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BIO
Seventeen years ago Tom Clancy was an obscure Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history and only a letter to the editor and a brief article on the MX missile to his credit. Years before he had been an English major at Baltimore's Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER—the story of a Russian submarine captain who defects to the United States—sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it "the perfect yarn" and "non-put-downable." Since then Clancy has established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense.
Clancy's next novel, RED STORM RISING, took on U.S./Soviet tension by providing a realistic modern war scenario arising from a conventional Soviet attack on NATO. Other bestsellers followed: PATRIOT GAMES dealt with terrorism; CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN focused on spies, secrets and the strategic defense initiative; CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER asked what if there was a real war on drugs; THE SUM OF ALL FEARS centered around post-Cold War attempts to rekindle U.S./Soviet animosity; WITHOUT REMORSE took on the rising U.S. drug trade and Vietnam War era POW's; and DEBT OF HONOR explored the hazards of American/Japanese economic competition, the vulnerability of America's financial system, and the dangers of military downsizing. In light of recent events, DEBT OF HONOR demonstrated once and for all Clancy's cutting-edge prescience in predicting future events. The novel ends with a suicide attack against the U.S. Capitol Building by a terrorist flying a 747 out of Dulles airport.
Clancy's uninterrupted string of best sellers continued with EXECUTIVE ORDERS, which combined the threat of biological and conventional terrorism with the instability of the Persian Gulf region; RAINBOW SIX, which explored the dual threats posed by former Soviet intelligence operatives willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder, and genetically engineering bio weapons; and, most recently, THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON, which posited a limited war between China, the U.S. and Russia.
Clancy's nonfiction works include SUBMARINE, ARMORED CAV, FIGHTER WING, MARINE, and AIRBORNE—a series of guided tours of America's warfighting assets. He has also written three books in an extraordinary nonfiction series that looks deep into the art of war through the eyes of America's outstanding military commanders. INTO THE STORM: A Study in Command, written with armor and infantry General Fred Franks Jr., and EVERY MAN A TIGER, written with Air Force General Chuck Horner, won unanimous praise for their detailed exploration of traditional war-fighting from the ground and from the air. The third book in the COMMANDERS series, SHADOW WARRIORS: Inside the Special Forces, written with General Carl Stiner, former commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, tells the story of the soldiers whose training, resourcefulness, and creativity make them capable of jobs that few other soldiers can handle, in situations where traditional arms and movement don't apply.
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PAST INTERVIEW
May 2, 1997
Tom Clancy had just stepped off a plane after days of "rolling around in the dirt" and discussing military strategy in California when we caught up with him. It was 2100 hours, and he'd been flying all day. He could have postponed our interview (and we suggested as much). But fatigue is for wimps. Within 30 seconds, he had moved from the social to the professional, and questions and answers were being traded at a rapid clip. So, in addition to his extremely sharp point-of-view about our military operation in the Gulf War, do consider Tom Clancy's energy. He's a formidable opponent --- and a great interview.
Jesse Kornbluth: This book seems to have had a long gestation period. In your introduction, you write of something that happened in 1988.
Tom Clancy: In January l988, I went to the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where the Army plays war --- for real. I'd always been interested in military strategy, but it wasn't until I went there that I saw there was a larger dimension to it, an intellectual dimension.
Jesse Kornbluth: And you not only got the idea for this book, you got the idea for a series of books about America's outstanding military leaders.
Tom Clancy: There will be four books in all.
Jesse Kornbluth: Fred Franks strikes me as an extraordinarily balanced man --- a great tactician, an inspiring leader, and, at the same time, not at all self-aggrandizing. Now that he's the centerpiece of a book by Tom Clancy, he'll be squarely in the headlights of the media. How will he take that?
Tom Clancy: So far he's taken it extremely well. The book is as much his as mine.
Jesse Kornbluth: You write, "The Army America deployed to the Persian Gulf might well have been the finest in all of history."
Tom Clancy: Without a doubt.
Jesse Kornbluth: Why?
Tom Clancy: The quality of the training. This was simply the best trained, best led army I'm aware of --- and I've been reading military history since I was a kid. This army was as good an Army since Caesar's army invaded Gaul.
Jesse Kornbluth: No one in the Army would have wished for the debacle we suffered in Vietnam. But it seems as if that misfortune was useful --- at the very least, it motivated leaders like Fred Franks.
Tom Clancy: It's not right to say that our loss in Vietnam turned out to be a gain. But lessons were learned. And they were the right lessons.
Jesse Kornbluth: And those lessons are...
Tom Clancy: When you deploy forces, you must have a good reason. The country must be behind those forces. And they must be trained, prepared and supported.
Jesse Kornbluth: As I read the history, it seems as if the Gulf War was prematurely stopped --- for political, not military reasons. If that is so, military leaders like Fred Franks could be said to have been betrayed again, just as they were in Vietnam.
Tom Clancy: The threat is gone. Saddam Hussein may look like a bull but he's a steer. And there's a big difference between a bull and a steer --- ask a cow.
Jesse Kornbluth: In his book, Gen. Schwarzkopf tees off on Gen. Franks. In your book, it seems as if his criticism is unfair. What happened there?
Tom Clancy: I've met Norm a couple of times. He's been very gracious to me, and I have no reason to dislike him. He's imperfect, just like you and me. He won his part of the Gulf War. And Fred won his part. It's a shame that Gen. Schwarzkopf didn't pay a little closer attention to what his field commanders were doing. But in his defense, he had political considerations to deal with.
Jesse Kornbluth: How did you and Gen. Franks write together?
Tom Clancy: (with a laugh): I never discuss that. Collaboration on a book is the ultimate unnatural act.
Jesse Kornbluth: As much as you have learned about the military over the years, it seems as if you regard yourself as something of a student here.
Tom Clancy: I learned from Fred Franks --- a lot. Life is about learning; when you stop learning, you die. I just walked in from Fort Irwin, where I was rolling in the dirt with soldiers and having a good time. From Fred, more than anything else, I've learned that immense intelligence that is needed from our commanders. It's not pointing the troops and saying, "Go."
Jesse Kornbluth: I think a lot of people read your books to learn --- particularly people in management. In this case, your general would probably be a better executive than the executives that a lot of us report to.
Tom Clancy: Generally speaking, the military leaders on the line --- the guys at the sharp end -- are better than many civilian leaders. And their troops are better cared for and led than the average American worker.
Jesse Kornbluth: So it might be good if, instead of privatizing everything, we militarize a few things --- that is, encourage retired military leaders to go into businesses.
Tom Clancy: And they all do. Sooner than later.
Jesse Kornbluth: With superior results?
Tom Clancy: Generally.
Jesse Kornbluth: What's the key factor?
Tom Clancy: I come back to the issue of intellectual depth. If everyone in business prepared as carefully as professional soldiers, they'd be better off. Soldiers are in the business of death --- inflicting it, and, as little as possible, receiving it. They must be careful, but they also must take risks. And they reduce those risks by planning.
Jesse Kornbluth: Which is, very clearly, the big lesson of this book.
Tom Clancy: I hope so. It's the first book of its kind published in America that really tries to show what command is like. So I hope people learn from it, and learn to appreciate our people in uniform. These aren't guys who just shoot 'em up. They plan. And they are extremely intelligent.
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