Tom Clancy on America, Government, History, Writing, and the Private Sector (1990 Speech)

• published: 11 Jun 2014
• views: 1637

A longtime holder of conservative and Republican views, Clancy's books bear dedications to American conservative political figures, most notably Ronald Reagan. A week after the September 11, 2001 attacks, on The O'Reilly Factor, Clancy suggested that left-wing politicians in the United States were partly responsible for September 11 due to their "gutting" of the Central Intelligence Agency.[17] On September 11, 2001, Clancy was interviewed by Judy Woodruff on CNN.[18] During the interview, he asserted "Islam does not permit suicide" (see Islam and suicide). Among other observations during this interview, Clancy cited discussions he had with military experts on the lack of planning to handle a hijacked plane being used in a suicide attack and criticized the news media's treatment of the United States Intelligence Community. Clancy appeared again on PBS's Charlie Rose, to discuss the implications of the day's events with Richard Holbrooke, New York Times journalist Judith Miller, and Senator John Edwards, among others.[19] Clancy was interviewed on these shows because his 1994 book Debt of Honor included a scenario where a disgruntled Japanese airline pilot crashes a fueled Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol dome during an address by the President to a joint session of Congress, killing the President and most of Congress. This plot device bore strong similarities to the attacks of September 11, 2001. In later years, Clancy associated himself with General Anthony Zinni, a critic of the George W. Bush administration, and was also critical of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.[20] Clancy had been a Lifetime Member of the National Rifle Association since 1978. Clancy and his first wife Wanda Thomas King, a nursing student who became an eye surgeon,[6][22] married in 1969, separated briefly in 1995, and permanently separated in December 1996.[23] Clancy filed for divorce in November 1997,[24] which became final in January 1999.[25] On June 26, 1999, Clancy married freelance journalist Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, whom he had met in 1997.[26] Llewellyn is the daughter of J. Bruce Llewellyn and a family friend of Colin Powell, who originally introduced the couple to each other.[17] They remained together until Clancy's death in October 2013.[27] Clancy's estate, which was once a summer camp, is located in Calvert County, Maryland. It is 80 acres (32 ha) and has a panoramic view of the Chesapeake Bay.[28] The stone mansion, which cost US$2 million, has twenty-four rooms and features a shooting range in the basement.[22][28] The property also features a World War II-era M4 Sherman tank, a Christmas gift from his first wife.[28][29] Clancy also purchased a 17,000 square feet (1,600 m2) penthouse condominium in the Ritz-Carlton in Baltimore's Inner Harbor for US$16 million.[7] Clancy died on October 1, 2013, of an undisclosed illness[30] at Johns Hopkins Hospital, near his Baltimore home. Clancy is survived by his wife, Alexandra; their daughter, Alexis; and four children from his marriage to Wanda King: Michelle Bandy, Christine Blocksidge, Kathleen Clancy, and Thomas Clancy III.[1] The Chicago Tribune quoted Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stephen Hunter as saying, "When he published The Hunt for Red October he redefined and expanded the genre and as a consequence of that, a lot of people were able to publish such books who had previously been unable to do so."[31] John D. Gresham, a co-author and researcher with Clancy on several books, attributed Clancy's death to heart problems: "Five or six years ago Tom suffered a heart attack and he went through bypass surgery. It wasn't that he had another heart attack, [his heart] just wore out." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_clancy