The Cardinal of the Kremlin

Coordinates: 38°16′31.01″N 69°13′35.70″E / 38.2752806°N 69.2265833°E / 38.2752806; 69.2265833
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38°16′31.01″N 69°13′35.70″E / 38.2752806°N 69.2265833°E / 38.2752806; 69.2265833

The Cardinal of the Kremlin
First edition cover
AuthorTom Clancy
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesJack Ryan
Genre
Publisher
ISBN
0399133453
Preceded byPatriot Games 
Followed byClear and Present Danger 

The Cardinal of the Kremlin is an

the New York Times bestseller list.[1]

Plot summary

For thirty years, Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich "Misha" Filitov, a personal aide to the Soviet Minister of Defense and war hero, has been passing military, technical, and political intelligence to the CIA as their highest agent-in-place, codenamed CARDINAL. His latest mission concerns a Soviet anti-ballistic missile research project codenamed "Bright Star", based at a secret defense installation located 50 km southeast of Dushanbe, Tajik SSR.

Colonel Filitov sends Gennady Bondarenko, a Soviet colonel skilled with lasers, to Dushanbe to evaluate the facility and unwittingly procure information that Misha will then send to his CIA contacts. Unfortunately, a minor slip-up in passing Filitov's intelligence alerts the KGB, which then aggressively pursues the couriers involved. They later become suspicious of Filitov and place him under surveillance. The courier chain having been quickly shut down by the CIA station chief in Moscow, Edward Foley, Filitov's more important intelligence on Bright Star is delayed; however, he reveals the presence of a KGB agent infiltrating Bright Star's counterpart, Tea Clipper, which alarms the CIA.

The CIA then tasks Foley with extracting CARDINAL out of the country. However, when his wife Mary Pat, also a CIA agent, attempts to make a

brush pass to Filitov, the two are arrested by the KGB. The Foleys are then declared persona non grata, while Filitov is imprisoned and psychologically tortured until he eventually confesses to his crimes. In an effort to salvage the mission, CIA analyst Jack Ryan
, who had now learned of CARDINAL's identity, concocts a plan to secure the return of Filitov and at the same time force the defection of KGB chairman Nikolay Gerasimov, who has been vying for the position of General Secretary since Filitov's arrest; Ryan tries to prevent his ascension to power due to his anti-American ideology.

Ryan, who is part of the American arms negotiation team, travels to Moscow for the arms reduction talks. There he meets Gerasimov, and blackmails him into releasing Filitov and betraying his country; if his demands are not met, he will reveal what actually happened to the Soviet

Red October
, which would disgrace the KGB chairman, who had used the incident to consolidate the KGB's control over the military. As counter-leverage should he refuse to defect, Gerasimov arranges for the kidnapping of Tea Clipper's top SDI researcher, Major Alan Gregory.

Gregory's kidnapping was undertaken by KGB agent Tania Bisyarina, who has been handling a mole inside Tea Clipper. The mole, a lesbian named Dr. Beatrice Taussig who unluckily falls in love with Gregory's fiancée, eventually gives up Bisyarina to the

mudjahedin, whose leader was known as "the Archer" due to his expertise in using surface-to-air missiles
to bring down Soviet ground support aircraft. Colonel Bondarenko, who was there for a second round of evaluations, manages to repel the attackers, protecting Bright Star's scientific and engineering personnel and eventually killing the Archer.

On the last day of the arms negotiation talks, Gerasimov releases Filitov so that they can both proceed to

Sheremetyevo Airport, joining Ryan and the American negotiation team in returning to the United States. They successfully board the American delegation's aircraft, but Ryan allows himself to be captured by KGB officer Sergey Golovko, who is his counterpart in the arms talks and had become aware of their planned departure. He is then led to the private dacha of General Secretary Narmonov, where they discuss the CIA's interest in his political position and interference in the Soviet Union's internal security. Meanwhile, the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25
attempts to force the American delegation's plane to return to Russia, but the plane successfully evades it.

Filitov, who was extensively debriefed by the CIA, later dies due to heart disease. He was buried at Camp David, within twenty miles of the Antietam battlefield. His funeral was attended by Ryan and the Gregorys, among others, as well as a Soviet military attaché who questions why Filitov would be buried close to American soldiers. Ryan, always working to keep the peace, explains to him, "One way or another, we all fight for what we believe in. Doesn't that give us some common ground?"

Characters

Themes

The Cardinal of the Kremlin is considered[

Communism in the Soviet Union began its decline. Clancy affirms his opinion[where?] that with reformers in the Soviet government like Gorbachev, the country will be more likely to establish a shift in its relations between the United States, which was later made possible by the dissolution of the country
three years later.

The book was also written at the time of the

Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, as well as the Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons. They were both featured in the novel. It also continues elements set forth in previous novel The Hunt for Red October (1984), including Filitov and Ramius’s similarities in motivation for committing treason against their own country.[2]

Reception

The book became the bestselling novel of the year, selling 1,277,000 hardcover copies.[3] It received positive reviews. Kirkus Reviews praised the book as "less reliant on technoblather than previous Clancy works, and awash in subplots, most of them entertaining. Plenty of action; no mushy stuff."[4] In Robert Lekachman's review of the book for The New York Times, he hailed it as "by far the best of the Jack Ryan series", adding: "While his prose is no better than workmanlike (the genre does not, after all, attract many budding Flauberts), the unmasking of the title's secret agent, the Cardinal, is as sophisticated an exercise in the craft of espionage as I have yet to encounter."[5] Bob Woodward, reviewing for The Washington Post, regarded the book as "a great spy novel" which "rivals Clancy's The Hunt for Red October, surpasses his Red Storm Rising and runs circles around his Patriot Games".[6]

Adaptations

Video game

The Cardinal of the Kremlin is also the title of a 1991 video game based on the novel, which is a global management simulation developed for Amiga
.

Film

After the release of Clear and Present Danger (1994), a film based on the book was planned.[7][8] Writers such as John Milius,[9] and Lee and Janet Scott Batchler were considered to write the screenplay adaptation,[10] but it was deemed too difficult to adapt, resulting in producer Mace Neufeld purchasing the rights to The Sum of All Fears. Harrison Ford was set to reprise his role as Jack Ryan, co-starring with William Shatner.[11]

References

  1. ^ "The New York Times bestseller list for August 7, 1988" (PDF). Retrieved 4 August 2018.
  2. ^ Greenberg, Martin H. The Tom Clancy Companion (Revised ed.). pp. 17–20.
  3. ^ "Top Hardcover Bestsellers, 1972-1996". Washington Post. June 1, 1997. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  4. ^ "THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN by Tom Clancy". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  5. ^ Lekachman, Robert (31 July 1988). "MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR CONVENTIONAL WAR". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  6. ^ Woodward, Bob. "THE HUNT FOR THE RED MOLE". The Washington Post. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  7. ^ "Book Sales Boom Continues … Bruce On A Budget". Variety. 1995-01-14. Retrieved 2022-11-21.
  8. ^ "PAR AND CLANCY BACK IN BUSINESS". Variety. 1995-06-05. Retrieved 2022-11-21.
  9. ^ "Clancy, Milius: military minds 'Without Remorse'". Variety. 1995-08-07. Retrieved 2022-11-21.
  10. ^ "The write kind of director". Variety. 1997-03-04. Retrieved 2022-11-21.
  11. ^ "Tos TrekMUSE Interview with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley". Archived from the original on October 22, 2004. Retrieved August 4, 2008.
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