Federal Judiciary

LOPEZ: President Tyler doesn?t seem to be the most experienced executive. He?s vain and thin-skinned. Did you have someone in mind when you wrote him?

WALSH: He has the longest journey to make in the book, from airheaded pretty boy to master manipulator. Think of him as a cross between John Edwards without the mistress and Bill Clinton with much more ruthless savvy.


LOPEZ: When did you first realize you could do fiction?

WALSH: In the early ?90s. When I was at Time, I was frustrated that what was plainly evident to me -- the imminent collapse of East Germany and the end of the Soviet Union -- was not apparent to anybody else, especially Strobe Talbott, who was our ?Soviet expert.? I even went on the Lynn Samuels show on WABC around 1987 to predict German reunification within five years. I was way off.

I decided that if I couldn?t write the truth in Time, nobody could stop me from putting it into a novel. So, on spec, I wrote Exchange Alley, which is still the most accurate reflection of what New York City and Moscow were like in the age of David Dinkins and Gorby, if I do say so myself. Not for the squeamish.


LOPEZ: How is Devlin (the American secret agent known only by his code name) like Jack Bauer? Why is he better?

WALSH: I don?t know. I?ve never seen a minute of 24. In fact, I hardly ever watch television, aside from the cable-news channels -- all of them.


LOPEZ: Does writing about end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/clash-of-civilizations-type stuff give you an enhanced sensitivity to debates like the one we?re having again over enhanced interrogation techniques?

WALSH: In Hollywood, we?ve been writing ?enhanced interrogation technique? scenes for decades. Nobody had any problem with them. In fact, they?re called ?cheer moments.? What?s changed?


LOPEZ: Will there be a movie? Will you have to whitewash?

WALSH: Up to my manager, my agent, a producer, a star, and a studio. No matter what happens, though, I?m not writing the script. I have the Devlin sequel to write: Black Widow, named after the NSA?s Cray supercomputer at Ft. Meade. You know, the one that scans all your e-mails and listens to your phone conversations with your Great Aunt Hilda.


LOPEZ: Is there anything anyone in the Obama administration could learn from Hostile Intent?

WALSH: The bad guys are always out there, whether you believe in them or not. The only real political argument is: What, if anything, are we going to do about it? It?s certainly a hot-button topic at the moment.


LOPEZ: Is anyone based on a real figure?

WALSH: I?ll let the readers play that game. In general, though, it?s far easier to invent characters than to try and crib them from real life. More fun, too.


LOPEZ: What about this shadow-warrior fourth branch of government?

WALSH: In Devlin, I wanted a new kind of hero, working for a new kind of agency, not the usual CIA/FBI stuff. Not one American in 10 million has ever heard of the Central Security Service, which is a major component of the National Security Agency. (You can learn more about it here.) It was established by Nixon to be the ?fourth branch? of the armed services but wound up part of No Such Agency as the cryptographic liaison with the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. You don?t want to mess with the CSS. The rest of it I made up.


LOPEZ: Your book was released on the fifth anniversary of the Beslan massacre, which plays a role in Hostile Intent. Did you plan that? Is there a school-safety message you want to relay? Or just a there-are-people-in-the-world-who-want-us-and-our-children-dead message?

WALSH: The Beslan evocation was intentional. It?s one of the things that terrifies our security services -- an attack on a school somewhere in Middle America, which is exactly how Hostile Intent opens. But the timing was coincidental.

A safety message? Let?s just hope there really are guys like Devlin who know how to deal with such things -- with hostile intent.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on September 04, 2009 (boomark / email).