The CIA logo is prominent throughout, there are several aerial shots of CIA headquarters, and a few minutes into the first episode we see Ryan arriving at Langley, filmed at the real CIA campus.

In keeping with this alternating pattern they did support Jack Ryan the series, as is obvious from simply watching the show. However they had nothing to do with the film of Hunt for Red October, I’ve read that they rejected a request for support on Clear and Present Danger, and according to FBI documents they rejected Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. The CIA supported Patriot Games in 1992, and Sum of all Fears in 2002. Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine have all played the character, and now John Krasinski makes it five different actors. Like Bond, Jack Ryan has been rebooted several times despite only being created in the 1980s. Both act as totems to attract followers and intimidate rivals. In many respects Jack Ryan is the American James Bond, a fictional symbol of US intelligence in the same way Bond is a symbol of British intelligence. We have discussed before how close Tom Clancy was to the CIA, as well as other parts of the American security state, so we have to approach this new series in that context.