF as a guest speaker."
After retiring in 1999, Mr. Thomson was a consultant on arson, explosives, antiterrorism, security, crisis management, and other law enforcement issues. But he remained in touch with the ATF.
Mr. Thomson also leaves his mother, Lavinia of Amesbury; a sister, Sally Pentoliros of South Hampton; and two stepchildren, Stephanie Eby of Alexandria and Hunter Lindblom of Birmingham, Ala.
Funeral services were held. A memorial service will be held Thursday 3:30 p.m. in St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Washington.
