NR has obtained a copy of
Fortunate Son, the George W. Bush biography
recently recalled by its publisher, St. Martin's Press, following
allegations that its author is an ex-con who once tried to hire a hit man
to knock off a former boss. The book, by J.H. Hatfield, claims to offer
fresh evidence that Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in the early
1970s. The offense was purged from Bush's record, writes Hatfield, after
the young man performed a community service project and his father leaned
on a friendly Houston judge. The charges are not leveled in the main part
of the book, but in a 12-page "Afterword" written in the first person and
slapped together last August when
Fortunate Son was in the final stages
of publication.
Hatfield, who denies paying anyone to car bomb his ex-boss in 1988, wants
us to believe he is in the lucky position of having a Deep Throat inside
the Bush campaign. There are other sources confirming the cocaine charges,
too: "friends who partied with [Bush] in the early seventies" and "one of
Bush's former Yale classmates, a family friend who also partied with the
future Texas governor and presidential candidate." This latter individual,
says Hatfield, "provided me with invaluable information only on the
condition that he would not be identified in the book."
Indeed, nobody is clearly identified; Bush cannot confront his accusers.
Those aren't the only signs of sloppiness. There is no index. Instead of
footnotes, there are 54 pages of rambling "source notes" listing
innumerable newspaper articles, TV shows, and online sites but making it
virtually impossible to determine which facts come from where. An "About
the Author" paragraph says Hatfield "has authored over half a dozen books"
since 1995. A quick search on Amazon.com reveals these to be biographies
of celebrities (opaquely described in Fortunate Son as
"twentieth-century cultural icons") and a guide to the X-Files. They were
written as "James Hatfield," suggesting the author adopted his current
initialed pen name to boost his credibility.
The controversial afterword is meant to read like a thriller. Hatfield
describes his tireless efforts to get at the truth about Bush's cocaine
use. "Whatever I found had me in its grip, and short of the grave, I was
willing to follow wherever it might lead," he writes. Hatfield describes a
clandestine meeting in the middle of Oklahoma's Lake Eufala with "a
high-ranking Bush advisor who had known the presidential candidate for
several years." Hatfield was so worried about the rendezvous, in fact, he
conjures up the scene from Godfather II in which Fredo Corleone is shot to
death on a boat in Lake Tahoe. Hatfield's wife even asked him to take a
gun (he doesn't say whether he did).
Despite all of this cloak-and-dagger intrigue, Hatfield just can't deliver
the goods. When he calls the Bush campaign to get a comment on his
particular set of allegations, a press secretary "informed me that either
Karen Hughes or Mindy Tucker, two other Bush campaign spokespersons, would
return my call. Neither one of them ever did."
Hatfield thinks this is damning. Well, NR is now ready to acknowledge that
it was once promised a return call from Mindy Tucker when it inquired
about Bush's position on Puerto Rican statehood. That call was not
returned either. Could it be that Bush's criminal records are secretly
stored in San Juan? Or is it more likely that Mindy Tucker doesn't have
time to return every call she gets?
All Hatfield has in his favor are a couple of odd facts that have been
reported elsewhere, such as Bush inexplicably changing his Texas drivers
license number in 1995. Hatfield thinks this means Bush is hiding
something. Maybe so. But that's an unsubstantiated allegation, and
Hatfield isn't in the business of substantiating anything.
