hot under the epaulets
BY JOHN DONNELLY
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A defense correspondent, interviewing bestselling author Tom Clancy and retired Gen. Fred Franks about their new book on the Gulf War, steps into a minefield.
editors at Salon thought it would be a good idea to have a reporter with a military affairs and defense background interview Tom Clancy about his new book. The idea was for the bestselling author of military thrillers like "The Hunt for Red October," "Red Storm Rising" and "Patriot Games" to have a conversation with an informed interviewer, rather than a busy talk-show host or general book critic whose knowledge of the subjects at hand would necessarily be limited.
As in war, things didn't turn out so smoothly.
As a reporter for Defense Week, I was aware of a simmering controversy here.
While Clancy portrays the Gulf War, and Franks' contribution, as a triumph, others are not so sure. For example, the CIA, in a 1993 document called "Operation Desert Storm: A Snapshot of the Battlefield," noted that "almost 50 percent of the Republican Guard's major combat equipment escaped destruction and remained under Iraqi control." Franks himself was criticized by Desert Storm's commander,
Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who, in his book on the 1991 Gulf War, "It Doesn't Take a Hero," said he wanted to fire Franks on the second day of the war for what seemed to Schwarzkopf to be an overly cautious approach to running down the Iraqis.
When these issues were raised during an interview with Clancy and Franks at the Four Season Hotel in Washington, D.C., last week, fireworks followed.
The book is a "good-news" story about your career, Gen. Franks, and your role in the Gulf War. But it appears to exude some contempt for Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.
Tom Clancy: No, it doesn't.
It doesn't?
Clancy: No, it doesn't.
I just read it.
Clancy: Read it again.
NEXT PAGE: Just different strokes for different folks?
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Clancy's new book, "Into the Storm: A Study in Command" (Putnam), is the first of a nonfiction series by Clancy that the publisher describes on the book jacket as "a look deep into the operational art of war as seen through the eyes of some of America's outstanding commanders." Co-written with retired U.S. Army Gen. Fred Franks Jr., "Into the Storm" is a blow-by-blow description of Franks'
command of the U.S. Army VII Corps, whose job during
the 89-hour ground war against Iraq was to defeat Saddam Hussein's much-vaunted Republican Guard.
