Richard B. Thomas ’43

Dick died peacefully at home Oct. 18, 2016, with his niece, Beverly Sontheimer, and her husband by his side.

He prepared for Princeton at The Hill School. He majored in music and minored in languages (Arabic, French, German, Russian, and Spanish). He bickered at Terrace and was a member of WPRU and the Triangle Club.

After graduation, Dick joined Army intelligence, studied Japanese at the University of Michigan, and served on Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s occupation staff censoring Japanese newspapers. He earned a master’s degree in Chinese and Japanese from Harvard, and then joined the CIA in Washington, D.C., as an intelligence officer. After transferring to the National Bureau of Standards, he became a pioneer in image-processing using the SEAC computer. In 1970 he became manager of research services at the Brookings Institution.

Dick was a superb pianist, improviser, and accompanist. During his years in Washington, despite his “day jobs,” he spent many evenings accompanying jazz vocalist Joyce Carr and other singers at fashionable restaurants and lounges.

Dick retired in 1988 and moved to El Cerrito, Calif. He had many friends in the nearby Berkeley community and at the University of California, Berkeley, including composer Andrew Imbrie ’42.

Dick was unmarried and is survived by three nieces, a nephew, and their families.