Llewellyn Thompson

Llewellyn E. "Tommy" Thompson Jr. was a United States diplomat. He served in Sri Lanka, Austria, and for a lengthy period in the Soviet Union where his tenure saw some of the most significant events of the Cold War.

Thompson was the U.S. Ambassador to Austria from 1955-1957 and to Soviet Union from 1957 to 1962 and again between 1967 and 1969. He held a number of other positions throughout his U.S. foreign service career, including being the pivotal participant in the formulation of Johnson administration nuclear weapon non-proliferation policy. He also testified before the Warren Commission, which was investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US received two messages from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, one quite conciliatory and the other much more hawkish. Thompson, who had lived with Khrushchev and his wife for a time and knew him well, advised Kennedy to react to the first message, saying the second had probably been written with generals looking over Khrushchev's shoulder. Thompson's belief was that Khrushchev would be willing to withdraw the Soviet missiles as long as he could portray the avoidance of a U.S. invasion of Cuba as a strategic success