Bush Biographer J.H. Hatfield Who Died 2 Years Ago of an Alleged Suicide Amidst Controversy Over his Book Fortunate Son
In the book Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President author J.H. Hatfield charges that President Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession and that Bush’s father George Sr. used his political connections to have his son’s record expunged.
Soon after publication, Hatfield’s credibility was challenged. He had been convicted in 1988 for hiring a hit-man in a failed attempt to kill his boss and had served five years in prison.(was convicted in 1988 of paying a hit man to car-bomb his boss).
J.H. Hatfield died of an alleged suicide in July 2001.
St. Martins Press promised to turn Fortunate Son into “furnace fodder.” It withdrew 70,000 copies from bookshelves and destroyed them.
In July 2001, Hatfield was found dead of an apparent suicide in a hotel room in Springdale, Arkansas. He was 43 years old. Police said he left notes for his family and friends that listed alcohol, financial problems and Fortunate Son as reasons for killing himself.
Hatfield discusses the Bush-Bin Laden connection in the interview which was conducted before Bush was elected President and well before the Sept. 11 attacks. The writer spent a year investigating Bush.
J. H. HATFIELD: Well he was also in the National Guard with George W. back in the 70’s which is interesting too because in 1972 in August, my publisher was able not too long ago to get hold of Bush’s national guard records. And in 1972, at the same time we alleged he was doing community service for cocaine arrest James Bath who was in the unit with him. Both of them were grounded for failing to show up for medical exam.
Wallace, 48, who once worked for Rolling Stone and ABC News, has been editor in chief at St. Martin's for three years. He said the book was published under the imprint of Thomas Dunne, another editor at the company.
He is the same Thomas Dunne who in 1996 was forced to cancel the publication of a biography of Nazi propaganda overlord Joseph Goebbels, written by Holocaust denier David Irving, after early reviews denounced the book as misleading and "repellent." In that case, Dunne claimed that he didn't know that Irving, an English historian, frequently lectured on the "hoax" of the Holocaust and had been convicted of violating Germany's law against Holocaust denial.
In his resignation announcement, Robert Wallace said, "I do not in any way wish to have my name associated with 'Fortunate Son' or future books published by Thomas Dunne Books."