(106) Coch

This has been observed many times elsewhere, but not with the correct context: in Tom Clancy’s novel The Hunt for Red October (1984) the political commissar on the titular submarine Red October is called “Putin”—he is described as “the perfect political officer” and everything he does serves the Rodina (the Motherland—a term, says Clancy, with “mystical associations”). The Red October’s captain, Sean Connery (okay Captain Marko Ramius—but you take my point), murders Putin in the opening chapter of the book—an essential step in his plan to defect to the West with the submarine and its new technology.

Quite a few people, some connected with the pro-NATO “OSINT” community, have noticed this little fact—pretty much as an amusement. Actually, it’s magic—Clancy made a prognostication in this book. After all, for the Western reader Ramius is a sympathetic figure—to make his defection believable Clancy has him be Lithuanian, a disprivileged minority within the Soviet Union (otherwise the credibility would be strained a bit—even the most disaffected Russian would balk at such a major betrayal). However, really, as Kim Philby found out when he arrived in the USSR and was isolated from everyone, nobody likes or trusts a traitor—so Ramius is only a relative hero, even to the West.

As will be related elsewhere, Clancy has mystical elements in his techno-thrillers—albeit perverted—so his novels do have divinatory powers; ergo, the novel predicted—perhaps caused—the real Putin’s rise, he who fought those who betrayed Russia “the perfect political officer” (to kill the character was to make him live in real life, per magical reversal). Yet Clancy is perverted. Quick example, in Red October he notes the CIA’s motto is “the truth shall set you free” and his lead character, Jack Ryan, wonders if he will reach that “sublime state of grace”—ergo, Clancy worships the CIA; and the CIA is not God—it is an inversion, there is no sublime grace in the betrayal business.