Fortunate Son (Bush Biography) Author Died under Mysterious Cicumstances

[Rage Against the Machine]

Book: Bush was arrested for **** in 1972
Texas author J.H. Hatfield claims the Republican front-runner did community service at a Houston center.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Salon Staff


Oct. 18, 1999 | A new book by Texas author J.H. Hatfield claims that George W. Bush was arrested for **** possession in 1972, but had his record expunged with help from his family's political connections. In an afterword to his book "Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President" (St. Martin's), Hatfield says he took a second look at the Bush **** allegations after a story in Salon reporting allegations that Bush did community service for the crime at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Houston's Third Ward.

The center's executive director, Madgelean Bush (no relation to George W. Bush), had told Salon News and others that Bush did not do community service there, and the Bush campaign likewise denied the allegation. But the Texas governor had admitted to working at Houston's Project P.U.L.L. in 1972, and Hatfield says he began to wonder if that was actually the community service sentence. Hatfield says he confirmed those suspicions with three sources close to the Bush family he had cultivated while writing his biography, which publishes Wednesday.


 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





Fortunate Son:
The Rise of George W. Bush & The Next Generation of Politics
By J.H. Hatfield

 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

Bush's campaign denied Hatfield's allegation Monday.

By contrast, "First Son: George W. Bush and the Family Dynasty," by Dallas Morning News reporter Bill Minutaglio, says George Bush Sr. referred his son to Project P.U.L.L. after an incident in which George W. drove drunk with his younger brother Marvin in the car.

But Hatfield quotes "a high-ranking advisor to Bush" who confirmed that Bush was arrested for **** possession in Houston in 1972, and had the record expunged by a judge who was "a fellow Republican and elected official" who helped Bush get off "with a little community service at a minority youth center instead of having to pick cotton on a Texas prison farm."

Hatfield quotes a former Yale classmate who told him: "George W. was arrested for possession of **** in 1972, but due to his father's connections, the entire record was expunged by a state judge whom the older Bush helped get elected. It was one of those 'behind closed doors in the judges' chambers' kind of thing between the old man and one of his Texas cronies who owed him a favor ... There's only a handful of us that know the truth."

Another source named only as "a longtime Bush friend" described the situation this way: "Say you get a D in algebra ... and now you're going to be required to repeat the class the following year, but your teacher says if you promise to be tutored during the summer by a friend of hers who's good in math, she'll change the D to a C. You spend a few hours a week during the summer vacation learning all about arithmetical operations and relationships, and then the teacher issues you a new report card, replacing the old one on file in the principal's office ... Something akin to that scenario is what happened with Bush in 1972."

Hatfield also says that when he asked Scott McClellan to comment on the allegation of a former Yale classmate of Bush's that the presidential hopeful was arrested for **** possession in 1972 and had his record expunged in exchange for community service at Project P.U.L.L., the Bush campaign spokesman said, sotto voce, "Oh, ****," followed by, "No comment."

McClellan denies that the exchange ever occurred. "I never spoke to the guy, and I'm not aware that anyone at the campaign has spoken to him," he told Salon News.

"This guy should have stuck with writing science fiction," said Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. "He's obviously trying to sell books with something absolutely untrue." http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/****/

[Rage Against the Machine]

Book: Bush was arrested for **** in 1972 | page 1, 2

Tucker pointed out that there were no Republican judges in Harris County until 1979 and says that former President George Bush's office "has issued quite a strong statement about how inaccurate this is." The elder Bush's spokeswoman was not reachable for comment.

Hatfield is a Texas reporter and syndicated columnist. He has previously published a biography of "Star Trek" actor Patrick Stewart.

"Our lawyers looked at the manuscript with great care, it was thoroughly fact-checked," Thomas Dunne, publisher of the St. Martin's imprint that's publishing Hatfield's book. "This author is a pretty good digger. He used a lot more sources than Bob Woodward has in a while. I didn't ask for the names of the three anonymous sources he used in regard to the drug charges. His editor might have, I don't know.


 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





Fortunate Son:
The Rise of George W. Bush & The Next Generation of Politics
By J.H. Hatfield

 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

"Do I know for a fact these allegations are true? No, of course not. But I know that the author believes them to be true. He researched the book exhaustively and put it together with a variety of independent sources, including many who have never met each other."

"Salon actually started this," Hatfield said in an interview Monday. "The book was finished. The galleys were in and ready to go to print. You guys did the story on the MLK Jr. center.

"When I was working on the book, it's almost like being one of those women who sit around and make quilts all day. You've got all these patches of fabric. The Project P.U.L.L. year in 1972 did not fit his personality. It would be like that one piece on that quilt and you may not notice it. But if I made that quilt I'd be across the room going, 'That piece just doesn't fit. It bothers me.'"

Hatfield says he, like other reporters, didn't pay much attention to the year Bush spent doing community service -- at a time when it was well-known he was drinking and carousing. "I fell for it just like everybody has. Kinda glossed over it -- 'That's nice.' All of a sudden he goes back to his young and irresponsible years again. Why all of sudden would you quit flying your planes, quit drinking, quit chasing women and go mentor inner-city black kids? That piece never fit in.

"He was arrested. He was not charged as far as I know from my sources. What happened was he was picked up, taken to Harris County Jail. Within hours Dad was there.

"I think his dad might have gotten him switched to another judge. Texas judges are elected, which makes a lot of people believe that they can be manipulated and corrupted."

Reported by Anthony York, Craig Offman and Daryl Lindsey.


salon.com | Oct. 18, 1999

[Rage Against the Machine]

Bush Accuser Dies Of Drug Overdose

James Howard Hatfield, 43, Author Of "Fortunate Son:
George W. Bush and the Making of an American President"
Found Dead In A Hotel Room On Wednesday July 18, 2001

Was This A Payback Murder For His Writing Fortunate Son, Or Did
He Really Commit Suicide By Overdosing On Prescription Drugs?



by Irene Noguchi

The troubled author of a biography accusing President Bush of hiding a three-decade-old **** arrest committed suicide Wednesday. James Howard Hatfield, 43, was found in a hotel room in Springdale, Ark., and appeared to have died from a overdose of prescription drugs, police said.

Hatfield wrote "Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President" in 1999. The book cited unnamed sources in claiming that Bush was arrested in 1972 but that his case was expunged. Bush, who was campaigning for president when the book was published, denied the allegations.

Soon after "Fortunate Son" was released by St. Martin's Press, the company discovered that Hatfield had been convicted in 1988 of attempted murder of his former supervisor. It recalled 70,000 copies in October 1999 and left an additional 20,000 books in storage.

Police went to Hatfield's house Tuesday morning to arrest him on charges of credit card fraud, but Hatfield wasn't home, said Detective John Hubbard of the Bentonville, Ark., Police Department.

His body was found around noon Wednesday by a hotel housekeeper. Hatfield left notes for his family and friends that listed alcohol, financial problems and "Fortunate Son" as reasons for killing himself, police said. He is survived by a wife and daughter.

After the book had been dropped by St. Martin's, it was picked up a month and a half later by Soft Skull Press, a small publisher on New York's Lower East Side. Sander Hicks, the head of Soft Skull, said yesterday that he joins the family "in feeling this deep loss."

"He did have a past that he was working very hard to put behind him," Hicks said.

In "Fortunate Son," Hatfield said three unnamed sources claimed a judge had expunged Bush's case and given him community service as a favor to his father, who was ambassador to the United Nations at the time. The incident raised questions of how well publishers screen the credentials of authors and check facts in their books.

Hatfield was convicted in 1988 of paying a hit man $5,000 to murder his former boss with a car bomb. Both passengers in the vehicle, the intended victim and a colleague, escaped unharmed when the bomb malfunctioned. After news of that conviction surfaced, it was also discovered that Hatfield had pleaded guilty to embezzlement in 1992.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29283-2001Jul20.html

[Rage Against the Machine]

Press Release

Soft Skull Press Publishers of
Fortunate Son by James Howard Hatfield

Monday July 23, 2001

Dear Friends and Members of the Press,We have been reeling from the news since Friday. Jim Hatfield is gone. In a country where not enough reporters and talking heads have the courage to speak truth to power, Hatfield, the President's most controversial biographer, ended his own life in solitude in an Arkansas motel last week.

I knew Jim. He could be tempestuous, moody and unpredictable. He was also intensely driven, articulate and full of Southern charm. When I spoke with his widow Nancy on Friday, we agreed, "He was a good writer." He was a hell of a fighter and you wanted him on your side. Just last month we spent a weekend together in Chicago on the trade show floor of Book Expo America. He signed books, shook hands, worked the crowd, spoke out, strategized with me and revealed sources. We went non-stop together to promote his Bush biography Fortunate Son. He was fond of quoting Langston Hughes, "I've been insulted, eliminated, locked in, locked out, and left holding the bag. But I am still here."

Like Hughes, Hatfield will live on through his books. Jim's life will not be soon forgotten. The story of Fortunate Son is gravely important. Jim was on the verge of collapse due to financial difficulties, and part of this was due to the failure of this book. The American media followed the trail laid for them: the piercing inquiries into Bush's drug history were diverted into ironic stories about Jim Hatfield's own checkered past. After Hatfield was fed information and then discredited, he faced financial ruin and obscurity. He lost two other book contracts. His death was by his own hand but the causes go deeper. October of 1999 was glorious for him: he celebrated the initial publication of Fortunate Son and the birth of his daughter. But October was shattered by a book burning, a
two-year long media carnival, and the character assassination of Jim Hatfield, an ex convict turned author who had paid his debt to society.

Jim Hatfield's death is in part on the hands of an imperious American media establishment that reserves the softest touch money can buy for George W. Bush and all sons of privilege. Jim Hatfield, a working class journalist unannointed by the media elite, was viciously made into an example.

He had a fearlessness that will be missed.

Sander Hicks
CEO
Soft Skull Press, Inc.

for more information on Fortunate Son, please see
http://softskull.com/catalog/hatfield/fortunate_son.html
for my Publisher's Preface, please see
http://softskull.com/catalog/hatfield/fs_karlrove.html


Dear Sander Hicks

You say ...His death was by his own hand... then you say
He was fond of quoting Langston Hughes, "I've been insulted, eliminated, locked in, locked out, and left holding the bag. But I am still here."

These statements seem to be in conflict.

Mark Elsis


He prided himself on his ability to survive. Until that ability was exhausted.
I don't know for certain, but the evidence does seem to indicate suicide.
Not everyone believes this, of course....

Sander Hicks

[Rage Against the Machine]

Odd how suicides seem to follow around certain enemies of the administration, isn't it?

[MinisterofInfo]

Most of the people involved with blowing the lif off the Bush scandals end up dead, the same thing happened with the people who broke the NSA wiretapping scandal.  The only difference between the Republicans and the mafia is that the mafia has more scruples.

[Maximus]

Great find!