During the last several years...
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During the last several years, Tom Clancy has been one of the nation's best-selling authors. One of his recent books is titled The Sum Of All Fears. And that title comes from a quote of Winston Churchill: "You may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together -- what do you get? The sum of their fears." What Churchill was referring to was the fact that as the brave men who served as his chiefs of staff for the military during World War II gathered around their meeting table, they were basically men who were suspicious and fearful of the unknown. In the novel, Clancy tells about an international plan that would finally bring peace to the Middle East. But a certain group of terrorists does not want to see an end to the bloodshed. So they plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in the United States. When that happens, both the United States and the Soviet Union accuse each other of taking hostile action, and matters escalate to the point where the leaders of both nations are on the verge of launching their nuclear armaments. Publicly the nations had announced their acceptance of each other. But the suspicions and fears that they clung to almost led the countries to the brink of war. The thesis of Clancy's novel is that peace can only come where there is genuine acceptance of one another. -- Bowen
