Dear S——— ,

            Got your letter yesterday. In fact, W——— read it to me over the phone as I was just getting used to my newest toy. I hope you are duly honored to know that you're getting the first letter [hell, first-ever document] done on my new Macintosh "Fat Mac" 512K personal computer, with Imagewriter printer and the "free" softwore that frankly isn't all that great.
           You needn't apologize for reading slowly since that's the way most people write, and frankly I feel that if I write every damned word, I want you readers to read every damned word!
           I am very gratified indeed that you liked Hunt. I mean, you're a friend, and I noted your remark about seeing vintage Clancyisms carefully hidden in the text (mainly in Jack Ryan).
           Don't be too impressed by the technical stuff. A lot of people [thus far, two radio interviews {both "local" stuff, no big deal}, one by the Washington Post, one by UPI for a wire-service feature, and one each for feature stories by the Baltimore Sun, Washington Times, and New London Day] have made such a big damned deal about all the technical stuff. Hey, editor, if you give the book a close look, there ain't very much-- just enough to make it look like I know something. All of this came out of easy, casual references into some books I own. Really. It's a lot easier to say the right word than to know what it means, y'know? I ain't no submarine driver.
           Actually the idea of a glossary for all those impressive words and acronyms (Special Note: If verisimilitude is what you're after, and you're talking about the military, you have to talk wall to wall acronyms--just like docs, uniformed types speak in a special form of shorthand to baffle us dumb civilians) and one I (and others) proposed, but each time the idea was discarded as unnecessary. ASW means "anti-submarine warfare," by the way. A cast-of-characters page was also considered and dropped.
           Regarding killing off characters, a hard choice it was, to kill off Gregoriy Kamarov, and--almost--Owen Llewellyn Williams. Novel-writing is very much like building your own world, very god-like, and this gives one huge responsibilities.
           It never NEVER NEVER entered my mind to kill Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius, and certainly not John Patrick "Jack" Ryan! Of course the good guys win--it's my bloody book. And besides, why do you think it's called fiction? The odd thing (well, one of many odd things) is that you and one other person (in case you're interested, the other guy is a Commander, USN, a very bright intelligence officer and Russian expert for whom I happen to have some insurance; by the way and lest you somehow form a false impression, never at any time have I seen a classified document, nor have I ever knowlngly--or later after reflection thought that I had--been told a classified fact of any nature) (and thank God for that! Were I to learn such a thing, I'd stay awake at night for weeks wondering what I ought to do with it...) objected to the Ramius bio. Nearly everyone else (including all of the reporters) raves about that. I guess Bob Frost was right: everyone has a different perspective. That was the hardest thing to write. Took four rewrites after the fourth (editing/working) draft, by which time my editor and I were both contemplating murder most foul. (I will say, however, that if you listen very carefully when uniformed officers tell stories, listen, that is, to what they say and what they don't say you can get lots of interesting data to chew on.)
           Oh, and lest you be too awestruck by my brilliant research, remember where I talk about why the Poles ran "the operation," because of Andropov's replay of the EdwardII/Becket thing against Pope JP/2? If you remember the movie, where Peter O'Toole said of Richard Burton, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest!" He was playing the part of Henry II, not Edward II. Augh! NOBODY caught it, not even Brits. There is no substitute for careful research! (That typestyle is called "London.")
           Now, as for your son, R———: I am not a computer snob! I have, now, two (2) Apples. Hunt was written on a ][e (clarification: the first draft was done on paper wlth a Selectric--stone age!) via Applewriter ][e (I've never touched Wordstar, and I spit upon all CP/M progroms!), and my next novel, (worklng tltle, No Sunset: The Battle for the North!) will be done on my new Fat Mac. The Apple is the Computer for the Common Man (and, like your Atari, a 6502 machine), first created, like the first Ford, in a garage (well, the ford was made in a buggy shed, but that's the functional equivalent of a garage). The computer snobs are those whose machines refuse to function unless you're wearing a tie, and which are grossly overpriced--the mis-named IBM PC (notice that in the commercials, the girl playing Chaplin is always wearing a tie!). R———, me boy, save your money, and get a Mac! Wowie-Zowie, what a MACHINE! I can appreciate your envy. Look at it this way: When I was your age, back in the Dark Ages of slide-rules and mechanical calculators and vacuum tubes, machines like this one did not exist [we were just experimenting with automobiles and telephones, you see]. The IBM supersmall computer on the Apollo CSM and LM was a mere 32K RAM and was twice the size of this baby, in addition to costing a mega buck (like all IBM products, overpriced--but it worked and was well serviced, also like all IBM products). My co-author on Sunset, war-game expert Larry Bond (R———, locate and buy his game, HARPOON-II. It is truly outstanding [several naval ROTC detachments use it to teach prospective officers about naval warfare tactics], and after digesting it you'll be able to explain The Hunt for Red October to your mom!), graduated college some years after I dld, and his college only had a 16K machine. The good news is that the Macprice of the Mac is going down. The Macfactory is now being rearranged to increase production from 40K per month to 80K per month. Crank that one into your calculator! Honest, R———, this is the one to save and wait for! I mean, 16/32-bit 68000-based, and 512K of RAM--how far is there left to go? Well, there are reports of a color Mac, and I suppose 64-bit chips are not too far away...)
           (Oh, yeah. The CRAY-2 will be AWESOME when they build finally ship one out, but my latest word is that it's still buggy. Of course, the CRAY-1_S is still a mildly impressive machine, my informant tells me, with a clock rate somewhere in the exp-8h range.) (And the 1/series machines are in the places I indicated.)
           You are of course correct, S———, in suspecting that Jack Ryan is in some small respects drawn from another east Baltimore kid's persona. When you build a character, you must first frame him in your own mind. Moreover, what makes people people (that is, what creates INDIVIDUALS out of standard Mk-1 human beings) is the collectlon of eccentricities that we all accumulate. So I created a mental collection of possible eccentricities, and chose at random. (In case you're interested, for the Russian character names [except for the real names: Oleg Penkovskiy, Valeriy Sablin, Sergey Gorshkov, and Yuri Padorin], I set up a matrix of Russian surnames, christian names, and patronymics from the lndex of Scott & Scott, Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, and just did your basic mix-and-match.) You see how unmystical this process is?
           Pity you didn't collect the typos. I love dropping stuff like that on my editor. (I just "bummed her out" with the ophthalmic correction [gleeful chuckle].) C——— B——— is a tall, willowy, damned pretty girl who 4.0'd Princeton and then bagged a Marshall Scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford. In short, she's fairly bright, too. We had a lively relationshlp. My responses to her editing marks were often shorthanded to GDC [Goddammit, C———!], and similar stuff. We are good friends. [Not that good. Her husband made All American at lacrosse, Princeton, and still plays in a local lacrosse club. And I'm not that sort of chap. Neither is Ryan.]
           I am decidedly not sick of my characters, S———. John Patrick Ryan will be back [after Sunset] in Patriot Games, which predates Hunt, then in at least two (2) more. Robby Jackson (who'll save Jack, Cathy, and Sally Ryan's lives in PG) and Skip Tyler will be back also. Hey, these are my friends. This is my own special little world. Hmph, that makes me sound like Twilight Zone. Well, that's partially true.
           And the writing process isn't bad at all. When it goes good, it really goes good, and it's FUN! And computers/word-processors help a LOT! Using a Selectric is like chiselling on granite. That's why I got the Mac. Portable. I can bring it to work, and spend half my time here wrlting, editing, revising, etc. On computer it's actually rather a pleasant process.
           Be glad to autograph any book. Good for the ego.
           The book-signing party went well. Took the train to Connecticut. The couple who owns the store … was one (1) Conneticknut male, and a female from Texas who sprinkled her conversation with such Texasisms as, "That's like cuttin' off your pecker to find your balls!" so as to distinguish herself from the local folks [oh, yeah, the boa-constrictor boots, too, pearl-gray leather], though she's been there since '63. New London/Groton is a Navy town. The Electric Boat division of General Dynamics builds them there, and there's a sizable (though very odd) naval base. A brit sub, HMS Spartan, was in port also, and we met a few of the crew. Bottom line: We sold seventy (70) books. Not bad at all.
           In fact, sales are going great! They'll decide tomorrow on the third (!) printing. Sales to date, 20,000 roughly. The whole first printing (16,000) is gone, and about half of the second (10,000) was gone before it was delivered to the warehouse. Not bad for 2 1/2 weeks. Last word had it #8 on the Doubleday fiction list in New York! The reviews have been GREAT! I've been compared with C. S. Forester and, eek, Frederick Forsyth. (Fortunately, I take neither blasphemy seriously.) (11/18/84, I am now #3 on the Doubleday list, ahead of Frederick, by God, Forsythe!).
           The rest of the house is also doing well. T——— gave me the best part of the whole book project. I got the first copy off the presses, and at home that night ... while paging through it, the little guy came over and stabbed his finger at the photo of me and said: "Daddee!" Yeah. ... I will not comment on what happened to the Colts, now referred to as the Clots.
           11/16/84, had a party (I call them BS patries) at the Mid Store, United States Naval Academy. Such a strange college.
           "Would you please sign my book, Sir?"
           "My name's 'Tom.'"
           "Yes, Sir."
           The kids there (by the way, that really happened three [3] times!), are so damned earnest! Grave, even. They did buy quite a few, though.
           "And what are you golng to do when you get out?"
           "I'm golng to fly high-performance jet aircraft, Sir [the "sir" is always capitalized the way they say it]." I mean, they can't just say, I'm gonna be a fighter jock!
           The female Mids (Note, not, never, Middies!), I must say, have particularly well-tailored uniforms that bring out, ah, their better points. Facing these guys was especially hard. I mean, my equilibrium tends to get upset on being approached by a number of (invariably!) pretty girls with that dewy-eyed look. (Gee, a real author!)
           Well, I guess I'm maintaining my equilibrium, facetious comments notwithstanding. The celebrity biz is actually fairly boring--stressful in a funny kind of way--unless you pay too much attention to it. And I'm working on the next one, which I should get back to...

Best regards,

[signed] Tom