James Hatfield
American writer (1958–2001)
James Howard Hatfield (January 7, 1958 – July 18, 2001) was an American author.
Fortunate Son and controversy
Hatfield was the author of Fortunate Son, a book published in 1999 during the George W. Bush presidential campaign, 2000 that made serious allegations about George W. Bush. Published by the highly regarded St. Martin's Press, the book was revealed as allegedly fraudulent and recalled by the publisher within days of publication.
Soon after the book's release, The Dallas Morning News reported that Hatfield was a paroled 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 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.
“James Hatfield” enters the record as american writer (1958–2001). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what James, Hatfield and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“James Hatfield” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, James, Hatfield and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6135705. VIAF identifies the subject as 5668268. The Library of Congress control number is no96049454. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1958, 2001, 1999 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Hatfield” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.