An Olympic sailor, high-society architect, World War II spy, and the man who saved Thailand’s silk industry vanished without a trace into the Malaysian jungle in 1967. Decades later, a 2023 investigation shattered his pristine legacy.

This episode unpacks the mechanics of mythmaking through the life of Jim Thompson, tracing how a privileged Delaware textile heir became an OSS operative, built a global silk empire from a $25,000 investment, and engineered a decentralized cottage industry that lifted thousands of rural Thai women out of poverty. It then confronts the darker reality uncovered by Thai authorities and the enduring mystery of his disappearance.

• How Irene Sharaff’s costumes for The King and I made Thai silk a global sensation
• His refusal to build a factory, keeping weavers on home looms as the economic engines of their communities
• The idiosyncratic Jim Thompson House, built from six dismantled Thai dwellings with carvings reversed inward
• The 2023 revelation linking him to notorious smuggler Douglas Latchford and looted antiquities
• His 1967 vanishing in the Cameron Highlands, sparking one of Southeast Asia’s largest land searches with no trace ever found