I would say- Clancy is good when he describes how the American Armed Forces ot Intel community work.
When he touches the Soviet or Russian affairs - he is full of ****!
It was understandable during the Cold War, when information on the Soviet Union was scarce.
However, it was just bad preparation or carelessness on his part to go with the same very weak understanding of what was going on inside the USSR at current level of human contacts between our countries and the Internet!
There are millions of russian-speaking immigrants in the US right now. Many of them had served in the Soviet Army, some had risen in the ranks up to full colonel(Captain in the Navy). It's a shame that Mr. Clancy(an he is not alone in his ignorance!) couldn't use their experience or had not taken his time to get on the Internet and read numerous Russian Web sites.
Just one example - in his book "Red Rabbit" the hero - Soviet KGB kryptologist is going to take vacation in Hungary. So, he takes his leave, asks his KGB travel department to book tickets to Budapest for him and his family. Why he wants to go to Budapest. His wife wants to go to some opera or concert...From there, they defect to the British via Jugoslavia.
Ha-ha-ha!
He could have described such event when talking about some Brit or German, but not the KGB officer in the 80s!
1. Each Soviet citizen must have applied for the EXIT visa to go abroad, so the State could decide whether your reason to go is good enough.
2. Then he had to apply for the Hungarian visa
Of course, if he would be sent to serve in Hungary in his KGB capacity, all these formalities will be done without him even noticing. But this was his private business, not the state's.
3. It was NO WAY that his family would be allowed to travel with him abroad! They should have stayed home as hostages - just in case of defection! This rule has been in place for ordinary citizen - how it could be avoided for such throve of highly classified information?
4. Even the tickets(providing he would jump all the previously described hurdles) couldn't be bought how Clancy has described it. It was not in America!!
He would get a voucher, then he would go to the train station and stay in line to a special ticketing office for military. And he would rather be able to book tickets on a special military train that was serving to move officers and their families serving in Hungary(Southern Army Group) to and from the Soviet Union, not on the "civilian" train
Another example - "Hunt for the "Red October".
It was completely unthinkable for a son of the "enemy of the people", moreover, a Lithuanian by origin, even to get into the Naval Academy, and to become the CO of the best Soviet Submarine - even less plausible.
I am speaking from experience - I was trying to get there and I had been told that I had not pass a security check - I had relatives abroad.
And I had very high marks from my HS and references
One more thing that turned me off on Clancy -it was his flip-flop on the Moslem militants. In one book - they were the heroes(against the Soviets in Afganistan). The next book they are the worst villains