James Hatfield
Encyclopedia
James Howard Hatfield (January 7, 1958–July 18, 2001) was an American
author
.
, a book which alleges that George W. Bush
received preferential treatment throughout his life, from his early schooling at Andover
, Yale
, and Harvard, to his business connections in Midland
and his personal ownership interest in the Texas Rangers
baseball team, to his candidacy for Governor and President. Hatfield argues that Bush succeeded in life not on merit, but on family connections alone, as a member of a modern oligarchy
.
Hatfield's most controversial allegation involves Bush's alleged 1972 cocaine
possession arrest in Harris County, Texas
. According to Hatfield's book, three unnamed sources close to Bush claimed a judge had expunged Bush's drug case and given him community service as a favor to his father, who was then ambassador
to the United Nations
. Hatfield later claimed that his sources were Karl Rove
, Clay Johnson, and Michael Dannenhauer.
Soon after the book's release, The Dallas Morning News
reported that Hatfield was a parole
d felon
who had been convicted in 1988 of paying a hit man $5,000 to murder his former boss with a car bomb. It was also revealed that Hatfield pleaded guilty to embezzlement
in 1992. Hatfield at first denied the allegations when his publisher confronted him, but he eventually owned up to his criminal history.
This was the second time that a book of Hatfield's had been challenged. In 1985 he had written an unofficial James Bond
novel, The Killing Zone
, which — although purporting to be officially sanctioned by Glidrose, Bond's literary copyright holder — was in fact a vanity novel.
Due to the revelations of Hatfield's criminal past and the damage to his credibility, in October 1999, Hatfield's publisher, St. Martin's Press
, recalled 70,000 copies of Fortunate Son and left an additional 20,000 books in storage. Even so, the book had already reached the New York Times bestseller list. Hatfield responded that, before the Bush campaign brought pressure to bear, St. Martin
's had publicly stated that the book had been "carefully fact-checked and scrutinized by lawyers."
The book was later republished by Soft Skull Press
, a company headed by New York punk
musician Sander Hicks
. The relationship between Hicks and Hatfield was explored in the movie Horns and Halos
, an award-winning documentary film
directed by Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky. In one scene from the DVD
extra disc, Hatfield says to the camera, "If anything happens to me, get it out to the press."
Hicks stated that Rove and other Bush campaign officials had cooperated with Hatfield in the research for his biography precisely because they knew of his criminal record. Hicks wrote:
Police Department, on July 17, 2001, the Police went to Hatfield's house to arrest him on charges of credit card fraud
but they were unable to locate him.
On July 18, 2001, Hatfield's body was found by a hotel housekeeper in room 312 at a Days Inn
in Springdale, Arkansas
, an apparent suicide
by prescription drug overdose. According to the police, notes were left listing alcohol, financial problems and Fortunate Son as reasons for killing himself.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
.
Fortunate Son and controversy
Hatfield was the author of Fortunate SonFortunate Son (Hatfield)
Fortunate Son is a controversial biography of former American president George W. Bush by J.H. Hatfield. The book was released in 1999 during the run-up to Bush's candidacy in the United States 2000 Presidential Election by St...
, a book which alleges that George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
received preferential treatment throughout his life, from his early schooling at Andover
Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
, Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and Harvard, to his business connections in Midland
Midland, Texas
Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Texas, United States, on the Southern Plains of the state's western area. A small portion of the city extends into Martin County. As of 2010, the population of Midland was 111,147. It is the principal city of the Midland, Texas...
and his personal ownership interest in the Texas Rangers
Texas Rangers (baseball)
The Texas Rangers are a professional baseball team in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, based in Arlington, Texas. The Rangers are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League, and are the reigning A.L. Western Division and A.L. Champions. Since , the Rangers have...
baseball team, to his candidacy for Governor and President. Hatfield argues that Bush succeeded in life not on merit, but on family connections alone, as a member of a modern oligarchy
Oligarchy
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
.
Hatfield's most controversial allegation involves Bush's alleged 1972 cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
possession arrest in Harris County, Texas
Harris County, Texas
As of the 2010 Census, the population of the county was 4,092,459, White Americans made up 56.6% of Harris County's population; non-Hispanic whites represented 33.0% of the population. Black Americans made up 18.9% of the population. Native Americans made up 0.7% of Harris County's population...
. According to Hatfield's book, three unnamed sources close to Bush claimed a judge had expunged Bush's drug case and given him community service as a favor to his father, who was then ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. Hatfield later claimed that his sources were Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
, Clay Johnson, and Michael Dannenhauer.
Soon after the book's release, The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...
reported that Hatfield was a parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
d felon
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
who had been convicted in 1988 of paying a hit man $5,000 to murder his former boss with a car bomb. It was also revealed that Hatfield pleaded guilty to embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
in 1992. Hatfield at first denied the allegations when his publisher confronted him, but he eventually owned up to his criminal history.
This was the second time that a book of Hatfield's had been challenged. In 1985 he had written an unofficial James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
novel, The Killing Zone
The Killing Zone
The Killing Zone is an unauthorised James Bond novel by Jim Hatfield. It was privately published in paperback in 1985 under the guise that it was officially sanctioned by Glidrose Publications , the company that held the rights to publish James Bond literary works...
, which — although purporting to be officially sanctioned by Glidrose, Bond's literary copyright holder — was in fact a vanity novel.
Due to the revelations of Hatfield's criminal past and the damage to his credibility, in October 1999, Hatfield's publisher, St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the Flatiron Building in New York City. Currently, St. Martin's Press is one of the United States' largest publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under eight imprints, which include St. Martin's Press , St...
, recalled 70,000 copies of Fortunate Son and left an additional 20,000 books in storage. Even so, the book had already reached the New York Times bestseller list. Hatfield responded that, before the Bush campaign brought pressure to bear, St. Martin
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the Flatiron Building in New York City. Currently, St. Martin's Press is one of the United States' largest publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under eight imprints, which include St. Martin's Press , St...
's had publicly stated that the book had been "carefully fact-checked and scrutinized by lawyers."
The book was later republished by Soft Skull Press
Soft Skull Press
Soft Skull Press is an independent publisher founded by Sander Hicks in 1992, and run by Richard Eoin Nash from 2001 to 2009. In 2007, Nash sold Soft Skull to Counterpoint LLC, where it continues to function as a division of the press...
, a company headed by New York punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
musician Sander Hicks
Sander Hicks
Sander Hicks is the founder of Soft Skull Press, and Vox Pop Inc. Raised in the DC area, he is the son of Norman Hicks, a progressive economist and anti-poverty specialist, who is retired from the . Raised Catholic, Sander attended Bishop Ireton High School, where he graduated with honors...
. The relationship between Hicks and Hatfield was explored in the movie Horns and Halos
Horns and Halos
For the Dolly Parton album, see Halos & Horns.Horns and Halos , an award-winning documentary film directed by Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky, is primarily about the difficult road the author and publisher travelled to bring Fortunate Son, a controversial biography of George W...
, an award-winning documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
directed by Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky. In one scene from the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
extra disc, Hatfield says to the camera, "If anything happens to me, get it out to the press."
Hicks stated that Rove and other Bush campaign officials had cooperated with Hatfield in the research for his biography precisely because they knew of his criminal record. Hicks wrote:
When the media stumbled upon a story regarding George W. Bush's 1972 cocaine possession arrest, Rove had to find a way to kill the story. He did so by destroying the messenger.
Death
According to Detective John Hubbard of the Bentonville, ArkansasBentonville, Arkansas
Bentonville, Arkansas is a city in Northwest Bahamas, and county seat of Benton County, Arkansas, United States The population was 35,301 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers, AR-MO Metropolitan Statistical Area...
Police Department, on July 17, 2001, the Police went to Hatfield's house to arrest him on charges of credit card fraud
Credit card fraud
Credit card fraud is a wide-ranging term for theft and fraud committed using a credit card or any similar payment mechanism as a fraudulent source of funds in a transaction. The purpose may be to obtain goods without paying, or to obtain unauthorized funds from an account. Credit card fraud is also...
but they were unable to locate him.
On July 18, 2001, Hatfield's body was found by a hotel housekeeper in room 312 at a Days Inn
Days Inn
Days Inn is a motel chain headquartered in the United States. Founded in 1970, it is now a part of the Wyndham Hotel Group, based in Parsippany, New Jersey, which was formerly a part of Cendant...
in Springdale, Arkansas
Springdale, Arkansas
As of the census of 2010, there were 69,797 people, 22,805 households, and 16,640 families residing in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 64.7% White, 0.82% Black or African American, 1.8% Native American, 1.4% Asian, 5.7% Pacific Islander, 22% from other races, and 2.9% from two or more...
, an apparent suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by prescription drug overdose. According to the police, notes were left listing alcohol, financial problems and Fortunate Son as reasons for killing himself.
External links
- Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya, his former business partner? by James Hatfield
- The Death of Jim Hatfield by David Cogswell
- Interview with James Hatfield, Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...