Prochnau, William
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1937-2018) US journalist variously with the Seattle Times, Washington Post and (from 1996) Vanity Fair as contributing editor. His one novel, Trinity's Child (1983) – somewhat in the vein of Fail-Safe (13-27 October 1962 Saturday Evening Post; 1962) by Eugene L Burdick and Harvey Wheeler – depicts 15 hours of a limited World War Three initiated by the Soviet Union in response to a late Cold War US arms build-up that had been intended to force Political compromise. In the aftermath of a nuclear counterforce strike against US missile and bomber launch facilities, the US President goes missing and complications of chain-of-command succession ensue. This story was filmed as By Dawn's Early Light (1990) directed by Jack Sholder, with some diplomatic softening of the issues by attributing the initial aggression to renegade Soviet elements rather than considered USSR policy. [DRL]
William Walter Prochnau
born Everett, Washington: 9 August 1937
died Washington, District of Columbia: 28 March 2018
works (selected)
- Trinity's Child (New York: Putnam, 1983) [hb/]
links
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