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07-23-01: James H. Hatfield, author of Fortunate Son, dead at 43
By Bev Conover
July 23, 2001 -- Every time I started to write about my friend and colleague, Jim
Hatfield, since learning about his death in a devastating phone call the first thing
Friday morning, I was confronted with information that led to more and more questions
regarding what led up to and the circumstances of his death.
Despite the rampant speculation that Jim was somehow murdered, the evidence I
currently have points to suicide. Until some more questions are answered, I shall have
to reserve revealing what led him to end his life.
The mainstream media, especially Jim's nemesis, Pete Slover of the Dallas Morning
News, have been no kinder to him in death than in life. Moreover, they would have
people believe that when Jim's first publisher, St. Martin's Press, recalled his
controversial biography of George W. Bush, "Fortune Son: George W. Bush and the Making
of An American President," that was the end of the book. As many of you know, that is
totally untrue. Soft Skull Press, after Jim retrieved his rights from St. Martin's,
published the book last year and has just released Fortunate Son: Second Edition,
which contains even more damning information.
Yes, Jim did some bad things. At the request of his employer who wanted to rid himself
of his partner, Jim hired a hit man. Luckily for Jim and the intended victim, the hit
man was a bungler and the bomb he planted under her car failed to go off as intended.
Jim and his former employer also engaged in stealing some company funds. While his
well-connected employer cut a deal with prosecutors and got off scot-free, Jim drew a
15-year prison term in a Texas prison for his part in both crimes. He served five
years and was released on parole that would have expired in 2003.
We have a myth in America that when you do something wrong and pay your debt to
society that is the end of it. Untrue, as Jim and many other ex-cons found out.
True, Jim didn't tell St. Martin's about his past, which really had no bearing on what
he wrote in Fortunate Son. When Pete Slover brought it to light, Jim initially lied
and said it was a case of mistaken identity. He later told me he regretted having done
that, but he panicked. That provided the catalyst for St. Martin's, which was being
pressured by the Bush family, to announce it was recalling the book and would destroy
it.
While I didn't know Jim very well at that point, I told him I had no interest in the
fact that he was a felon, that throughout history many writers were felons. All I was
interested in was whether he had the facts right. Interestingly, to this day no one
has disproved anything he wrote in Fortunate Son, or FS as we called it. To be sure
the right wing has seized upon a distortion uttered by that master of distortion and
propaganda, Karl Rove, that Jim said it was a "Republican" judge in Harris County,
Texas -- at time when there were no Republican judges in Harris County -- who Poppy
Bush prevailed upon to expunge a drug arrest from George W.'s record.
Jim Hatfield wrote that it was a judge, period.
And who was Jim's source for this information? As revealed by his current publisher,
Sander Hicks, despite saying he would carry the names of Jim's confidential sources to
his grave, it was none other than Karl Rove.
In a conversation with Jim, shortly after Hicks revealed the names of his sources, I
said to Jim, "Rove set you up beautifully, didn't he? Knowing about your past, he told
you all with the intention, once the book was published, of using it to nullify the
message by trashing the messenger."
Jim replied, "You're right."
I admit that in the first year of our relationship, especially after I had warned him
what 60 Minutes would do to him and he said, "I can handle it," my journalistic
skepticism caused me to hold him at arm's length. Following the disastrous 60 Minutes
interview, he said to me, "You were right."
When he approached me earlier this year about doing a weekly column for Online
Journal, I also will admit I was skeptical about that, too, because he had given me
the impression he didn't share Online Journal's point of view. He quickly proved me
wrong.
While I was never as close to Jim as some others and we never met face-to-face, we had
an easy relationship conducted via phone and in email exchanges. I knew him to be a
soft-spoken, polite, gentle and sensitive man who managed to hang on to his sense of
humor despite the hell FS had rained on him and his family. Even as he slipped into
alcoholism and depression because of the enormous debt he had assumed in fighting for
FS, the death threats he and his family had been under from the time word first came
out about the book, and the fact his writing career lay in ruins as contracts for
other works were cancelled, he still managed sparks of wit.
After a particularly bad drinking bout that nearly cost his life, he faced up to his
alcoholism and told me he was attending AA meetings. On June 26, he said, "Hey, half
the battle is admitting you have a problem. So I'm halfway there. I just have to plug
the jug." On June 30, he told me, "I feel good, I have had no cravings or desire to
drink, etc."
A few days later, he also was diagnosed with severe clinical depression. Aside from
those who suffer from this nightmarish illness, few others understand the hell they go
through.
The last time I heard from Jim was on July 3, when he told me in an email, "Happy 4th!
Don't blow your fingers off!"
The wit was still there, despite what he was going through.
Now he is being accused of having fraudulently applied for credit cards, seeking a
$30,000 credit line, according to the Arkansas Gazette. Many of us who knew him are
having a hard time with that accusation, because $30,000 would not have begun to deal
with his enormous debts.
Regardless of what others may think of Jim, he was my friend and now he is gone. I
shall very much miss him. While my thoughts turn to his widow, Nancy, and their
daughter, Haley, not yet two years old, who will grow up barely knowing the father who
adored her, this story is not yet over.
A trust fund for Haley Hatfield has been set up in care of the Bank of Bentonville,
Special Accounts, P.O. Box 1229, Bentonville, AR 72712.
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