Clancy's Frightening Political Worldview

The easiest point to make about Tom Clancy, who died on Tuesday at the age of 66, is that he was a mediocre writer who penned books with noxious political messages. But he was more interesting than that, even if only as a totemic cultural figure. I haven't read any of his nonfictional output, which mostly deals with military matters, especially the physical details of American military hardware. (Sample title: Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship.) But Clancy will be best remembered for the series of books he wrote about Jack Ryan, the C.I.A. agent from his creator's hometown of Baltimore who eventually becomes president of the United States. (Don't ask.) Four of the books were eventually turned into pretty effective Hollywood movies, which starred (in order) Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford (twice), and Ben Affleck. A fifth, with Chris Pine as Ryan, comes out over Christmas.