New York: Warner Books, 1992. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. 24 cm, x, [2], 431, [5] pages. Foreword by Tom Clancy. Inscribed by the author. Steve R. Pieczenik (born December 7, 1943) is an American science fiction writer, former United States Department of State official, psychiatrist, and publisher. The author was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Kissinger, Shultz, Vance, and James Baker. At the Department of State, he served as a "specialist on hostage taking". He has been credited with devising successful negotiating strategies and tactics used in several high-profile hostage situations, including the 1976 TWA Flight 355 hostage situation and the 1977 kidnapping of the son of Cyprus' president. He was involved in negotiations for the release of Aldo Moro after Moro was kidnapped. In 1979, he resigned as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State over the handling of the Iranian hostage crisis. Pieczenik has made a number of ventures into fiction, as an author (of State of Emergency and a number of other books) and as a business partner of Tom Clancy for several series of novels. Books he has authored include novel Mind Palace (1985), novel Blood Heat (1989), self-help My Life Is Great! (1990) and paperback edition Hidden Passions (1991), novel Maximum Vigilance (1993), novel Pax Pacifica (1995), novel State Of Emergency (1999), novel My Beloved Talleyrand (2005). He's also credited under the pseudonym Alexander Court for writing the novels Active Measures (2001), and Active Pursuit (2002). More