During the first day of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) prepares to conduct a tactical nuclear strike to stave off defeat. The necessity for the strike is averted, but an Israeli Mark 12 nuclear bomb is accidentally left on an A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft flown by Captain Mutti Zadin; which is subsequently shot down over Syria, near Kafr Shams. The nuclear weapon is lost, buried in the field of a Druze farmer. Eighteen years later, an Israeli police captain (coincidentally the brother of the downed pilot) converts to a fundamentalist sect of Hasidic Judaism after discovering his wife had an extramarital affair and attempts to instigate a violent demonstration of Palestinians at the Temple Mount. When the demonstrators unexpectedly conduct a peaceful protest, Zadin orders the police to fire tear gas and Rubber bullets at the protesters anyway. Captain Zadin then kills the leader of the demonstration by shooting him point-blank. The United States finds it hard to diplomatically defend Israel, yet knows it cannot withdraw its support without risk of destabilizing the Middle East.
Following the advice of Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) Jack Ryan, National Security Advisor Dr. Charles Alden enacts a plan to accelerate the peace process by converting Jerusalem into a Vatican-like independent city-state to be administered by a tribunal of Jewish, Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox religious leaders, and secured by an independent contingent of the Swiss Guards. As a nod to Israel, the U.S. Army supplies the IDF with more sophisticated equipment and agrees to construct a training base in the Negev Desert run by the U.S. Army's tank warfare specialists and the revived 10th Cavalry Regiment. To everyone's surprise, Ryan's plan seems to work, in large part due to Ryan's meetings with officials in Israel and Saudi Arabia and the acquiescence of the reformist President Andrey Narmonov in the democratized Soviet Union. With their religious contentions appeased, the factions in the Middle East find it much easier to negotiate their disputes.
White House Foreign Affairs Advisor Elizabeth Elliot holds a grudge against Ryan and Alden and maneuvers against them. She first takes Alden's job as National Security Advisor by taking advantage of a sex scandal involving a child fathered by Alden out of wedlock, with the stress contributing to Alden's death in a severe stroke that causes a blowout fracture. She concurrently begins a sexual relationship with widowed President J. Robert Fowler and manipulates him to publicly omit Ryan's role in the peace settlement, taking credit for himself. After Ryan accuses her of wishing to silence an American opponent of the deal, Elliot engineers a smear campaign accusing Ryan of engaging in an extramarital affair and fathering a child with a young widow. Jack's friends, CIA operatives John Clark and Domingo Chavez, convince Ryan's wife Cathy that the allegations are false. Jack's alleged mistress is Carol Zimmer, widow of Buck Zimmer, who was killed during Ryan and Clark's earlier mission to rescue Chavez and his Army teammates from Colombia. Ryan later decides to retire from the CIA, but not before he puts together a covert operation to uncover corrupt dealings between Japanese and Mexican government officials.
Meanwhile, a small group of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorists, enraged at the looming failure of their jihad against Israel, come across the lost Israeli bomb and use it to construct their own weapon by using the bomb's plutonium pit as fissile material for a new bomb. The terrorists enlist the help of disaffected East German nuclear physicist Manfred Fromm who agrees to the plot, wishing to exact his own revenge against his former communist country's reunification as a capitalist democratic state. With Fromm's expertise, the terrorists enhance the weapon by turning it into a modern style boosted fission weapon. The terrorists' plan is to detonate the weapon at the Super BowlinDenver while simultaneously staging a false flag attack on U.S. military forces in stationed in Berlin by East Germans disguised as Soviet soldiers. The terrorists are trying to begin a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The East Germans hope that the war will eliminate both superpowers and punish the Soviets for betraying World Socialism, while the Palestinians hope the attack will destroy the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and end U.S. aid to Israel.
Thinking that his work on the bomb is complete, the Palestinians kill Fromm. However, Fromm had not yet told them that the tritium for the booster still needed to be filtered before use, to eliminate accumulated helium-3. The Palestinians assemble the bomb for use, but when detonated, the impure booster material causes only a low yield fizzle to occur. Even with low yield, the bomb still destroys the Super Bowl venue, killing nearly everyone there including the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the commander of NORAD. With the corresponding attacks in Berlin, the United States briefly assumes DEFCON-1 status as Fowler and Elliott prepare for a nuclear war. The crisis is averted by Ryan, who learns the domestic origin of the bomb's plutonium, gains access to the hotline, and convinces the Soviet President to stand down his country's military.
When the terrorists are captured and interrogated by Clark in Mexico City, they implicate the Iranian Ayatollah in the attack. President Fowler orders the Ayatollah's residence in the holy city of Qom to be destroyed by a nuclear strike. Ryan averts the attack by enforcing the two-man rule. The terrorists are delivered to the FBI field office in Buzzard Point, where Ryan questions them. During questioning, Ryan falsely asserts that Qom was destroyed, tricking Qati into revealing that Iran was not involved, and that their deceit was meant to discredit the United States; thus destroying the peace process and allowing the campaign against Israel to continue. Elliot is hospitalized after suffering a nervous breakdown, while Fowler leaves office and is succeeded by his Vice President, Roger Durling (it is implied that Fowler was removed from office through the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, but a later novel clarifies that Fowler resigned in disgrace, while Elliott was forcibly removed).
The terrorists are executed by beheadinginRiyadh by the commander of the Saudi Arabian special forces using an ancient sword owned by the Saudi royal family. Later, the sword is presented to Ryan as a gift. In the sequels, the gift (combined with his origins as a Marine) inspires Ryan's Secret Service codename of "Swordsman."
Jack Ryan: Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. He develops the Vatican Treaty providing a final settlement on the Arab-Israeli conflict, but is overworked and unappreciated by President Fowler, who is unable to replace Ryan due to the latter's popularity in Congress. He also has a deep rivalry with Dr. Elliot. As a result, he begins to develop alcoholism and increasingly poor health. He later decides to retire from the agency in order to overcome his drinking problem and spend more time with his family. During the events of the novel, Ryan becomes increasingly concerned about the growing economic dominance of Japan, which becomes a theme in the following novel Debt of Honor.
J. Robert Fowler: President of the United States. Fowler was introduced in Clear and Present Danger as the Governor of Ohio and a presidential candidate, and won against the incumbent President after he deliberately threw the election. Fowler is depicted as a former prosecutor opposed to capital punishment and in favor of broad social programs, although he angers Dr. Elliot and many of his supporters by refusing to commute the death sentences of the Ulster Liberation Army members depicted in Patriot Games. He is nicknamed "Hawk" by the U.S. Secret Service. He was widowed after his wife died from multiple sclerosis, and begins a romantic relationship with Dr. Elizabeth Elliot. He is motivated by his public image and desire to secure a legacy, and as a result takes credit for Ryan's program. After the crisis on the Denver bombing, during which his decision-making deteriorates rapidly, he was removed from office and succeeded by his Vice President, Roger Durling. According to an audio commentary in the DVD release of the film adaptation, Clancy has said that he based Fowler on 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, claiming that left-wing politicians are more likely to use nuclear weapons than right-wing ones.
Elizabeth Elliot: Key advisor to President Fowler, and his lover. A former professor of political scienceatBennington College, she was promised the position of National Security Advisor but later denied on the insistence of Fowler's running mate Durling. At the beginning of the book, she finally achieves the position using a sex scandal against Dr. Charles Alden, and nearly derails Ryan's plan by withholding a new radar system from Israel to coerce them to accept the deal. Holding a grudge on Ryan from their first encounter (depicted in previous novel Clear and Present Danger), she denies him credit for the Middle East peace plan and later falsely outs him as having a mistress, nearly breaking up his marriage. During the crisis, her advice worsens the situation and she is later placed under sedation. She is nicknamed "Harpy" by the U.S. Secret Service.
Arnold "Arnie" van Damm: Chief of Staff to President Fowler. Van Damm is known for his informal dress style and his alertness to intrigue. Although he is personally areligious, he works with Ryan to consult the Vatican over his peace deal.
Marcus Cabot: Director of Central Intelligence. Although he is initially inexperienced and adversarial towards Ryan, he grows to respect him after the Vatican Treaty.
Ben Goodley: Ryan's assistant and protégé. A postdoctoral fellowatHarvard Kennedy School, he became noticed by the White House and the CIA for his analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and is researching a thesis on the Vietnam War. Initially manipulated by Elliot into providing classified information on Ryan, which she would later use to discredit him, Ryan's successful handling of the crisis makes Goodley rethink his opinion on his boss.
Inspector Sean Patrick "Pat" O’Day: FBI agent who is Murray's second-in-command.
Dr. Charles Alden: A Yale professor of history who becomes the first National Security Advisor to President Fowler. Alden is a brilliant tactician who has a good relationship with Ryan despite their differing political views. However, his tendency to have affairs allows him to be undercut by Elliot, and he dies of a stroke after his affair with a student is discovered.
Captain James "Jim" Rosselli: Duty officer at the National Military Command Centeratthe Pentagon and former commanding officer of the Gold Crew of USS Maine, an Ohio-class submarine, although the real-life Maine was launched in 1994, three years ahead of the novel's timeline.
Captain Harrison Sharpe "Harry" Ricks: Commanding officer of the Gold Crew of Maine, succeeding Rosselli. Later dies after an explosion from a torpedo launched by the Soviet nuclear-powered attack submarine Admiral Lunin in self-defense collides with his ship, causing serious damage.
Andrey Illich Narmonov: President of the Soviet Union, first introduced in The Hunt for Red October. He attempts to carry out democratization reforms in the Soviet Union during the events of the novel but is hindered by an unstable political system. His assistance helps to bring the Eastern Orthodox Church to support the Vatican Treaty. President Narmonov dislikes Fowler, finding him to be arrogant and overly controlling.
Sergey Golovko: First Deputy Chairman of the Committee for State Security (KGB).
Oleg Kirilovich Kadishev: Leader of the opposition party in the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union and CIA agent (codename SPINNAKER). He unfortunately reinforces a narrative that Narmonov has no control of the Soviet military, which later convinces Fowler and Elliot that the Soviet president may have been a victim of a coup d'etat, progressively worsening their judgment of the crisis surrounding the Denver bombing until Ryan steps in.
Oleg Yurevich Lyalin: A KGB illegal based in Japan who has a well-developed network of agents codenamed THISTLE. He uncovers the Japanese Prime Minister's corrupt dealings with Mexico over trade agreements and offers his services to the CIA, which accepts him (codename MUSHASHI). Based on his intelligence, Ryan launches Operation NIITAKA, which later becomes instrumental in blackmailing the President of Mexico into allowing the arrest of Qati and Ghosn in Mexico City after the Denver bombing. Unfortunately, he was caught by the Soviets and charged with treason, but Ryan pleads with Golovko to free Lyalin since he did not reveal Soviet state secrets.
Valentin Borissovich Dubinin: Captain First Rank of the Soviet Navy and commanding officer of the Akula-class submarineAdmiral Lunin.
Ismael Qati: Palestinian terrorist and mastermind of the bomb plot. An experienced field commander for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), he is suffering from terminal cancer, which drives him to carry out his mission. After being captured by Clark in Mexico City, he was later executed in Saudi Arabia.
Ibrahim Ghosn: Palestinian terrorist and one of PFLP's experts on explosives and electronics. It is stated that he nearly received a degree in engineering from the American University of Beirut but was prevented from formally completing his studies due to the 1982 Lebanon War. Allied with Qati, he is also executed along with him in Saudi Arabia.
Günther Bock: German terrorist and ally of Qati and Ghosn. A former Red Army Faction member, the collapse of Marxism, coupled with the arrest of his wife and fellow terrorist Petra Hassler-Bock as well as the loss of their children, forces him to go into hiding. After learning about the Soviet Union's cooperation with the United States in combating terrorism and Petra's suicide, he is motivated to trigger a nuclear war with the U.S. and Russia by arranging a false-flag attack on American and Soviet forces in Berlin. Later killed during the battle and was identified by the German police.
Marvin Russell: Professional criminal, drug dealer, and activist for the American Indian Movement as a Sioux Indian living in the Badlands. Along with his brother John Russell, he had a history of juvenile delinquency while living with their impoverished family at a reservationinMinnesota and spent a year in prison. He developed a resentment towards the United States. After his brother is killed in a botched FBI operation, he travels to Europe to connect with international terrorists, gaining the trust of the PFLP by killing an undercover Hellenic Police officer in Athens and by comparing the Indian Wars to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He helps Qati and Ghosn enter the United States with the bomb. Deemed as a security risk, he was murdered by the two Palestinian terrorists in a Denver motel on the day of the nuclear detonation, but their sloppy work allows the FBI to ascertain the circumstances behind the bomb.
Dr. Manfred Fromm: German engineer and terrorist who is recruited by Bock to assist in rebuilding and improving the captured Israeli nuclear weapon. Later executed by Bock's men after his services were complete, unaware that Dr. Fromm was not yet finished with the bomb.
General Abraham "Avi" Ben Jakob: Assistant director of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency. Depicted as a friend of Ryan, he helps convince the Israeli Cabinet to accept the Fowler Plan after meeting with him despite his distrust of the U.S. government.
Rafi Mandel: The Defense Minister of Israel. Mandel initially opposes the treaty but accepts it after admitting that Israel's security status has improved from it and after Prime Minister Askenazi promises to support his planned bid for Prime Minister
Captain Benjamin "Benny" Zadin: An Israeli National Police officer in command in a demonstration at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Embittered by his personal problems, he kills an unarmed demonstrator there. Coincidentally the younger brother of Lieutenant Mordecai "Mutti" Zadin, an Israeli Air Force pilot who was shot down by Syrian surface-to-air missiles during the Yom Kippur War, unaware that he was carrying a nuclear weapon. The younger Zadin is ultimately committed to a mental institution.
Ayatollah Mahmoud Haji Daryaei: The Supreme Leader of Iran. Opposes the Vatican Treaty, and is falsely implicated by the terrorists in the Denver bombing.
Hashimi Moussa: A 20-year-old Arab sociology student in Jerusalem and the leader of the demonstrations. Hashimi, who bears physical scars from police beatings, convinces the demonstrators not to enter the Temple Mount and adopt nonviolent protest, resulting in Israel losing international sympathy. Hashimi is killed by Captain Zadin.
Bob Holtzman: Senior White House correspondent for The Washington Post who is being used by Elliot to discreetly out Ryan as being suspected of financial and marital improprieties. After being confronted by Clark, he works to expose Elliot's part in the whole affair.
Cathy Ryan: Ophthalmic surgeon at the Wilmer Eye Institute, which is part of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Jack Ryan's wife who desperately wants a third child but was blindsided by her husband's alcoholism and work. Later becomes troubled with reports of her husband having a mistress, but is talked down by Clark and Chavez. She then proceeds to publicly embarrass Elliot, who is her former professor at Bennington College, at a White House dinner. She becomes pregnant with Katie by the end of the novel.
Carol Zimmer: Hmong American widow of Sergeant Buck Zimmer (detailed in Clear and Present Danger). Ryan helps her and her family through an educational trust fund as well as setting up a 7-Eleven convenience store to supplement her family income. This was misinterpreted by Elliot as indication that Zimmer is Ryan's mistress.
Solomon Mendelev: An Orthodox Jewish rabbi from New York City who accuses the U.S. government of trying to subjugate Israel through the Treaty. Although he has never set foot in Israel himself due to his religious beliefs, he sparks widespread opposition to the Treaty among the Israeli public, and Dr. Eliot's attitude towards him worsens Ryan's relations with her.
Written under the working title The Field of Camlan, which was based on King Arthur's final battle, The Sum of All Fears explores nuclear fears that humans endured during the Cold War, with Clancy warning that complacency regarding such threats is dangerous. Published months after the first Gulf War, Clancy also envisioned a fictional “next great step” toward lasting peace in the Middle East. The book was said to be inspired by the 1977 thriller film Black Sunday, which depicts a blimp being used as a weapon to blow up a football stadium during the Super Bowl; the movie was referenced three times.
The novel also explores the danger of "electing someone who covets power for all the wrong reasons and who is totally inept at managing it", according to Marc Cerasini's essay on the book. President Fowler and Elliot were compared to Bill and Hillary Clinton.[2]
The title is a reference to nuclear war and to the plot by the novel's antagonists to reconstruct a lost nuclear weapon. It comes from a Winston Churchill quote serving as the first of the novel's two epigraphs:
Why, you may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together—what do you get? The sum of their fears.[3]
The Vatican-like solution for Jerusalem, which was implemented in the book, is ultimately derived from the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which indeed provided for making Jerusalem such a "Corpus separatum" (Latin for "separated body"). The course which the 1948 Palestine war took prevented implementation of this plan. In later years, various peace plans and diplomatic initiatives sought to revive the idea, but in reality it has never come close to implementation. The plan is known for being popular outside the Middle East, but unpopular among the actual residents of Jerusalem, who would prefer that their "side" should rule entirely rather than submit to a neutral administration.
A database file with certain limited details about John Clark is included as background information within the first Rainbow Six game, and moreover, the same database entry is also found in many of the sequels. That entry mentions in passing that "the Denver, Colorado atomic detonation [occurred] in 1989". That information might not be canonical, since the book is set after both the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9, 1989) and possibly the First Persian Gulf War (January–February 1991). If it is canonical, though, this means that the book is not set in the same year it was published. A second inference is that 1989 was likely the year in which President Fowler's administration ended.
Clancy started working on the novel in 1979, setting the first chapter during the Yom Kippur War. Then he abandoned his idea for other novels until he wrote The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988), where Ryan first meets Russian premier Narmonov. After figuring out the resolution to The Sum of All Fears, Clancy then used his next novel Clear and Present Danger (1989) as a way to introduce future President Fowler. Speaking of the consistency, Clancy said: "The whole series really is a logical and connected network of plot lines which would continue to diverge and converge throughout the body of the work."[4] The novel was notable for detailing the process in making a bomb; however, certain technical details were altered, and Clancy made clear in the novel's afterword that a lot of information in his book can be found in the public domain.[5]
Whilst the Israelis used both the A-4 single-seat single-engine subsonic light attack jet and F-4 two-seat twin-engined all-weather supersonic fighter-bomber during the Yom Kippur War, use of the A-4's nuclear capability was never envisaged. Nuclear warheads were assembled at the Tel Nof Airbase, but for deployment on F-4 rather than A-4 as told in the novel. This was done on October 8 in such a way that the U.S. got to know of it by the next morning, prompting President Nixon to initiate the same day an immediate air-lifted re-supply to Israel of conventional arms, including tanks and planes to replace losses, in Operation Nickel Grass. Whether any of these nuclear bombs were actually carried during a sortie has never been documented.
At least one real-world buried nuclear warhead has actually been documented however, but American and in the U.S., rather than Israeli in Syria. The plutonium pit of a Mark 39 nuclear bomb warhead remains buried 33m deep in a North Carolina field, now fenced-off, following the fatal 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash. Many B-52 Stratofortresses crashed while carrying live nuclear warheads on training flights, mostly inside the U.S., between 1961 and 1968, but many have been recovered.
The book received positive reviews. Publishers Weekly praised the novel as "a nonstop roller-coaster ride to a nail-biting finish", adding: "Fundamentally, Clancy is writing about a vital and elusive quality: grace under pressure. Whether terrorists or statesmen, Clancy's characters face a common challenge—situations that break down pretensions of rank, power and ideology. Their responses, carefully and empathetically constructed, make this book compelling instead of merely ingenious."[6]Kirkus Reviews hailed it as "hair-raising" and "quite a rouser".[7]
The book was adapted as a feature film, which was released on May 31, 2002. Jack Ryan was played by Ben Affleck while John Clark was played by Liev Schreiber; additionally, CIA director Marcus Cabot, whose first name was changed into William, was played by Morgan Freeman. The film is a reboot that departs from all previous Ryan films, and as a result, there were significant changes from the book, such as the antagonists being neo-Nazis instead of Palestinian terrorists, Ryan becoming a low-level CIA analyst, and the time period changed to 2002. Clancy served as executive producer on the film, and regarding the changes from his book, jokingly introduced himself in the commentary track on the DVD release as "the author of the book that he [director Phil Alden Robinson, who is present with Clancy] ignored". Nevertheless, he complained about technical inaccuracies throughout the film in the commentary.[8]
The Sum of All Fears was a major financial success, grossing a total of $193 million in box office.[9] However, it received mixed reviews from critics; Rotten Tomatoes reported that 59% of critics gave the film positive reviews and that the average rating was 6/10 based on a total of 171 reviews counted.[10]
