The Hunt for Red October

Plot

During the Cold War, Soviet Navy submarine commander Marko Ramius plans to defect to the United States with the Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine Red October. It is equipped with a "caterpillar drive", a cutting-edge silent propulsion system that makes audio detection by passive sonar difficult and enables the submarine to sneak its way into American territorial waters and launch nuclear missiles with little to no warning. As the sub leaves the shipyard at Polyarny, Ramius kills his political officer to ensure that he will not interfere. Ramius was ordered to conduct military exercises with Soviet Alfa-class attack submarine V. K. Konovalov, commanded by his former student Viktor Tupolev, to test the effectiveness of the caterpillar drive. Instead, he plots a course for the North American coast, falsely informing the crew that they will be proceeding undetected to Cuba. Before sailing, Ramius sends a letter to Admiral Yuri Padorin stating his intention to defect to the United States and to give them Red October; the Soviet Northern Fleet then sails out to sink Red October under the pretext of a search and rescue mission.

Red October passes near USS Dallas, a Los Angeles-class submarine under the command of Bart Mancuso, which is patrolling the entrance of a route used by Soviet submarines in the Reykjanes Ridge off Iceland. Dallas's sonar operator hears the sound of the stealth drive, and, though he does not initially identify it as a submarine, comes to realize that it is the sound of a new propulsion system. After losing Red October in the underwater route, Dallas heads to the end of the route in hopes of reacquiring the ship when it emerges.

At the same time, Jack Ryan, an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency working in London as the CIA's liaison with the British Secret Intelligence Service, returns to the United States to deliver secret photos of the new submarine. After conferring with submarine expert Skip Tyler, Ryan determines that the submarine's new construction variations house a stealth drive. Soon thereafter, the CIA's leadership receives word from a highly-placed Soviet agent CARDINAL informing them of Ramius' letter to Padorin and his intention to hand Red October over to the US. Due to a limited number of aircraft carriers in the northern Atlantic Ocean at that time, the United States enlists the aid of the Royal Navy in the search for Red October, and Ryan is sent to the carrier HMS Invincible to coordinate their efforts.

With the Soviet fleet stretched out along the American coast searching for Red October, tensions between the US/UK and USSR fleets begin to mount. An Alfa-class submarine is lost when it sinks following a reactor meltdown while racing to the American coast, while two US F-14 Tomcats' attempt to scare a squadron of Soviet fighter jets with sonic booms results in the Soviets accidentally firing missiles at the American aircraft. On board Red October, tension also begins to mount with the crew after evidence is found of a saboteur damaging the reactor and vital safety equipment. Ramius and his senior officers blame the sabotage on American spies who must have boarded the ship while it was in port. In Washington, D.C., the Soviet ambassador makes repeated trips to the White House to consult with the president of the United States about his fleet's search for their "missing" submarine, while one of the deputy directors of the CIA meets with a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who is inquiring about the Soviet presence. The deputy director falsely tells the senator the CIA has received classified information from Israel that states covert Polish intelligence agents operating at the Polyarny shipyards replaced the original orders onboard the ship, and faked the letter to Padorin to make it appear that Ramius was defecting. The senator repeats the story to his aide, an undercover Soviet mole who is arrested shortly after relaying the information to his handler.

Characters

The Soviets

Captain 1st rank Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius: Soviet submarine captain who commands the Red October, the Soviet Navy's newest ballistic missile submarine. His decision to defect was spurred by personal factors. His wife, Natalia, had died at the hands of an intoxicated and incompetent doctor; however, the doctor escaped punishment because he was the son of a Politburo member. Natalia's untimely death, combined with Ramius's long-standing disillusionment with the callousness of Soviet rule and his fear of Red October's destabilizing effect on world affairs, exhausts his tolerance for the failings of the Soviet system.

Captain 2nd rank Viktor Aleksievich Tupolev: Commanding officer of the Alfa-class attack submarine V. K. Konovalov and Ramius's former student.

Captain 2nd rank Vasily Borodin: Executive officer of Red October

Captain Lieutenant Gregoriy Kamarov: Navigator of Red October

Dr. Yevgeni Konstantinovich Petrov: Red October's medical officer

Igor Loginov: GRU intelligence officer, on duty aboard the Red October as a cook in order to prevent the defection or capture of the vessel

Alexei Arbatov: Soviet ambassador to the United States

Captain 2nd rank Ivan Yurievich Putin: Political officer (zampolit) aboard the Red October. Killed by Ramius so that he will not interfere with his defection.

Admiral Yuri Ilyich Padorin: Chief political officer for the Soviet Navy, Ramius's uncle-in-law and mentor

The Americans and the British

Dr. John Patrick "Jack" Ryan: Central Intelligence Agency liaison to the Secret Intelligence Service; former Marine lieutenant

Commander Bartolomeo Vito "Bart" Mancuso, USN: Commanding officer of the Los Angeles-class submarine USS Dallas

Sonar Technician 1st Class Ronald "Jonesy" Jones, USN: Sonarman aboard Dallas who first identifies Red October and its silent drive.

Vice-Admiral John White, 8th Earl of Weston: British Royal Navy officer commanding the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible; also a personal friend of Ryan.

Lieutenant Owen Williams, RN British Royal Navy lieutenant serving aboard Invincible who accompanies Ryan to Red October because of his Russian language skills.

Oliver Wendell "Skip" Tyler: Instructor at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland who does consulting work for the US Navy. A former naval officer, he was tasked by Ryan with identifying the construction variations in Red October, which he determines to be housing a new, silent propulsion system.

Commander Robert Jefferson "Robby" Jackson, USN: Commanding officer of Fighter Squadron VF-41 out of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy

Dr. Jeffrey Pelt: National Security Advisor to the US President

Rear Admiral Charlie Davenport: Director of Naval Intelligence, U.S. Navy

Arthur Moore: Director of Central Intelligence

Vice Admiral James Greer, USN: CIA Deputy Director (Intelligence)

Themes

The Hunt for Red October introduced Tom Clancy's writing style, which included technical details about weaponry, submarines, espionage, and the military. The accurate nature of Clancy's writing was well known among the American military such that Clancy remarked in a 1986 interview: "When I met Navy Secretary John Lehman last year, the first thing he asked me about the book was, 'Who the hell cleared it?'"

The novel shares elements with James Clavell's works, particularly Shōgun (1975) and Noble House (1981), where political power is used instead of physical confrontation with an enemy. Clancy portrays the Soviets, especially Captain Ramius, sympathetically, and most characters are understandable in their actions and fears, while at the same time comparing and contrasting their philosophies and values against their American counterparts, who in turn are shown as more competent in their profession, this being explained by the US Navy being better equipped and trained than the Soviet sailors who are mostly conscripts.

In the novel, the US and its service personnel are unmistakably the "good guys". The central theme of the US being flawed, but ultimately a force for good and hope in the world is something the author would explore more in his later novels. However, unlike The Hunt For Red October, these later novels often include negative American characters, motivated by power or greed.

In addition, The Hunt for Red October is considered a coming-of-age story regarding the main character Jack Ryan. However, instead of running away from responsibilities, a theme common in contemporary American literature, Clancy subverts the convention by having Ryan rushing toward the burdens of the adult world. Moreover, the book introduced Jack Ryan as a new archetype of the American hero – an everyman who uses his prior knowledge instead of physical power in solving a particular crisis.

Development

From a young age, Clancy was an avid reader of naval history and sea exploration but was later rejected from serving in the military because of his poor eyesight. Since graduating from high school and eventually earning an English major, he had always wanted to write a novel. He eventually worked as an insurance agent for a small business owned by his then-wife's family.

In his spare time, Clancy started working on The Hunt for Red October on November 11, 1982, and finished it four months later on February 23, 1983. Clancy consulted technical manuals, discussions with former submariners and books like Norman Polmar's Guide to the Soviet Navy and Combat Fleets of the World to maintain accuracy in describing Soviet submarines.

He then submitted the first draft of the novel to the Naval Institute Press, where he previously wrote an article on the MX missile for their magazine Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. Three weeks later, the publication company returned his manuscript, along with a request to cut about a hundred pages' worth of numerous technical details. After fixing his work, Clancy then sold The Hunt for Red October to the Naval Institute Press for a modest sum of $5,000.

Having recently decided to publish fiction, the publication company made Clancy's work their first published novel. Editor Deborah Grosvenor later recalled convincing the publishers: "I think we have a potential best-seller here, and if we don't grab this thing, somebody else would." She believed Clancy had an "innate storytelling ability, and his characters had this very witty dialogue".

Theories about source of the story

The 2005 book The Last Sentry: Valery Sablin and the True Hunt for Red October by Gregory D Young and Nate Braden suggests that the novel was based on the mutiny of the soviet frigate Storozhevoy in 1975. While Clancy was researching the mutiny, he read Young's master thesis about the incident. Clancy wrote to Young asking for a reference copy and permission to quote the thesis in the novel he was drafting. Clancy outlines The Hunt for Red October in considerable detail and concludes by asking Young for other reliable naval reference books.

The 2020 Muse Entertainment documentary The Real Hunt for Red October claims that the story of Red October is based on the loss of Soviet submarine K-129, which was lost in 1968, and recovered by 1974's Project Azorian.

The 1976 defection of Viktor Belenko flying his MiG-25P "Foxbat" aircraft from the Soviet Union to Japan.

Reception

Critical

The book received critical acclaim, especially from the American government. U.S. President Ronald Reagan had pronounced the book, which was given to him as a Christmas gift, as "the perfect yarn" and "unputdownable"; his endorsement eventually boosted the novel's sales and solidified Clancy's reputation as a bestselling author. Regarding the reception, Clancy remarked: "I was thunderstruck, dumbfounded, bowled over, amazed. But I wasn't surprised." Many members of the White House were fans of the book.

The Hunt for Red October was also popular among the military. On a 1985 visit to USS Hyman G. Rickover, Clancy discovered 26 copies of the novel among the crew. Reid Beddow of The Washington Post praised it as "the most satisfactory novel of a sea chase since C. S. Forester perfected the form" and "a tremendously enjoyable and gripping novel of naval derring-do."

Commercial

Due to an extensive marketing campaign by the Naval Institute Press for their first published work of fiction, which was initially aimed at the military, the book sold 45,000 copies by March 1985. Clancy said in a 1991 interview: "I thought we'd sell maybe five thousand or ten thousand hardcovers and that would be the end of it. I never really thought about making money."

After Reagan's endorsement, The Hunt for Red October topped the national bestseller lists, particularly The New York Times. It eventually sold more than 365,000 copies in hardcover. After securing the paperback rights to Berkley Books for $49,500, the novel sold another 4.3 million copies.

Adaptations

Film

The novel was adapted as a feature film, which was released in the United States on March 2, 1990. Captain Marko Ramius was played by Sean Connery, while Alec Baldwin played Jack Ryan. It serves as the first entry in the Jack Ryan film series, which would later follow a chronological order differing from the novels. The movie is a nearly faithful depiction of the novel even though there are many deviations, including Red October traveling up the Penobscot River in Maine to dry dock, the omission of the Royal Navy task force including Ryan's time aboard HMS Invincible, and the "caterpillar drive" being described as a magnetohydrodynamic drive system, essentially, "a jet engine for the water", rather than a drive powered by a series of mechanical impellers inside flow tunnels. Although in both the novel and movie, the caterpillar drive was supposed to be undetectably silent.

The film received mainly positive reviews from critics, holding an 88% rating from Rotten Tomatoes based on 74 reviews. It was the sixth top-grossing film of the year, generating $122 million in North America and more than $200 million worldwide in box office. In a 1991 interview, Clancy remarked of the film's success: "It was reasonably true to the spirit of the book, although the movie had a lot of technical errors in it and some changes in the story which I do not think is necessary. But you have to remember that the printed word and visual representation on the screen are two different art forms and they have very different roles."

Games

The novel also became the basis for three computer, video, and console games. One version, a combination of a submarine simulator and strategy game, was released in 1987 and received positive reviews. Another game based on the movie was released in 1990. The console game was released in 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System and later for the Game Boy and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In addition, a board game The Hunt for Red October, published in 1988 by TSR, Inc. became one of the all time bestselling wargames.

In late 2015, River Horse announced it had acquired the rights and intended to crowdfund another game based on the intellectual property.

Legacy

The Hunt for Red October popularized the book genre of techno-thriller into the mainstream. "Tom Clancy defined an era, not just of thrillers but of pop culture in general," said Jon Land, an author and marketing chair for the International Thriller Writers. "No one encapsulated the mindset and mentality of the Reagan era more, as the Cold War was heating up for the last time and we were entering a new age of modern warfare. Clancy's books tapped into our fears and helped define our psyches, even as he reinvigorated the thriller genre by bringing millions of new readers into the fold."

On April 20, 2018, The Hunt for Red October was included in the list of 100 most-loved books in the U.S., compiled by PBS as part of their new series and multi-platform initiative The Great American Read.