The echo of all fear

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The Echo of All Fear (English original title: The Sum of All Fears ) is the sixth novel by the US bestselling author Tom Clancy . It belongs to the Jack Ryan series and was the fourth book in this series of novels to be made into a film. The book was published in the USA in 1991 and the German translation was published by Blanvalet in 1992 .

The book forms the prelude to a trilogy within the Jack Ryan series with the books Ehrenschuld and Orders from above .

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The original title is derived from a quote from Winston Churchill , which can also be found at the beginning of the book. It is also an allusion to a possible nuclear war.

Events from 1973 are given at the beginning of the book. At this time Israel is in the Yom Kippur War with its neighboring states. The Israeli armed forces are preparing four planes, each with a nuclear bomb, to stop the approaching Syrian army . After the Syrians could be stopped at the Golan Heights , the atomic bombs were dismantled from the aircraft, as there was no longer any need to do so. In the rush, however, an atom bomb was mistakenly mistaken for a fuel tank and the pilot started the plane without knowing that he had a nuclear bomb on board. This plane was shot down over the Golan Heights and the bomb landed on a Druze farmer's field. The Mark 12 nuclear bomb was forgotten and sank in the sand of the field.

Eighteen years later, in 1991, there were peaceful protests by Palestinians . The Israeli police wanted to break up this meeting, and the leader of the protest movement was shot dead by a senior Israeli police officer. To defuse the resulting political tensions and to prevent further conflict, the deputy CIA director Jack Ryan forged a plan to ensure a lasting peace. This stipulated that the Vatican would organize a treaty between the USA , the Soviet Union , Israel , Saudi Arabia and Switzerland .

Meanwhile, a Palestinian terrorist group finds the atomic bomb spilled in Syria. With the help of former RAF supporters and a GDR nuclear scientist, the bomb is reactivated and an attack on the USA is being prepared. This is supposed to involve the USA and the Soviet Union in a war. With the help of a militant American, the group manages to detonate the atom bomb at the Super Bowl in Denver . Due to an unsuccessful step in reactivation (the GDR scientist is liquidated too early), the bomb does not develop its full effect; nevertheless, almost all visitors to the stadium, including the Secretary of State and the US Secretary of Defense, die. Due to the automatisms of the balance of horror , a lack of information, a provoked conventional incident in Berlin, misunderstandings in the Mediterranean and poor advice from his national security advisor, US President Fowler holds the Soviet Union responsible, which means that the world is on the brink of nuclear war. Ryan manages to prevent the catastrophe at the last second, disregarding orders. The FBI can catch the terrorists who will ultimately be executed in Saudi Arabia under Sharia law.

filming

In 2002, the novel was made into a film by director Phil Alden Robinson with Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman in the leading roles. The German title was The attack . Affleck played Jack Ryan for the first time , who had been portrayed in the previous Clancy films by Alec Baldwin ( Hunt for Red October ) and Harrison Ford ( The Cartel ; The Hour of the Patriots ). The plot differed in some points from the novel. The main difference was in the identity and motives of the terrorists. While Islamic extremists are responsible for the attack in the novel , in the film it is a group of neo-Nazis .

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