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(R.I.P. Tom Clancy) Spies & Secrets: 4 True Stories From Tom Clancy's Novels
Live Science ^ | October 02, 2013 | Denise Chow

Posted on 10/02/2013 7:49:11 PM PDT by DogByte6RER

Tom Clancy Endwar photo: Tom Clancy\'s EndWar 2 02-13.jpg

Spies & Secrets: 4 True Stories From Tom Clancy's Novels

Sometimes truth may be stranger than fiction, but for best-selling author Tom Clancy, the two are often more closely paralleled. Clancy died Tuesday (Oct. 1) at the age of 66, but his thrilling, espionage and military-inspired novels helped him become one of the most well-known American authors.

From a dramatic Soviet-era defection to a high-profile assassination plot, here are four true stories from Clancy's novels.

• The Hunt for Red October

Clancy's first novel, "The Hunt for Red October," was published in 1984. The book introduced Clancy's most famous fictional character, Jack Ryan, who would become a central figure in the majority of the author's novels. In the action-packed novel, CIA analyst Ryan helps a Soviet submarine captain and his crew defect to the United States. The action takes place aboard an experimental nuclear submarine, called Red October.

The novel was reportedly inspired by a real-life mutiny aboard a Soviet Navy anti-submarine ship, called the Storozhevoy, in November 1975. The ship's political commissar, Captain of the Third Rank Valery Sablin, staged the mutiny as a protest against the corruption under Communist Party leader Leonid Brezhnev.

After Soviet authorities learned of the mutiny, 13 gunboats were dispatched in pursuit of the ship. The vessel was eventually damaged, and Soviet officials arrested and interrogated the crew. Sablin, who was tried and convicted of high treason, was shot on Aug. 3, 1976.

• Red Rabbit

A real-life assassination plot inspired Clancy's 2002 novel, "Red Rabbit." The fictionalized account centers around CIA analyst Ryan, as he aids in the defection of a Soviet officer who has information about a plan to assassinate Pope John Paul II.

(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Chit/Chat; Conspiracy; Military/Veterans; Miscellaneous; Society
KEYWORDS: 911; blackops; coldwar; counterterrorism; debtofhonor; espionage; redoctober; redrabbit; teethofthetiger; terrorism; tomclancy
tom clancy photo: clancy tom_clancy.jpg I read many of his novels while in the Navy deployed on WESTPAC cruises. Rest In Peace, Big Guy ....
1 posted on 10/02/2013 7:49:11 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
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To: DogByte6RER

Clancy dead??? Noooooooooooooooooo!


2 posted on 10/02/2013 7:51:00 PM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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Tom Clancy Endwar photo: Tom Clancy's endwar II TomClancysendwarII.jpg Tom Clancy Endwar photo: Tom Clancy's endwar I TomClancysendwarI.jpg tom clancy endwar photo: tom clancy end wars wallpaper_tom_clancys_endwar_01_102.jpg It will be interesting to see how many more of Clancy's suppositions may come to pass.
3 posted on 10/02/2013 7:57:00 PM PDT by DogByte6RER ("Loose lips sink ships")
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To: DogByte6RER
Гимн "Красного Октября" (The Hymn to Red October)
4 posted on 10/02/2013 8:04:34 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: DogByte6RER

The most amazing part for me, out of all of Tom Clancy’s stories occured in Red Storm Rising.

Clancy was describing a missile attack on a U.S warship. With multiple incoming, he describes the Phalanx integrated weapon system and how it went into what’s called a “deadly embrace” — where a control program prioritizing between two tasks. When it switches to either task the other task elevates to a higher priority thus causing no firing sequence as the turret bounces between each target.

Another, Clancy describe a ship “presenting her deck”, when a ship turns into a missile so that when it hits, it hits well above the water line, giving damage control a chance to save lives and possibly the ship. After the ship is hit, it will turn away and continue in a circle to keep the damaged hull out of the water.

They were both amazing passages.


5 posted on 10/02/2013 8:14:18 PM PDT by Usagi_yo
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To: DogByte6RER

I once had a very in-depth conversation with Mr. Clancy, on a very late and stormy night in the airport. It was very insightful. (and I leaned we both played “Harpoon”.)

My favorite book was “Red Storm Rising”, based loosely on General Sir John Hackett’s (Former NATO Northern Army Group Commander) novel, “The Third World War”, itself based on NATO’s War Plan for Europe.

Later Harold Coyle wrote “Team Yankee”, about a single unit within the larger scheme of Clancy’s “Red Storm Rising”.


6 posted on 10/02/2013 8:15:03 PM PDT by tcrlaf (Well, it is what the Sheeple voted for....)
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To: DogByte6RER

Favorite character, Mr. Clark.

Best event, blowing up a drug pimp in a decompression chamber in “Without Remorse”

Best book, “Without Remorse”

Best line, “If you don’t write it down it never happened.”

Best ending to a movie, non-Clancy... “Shooter”


7 posted on 10/02/2013 8:19:01 PM PDT by Sequoyah101
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To: DogByte6RER

I’m still pissed that Tom Clancy allowed the terrorist, in the name of political correctness, to be changed from the book “The Sum of All Fears” in the movie “The Sum of All Fears”.


8 posted on 10/02/2013 8:22:28 PM PDT by BBell (The Blue Dog is Stupid)
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To: BBell

He didn’t have much say after rights were sold.


9 posted on 10/02/2013 8:29:52 PM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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To: tcrlaf

Harpoon rocks


10 posted on 10/02/2013 8:37:47 PM PDT by redlegplanner ( No Representation without Taxation)
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To: Sequoyah101

Agree about the best character and best line, but I prefer Red Storm Rising over Without Remorse.


11 posted on 10/02/2013 8:48:58 PM PDT by brothers4thID (Death had to take him sleeping, else he would have put up a fight.)
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To: Fiji Hill

I thought that was the national anthem of the Soviet Union.


12 posted on 10/02/2013 9:27:25 PM PDT by puppypusher (The World is going to the dogs.)
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To: redlegplanner

We’re talking the original Naval Miniatures, not the computer game. (although my group did use an Apple IIe for some of the database stuff)


13 posted on 10/02/2013 10:03:16 PM PDT by tcrlaf (Well, it is what the Sheeple voted for....)
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To: Usagi_yo
Clancy was describing a missile attack on a U.S warship. With multiple incoming, he describes the Phalanx integrated weapon system and how it went into what’s called a “deadly embrace” — where a control program prioritizing between two tasks. When it switches to either task the other task elevates to a higher priority thus causing no firing sequence as the turret bounces between each target.

I remember that too. Certainly software designers would foresee that scenario and deal with it, or so you'd think.

14 posted on 10/02/2013 10:08:28 PM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: DogByte6RER

Ascension

And if I go,
while you’re still here...
Know that I live on,
vibrating to a different measure
—behind a thin veil you cannot see through.
You will not see me,
so you must have faith.
I wait for the time when we can soar together again,
—both aware of each other.
Until then, live your life to its fullest.
And when you need me,
Just whisper my name in your heart,
...I will be there.

- Colleen Corah Hitchcock

Tom Clancy, from the dedication page of ‘Executive Orders’:

“In the orginal hardcover edition of ‘Without Remorse’ are the words of a poem which I found by accident and whose title and author I was unable to identify. I found in them the perfect remembrance for my ‘little buddy,’ Kyle Haydock, who succumbed to cancer at the age of eight years and twenty-six days - to me he will never really be gone. Later I learned that the title of this poem is ‘Ascension,’ and that the author who penned these magnificent words is Colleen Hitchcock, a poet of rare talent living in Minnesota. I wish to take this opportunity to commend her work to all students of the lyric phrase. As her words caught and excited my attention, I hope they will have the same effect of others.”


15 posted on 10/02/2013 10:09:33 PM PDT by EternalVigilance (Tell me again why "shutting down all non-essential government services" is a bad thing?)
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To: tcrlaf

That is really cool. Loved that guys books and characters. What a mind!


16 posted on 10/02/2013 10:11:54 PM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
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To: DogByte6RER
In 1981, a Turkish assassin named Mehmet Ali Ağca shot and wounded then-Pope John Paul II. In his later testimony, Ağca said the plot was led by Zilo Vassilev, a Bulgarian military attaché based in Italy, but other accounts have also pointed fingers at a Turkish neo-fascist organization called the Grey Wolves. On May 13, 1981, Ağca and an accomplice waited in St. Peter's Square for the pope to arrive. When Pope John Paul II passed by, Ağca fired several shots. The pope survived, but was hit by four bullets: two in his lower intestine, and the others in his left hand and right arm. Two bystanders were also hit by stray bullets. Debt of Honor In Clancy's 1994 novel "Debt of Honor," the author's recurring character, Ryan, has become the National Security Advisor. In the novel, the Japanese government, in the midst of an economic crisis, declares war on the United States. At one point, a grieving Japanese pilot, deeply embittered by the deaths of his son and brother in the conflict, flies his Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol. The novel was published seven years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011, but Clancy later commented on the eerie similarities between his fictional event and the real-life tragedy. "I never got any fan mail from Osama bin Laden, and I don't really know how many books I sold in Afghanistan," Clancy told CNN about whether his novels may inspire nefarious activities. "You have to talk to the marketing people about that. But I'm not really concerned about it." Teeth of the Tiger In Clancy's 2003 book, "Teeth of the Tiger," hero Ryan's son becomes a consultant for a secret intelligence agency tasked with discreetly assassinating individuals who pose threats to national security. The novel controversially depicted a violent multiple homicide by an Islamic terrorist, set within a real-life shopping mall in Charlottesville, Va. While the event was fictional, it was tragically prophetic. On Sept. 21, 2013, gunmen raided a shopping mall in Kenya, killing at least 39 people. A Somali Islamist group claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, which lasted hours before police and soldiers reached the assailants. The attack was the single biggest attack in Kenya since an east African branch of al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in 1998. That assault killed more than 200 people.
17 posted on 10/02/2013 11:16:44 PM PDT by WildHighlander57 ((WildHighlander57 returning after lurking since 2000))
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To: puppypusher
"The Hymn to Red October" can actually be interpreted as an American patriotic song:
"Hail to our fathers and our forefathers.
We are faithful to the covenant we have made in the past."
(the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?)

"Now, nothing can stop our homeland's victorious march."
(our own homeland's victorious march from Lexington to Fallujah?)

"In October, in October, we reported our victories;
In October, in October, our forefathers gave us a new world."
(the American victory at the Battle of Yorktown in October, 1781?)

Incidentally, anyone who speaks or has studied Russian will quickly realize that the choir singing the song is not made up of Russian-speakers.
18 posted on 10/03/2013 6:56:10 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: Sequoyah101
Best book, “Without Remorse”.

If you've never read Clancy's books, that is the one to start with. It introduces Kelly/Clark, who is a key recurring character in his writings.

19 posted on 10/03/2013 8:15:30 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: tcrlaf

wow - old school.

How did they replicate the sails and cannons? ;)


20 posted on 10/03/2013 8:25:10 PM PDT by redlegplanner ( No Representation without Taxation)
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