PATRIOT GAMES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201140005-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: July 26, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Si Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0201140005-2
26 July 1987
STAT
PATRIOT GAMFS~=~~
I in 1984, an obscure Annapolis publisher
of mostly maritime reference works
brought out its first novel, written by an
even more obscure Maryland insurance
broker named Tom Clancy. Superficially a
naval thriller in the C. S. Forester/Alis-
tair Maclean tradition, "The Hunt for Red
October" describes in impressively techni-
cal (and sometimes tedious) detail the
process by which a defecting Soviet
missile submarine eludes its navy and gets
safely to a U.S. port. In 21h years, the book
has sold several million copies. Why?
You won't find an answer to this
question by consulting the book for signs
of the actiocladventure story's traditional
strengths. Although reasonably well plot.
ted, "Hunt" offers few surprises; and its
hero-a 30-ish CIA analyst-naval histori-
an-family man named Jack Ryan, who
first notices what the Soviet sub is trying
to do-isn't quirky enough to engage our
Reviewed by Area/ Flick
imaginations much. As for dialogue, in
which naval officers invariably address
their inferiors as "Son" and attempt to
calm them before meetings with the
President and joint chiefs by reminding
them that "everybody in this damned
cellar puts his pants on the same way as
you"-well, the Dutch could use it to make
a pretty fair pair of shoes.
But "Hunt" does have several charac-
teristics, some of them virtues, that I think
account for its unexpected success. Clan-
cy's book reached the height of its popu-
larity at the same time as did Lee lacocca's
autobiography. And like "Iacocca,"
"Hunt" relentlessly reassures us of the
superiority of American technology and
know-how in a world that sometimes gives
us disquietingly contrary signals dimin-
ishing markets for our automobiles, --am.
phibious" tanks that don't always float,
helicopters that don't always fly.
From beginning to end, "Hunt" is the
story of the victory of American machines
over their Soviet counterparts. (This is
also true, if less absolutely so, of Clancy's
second novel, "Red Storm Rising,.. which
imagines World War Ill fought in Europe
and the North Atlantic with only conven-
tional weapons. That novel was published
by one of the major New York houses.) It's
Flick is a lee*urer in English at UC Sasta
Barbara.
obviously reassuring, too, to be shown a
subload of Soviet senior officers so bitter at
their government's incompetence and in-
transigence as to wish to leave their
homeland for good.
Yet many espionage and action novels
today assert that "our" technology and
politics work better than "theirs," so that
alone wouldn't explain "Hunt's" populari-
ty. What's most conspicuous about "Hunt'
is the sheer depth of research that must
have gone into its writing. Clancy, who
never served in any branch of the armed
forces himself, seems to have absorbed
every piece of declassified writing on
Soviet and American naval tactics and ship
specifications ever written, impressing
Defense Department bigwigs, ad-
mirals and even the President
himself with his knowledge in the
process. The result is a novel in
which missile boat drive systems,
"cavitation" sounds and sonar ca-
pabilities assume a position of
prominence equal to that of the
characters in traditional fiction.
So many of us are intrigued by
his fiction, I think, because we
enjoy the feeling that these ma-
chines (and maybe machines in
general) are within our cognitive
grasp, under our intellectual con-
troL In any case, we emerge from a
reading of Clancy with the satis-
faction of having learned some
things about modern arms and
ar nies that might otherwise have
eluded us.
The reader of Clancy's latest
novel, "Patriot Games," will learn a
fair amount about international
terrorism in general and the Irish
Republican Army specifically; in
its 540 pages, he will also be
lnsU acted - in Britisir court proce-
dures, CIA document classification
and coding methods and the capa-
bility of our government's spy
satellites to determine the gender
of a person on the ground from 100
miles in space. Not to mention
being told how to grill a steak
properly and how to have sex
safely during pregnancy.
"Patriot Games" is a "prequel" to
"Hunt." Its protagonist is again
Jack Ryan, and it describes the
events leading up to his decision to
join the CIA full time. He is a
former Marine lieutenant, a
Georgetown history Ph.D, an in-
structor at Annapolis and an occa-
sional consultant to the CIA. While
with his family on a research
trip/vacation to London, Ryan foils
an attempt by an IRA splinter
group to kidnap the Prince and
Princess of Wales, getting himself
shot in the shoulder in the process.
It turns out that Ryan had written a
report on terrorism for the CIA the
previous summer, a coincidence
from which the narrative does little
to distract us.
After a period of recuperation at
a London hospital, during which
Ryan is shown implausibly offering
counseling to the humiliated prince
(who regrets his passivity during
the attack), Ryan testifies at the
trial of the surviving terrorist, Sean
Miller, thereby making him an
enemy for life. Upon returning to
Annapolis with his wife and small
daughter, Ryan attempts to resume
his teaching, but finds himself
gradually drawn into the anti-ter-
rorist intelligence work that only
the CIA can provide for him.
Meanwhile, in Britain, Miller es-
capes from custody. We follow
Miller to a Libyan terrorist camp
and later back to Ireland, where he
and his colleagues of the "Ulster
Liberation Army" develop a plan to
strike back at Ryan in such a way
as to make it appear the work of
their enemies, the IRA itself. The
plan nearly succeeds, but its failure
leads to a final attempt on Ryan's
life and an attack on the prince and
princess during their visit to Amer-
ica some months later.
In telling his story, Clancy also
wants us to be concerned about the
development of Ryan's character:
Will he accept the CIA's offer of a
permanent job? Will his hatred of
the ULA after its attack on his
family prove morally debilitating?
But Clancy is finally less interested
in sustaining tension or developing
character than in describing logis-
tics and procedures of all kinds--
73
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0201140005-2
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201140005-2
how to set up a "safe house," how
illegal arms are moved throughout
the world, even how a shock-trau-
ma center works. Like "The Hunt
for Red October," "Patriot Games"
stands or falls according to how
interesting we find the disparate
information it offers us.
"Patriot Games" is almost self-
consciously didactic. It wants to
convince us that terrorists are
criminals, pure and simple-that
they pose an enormous threat to us
(you can't keep writing about the
Soviets forever) but that our ma-
chines, our know-how and espe-
cially our information-gathering
abilities are strong enough to
thwart their efforts. "It's all a
battle for information," thinks
Ryan at one point, or as his superior
at the CIA puts it, "It's all about
intelligence, and intelligence
comes down to a bunch of faceless
bureaucrats sifting" through pa-
pers. In an era of informational
overload, when many of us push
paper for a living, part of Clancy's
appeal must lie in his glorification
of the data analyst-as hero and as
reader. ^
THE BOOK REVIEW/LOS ANGELES TIMES
7y.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201140005-2