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This is from Hatfield's book "Fortunate Son".
.......Fresh from a first-place showing in Iowa GOP straw poll on August 14 the Texas governor was forced to amend his stock message when Sam Attlesey of the Dallas Morning News asked whether, as president, Bush would insist that his appointees answer drug-use questions contained in the standard FBI background check. (As president, Bush would nominate candidates for the Supreme Court, other federal judges, cabinet secretaries, foreign ambasadors, and federal prosecutors. All would be required to answer questions "fully and truthfull" regarding illegal drug use on the questionnaire for national security decisionrs, a part of the FBI background check).
After receiving advance word that the new slant on the drug question was going to be asked, Bush conferred with campaign finance chairman Don Evans, finance director Jack Oliver, media adviser Mark McKinnon, chief strategist Karl Rove, and communications director Karen Hughes.
"Imagine the ad our opponents could make if we didn't answer the question" said one Bush campaign adviser. "As president, George W. Bush would maintain a double standard when it comes to illegal drug use by White House employees--one for him and one for everybody else."
Bush's inner circle of campaign officials agreed that the leading presidential candidate should confirm to the Dallas Morning News that he would meet all the standards himself, a response that would "hopefully put a stake in the heart of the coke-use stories."
"As I understand it, the current form asks the question, 'Did somebody use drugs within the last seven years?' and I will be glad to answer the question, and the answer is 'No'," Bush responded during a news conference he called to introduce his new state education commissioner.
However, the Texas governor once again refused to say whether he had ever used cocaine in particular and angrily claimed that his political enemies were peddling unsubstantiated rumors of illegal drug use. "I know they're being planted," Bush said, obviously irritated. "They're ridiculous absurd, and the American people are of sick of this kind of politics." Earlier, he had chided reporters for agian raising the drug issue . Somebody floats a rumor and it causes you to ask a question, and that's the game in American politics, and I refuse to play it," he stated. "That is a game. And you just fell for the trap."
The following day at another media event in Roanoke, Virginia, Bush decided to move the boundary markers yet again, volunteering that at the time his father was inaugurated in 1989 he could have passed even the fifteen-year background check in effect then, dating his drug-free years all the way back to 1974, when he was twenty-eight and a graduate student at Harvard.
But the presidential candidate suddenly drew the line and defined a statute of limitations for only the past twenty-five years after NBC's David Blom noted that current White House appointees were required to list any drug use since their eighteenth birthday.
"I believe it is important to put a stake in the ground and say enough is enough when it comes to trying to dig up people's backgrounds, " Bush said, reverting to his previous position of firmly standing against "trash-mouth politics", and refusing to discuss details about his past. If voter, didn't like that answer he announced, "they can find somebody else to vote for . I have told the American people all I am going to tell them."
Later in the day, Bush continued his stonewall strategy, saying only that parents should counsel their children about the perils of alcohol and drugs. "I think a baby boomer parent ought to say. 'I have learned from the mistakes I may or may not have made, and I'd like to share some wisdom with you, and that is: Don't use drugs. Don't abuse alcohol.' That's what leadership is all about." the presidetial front-runner told reporters while touring oan Ohio Homeless shelter that offered treatment for drug addicts.
Bush has essentially admitted to something. But he refused to say what, creating a political paradox." wrote the editors of USA Today. "If his offense is trivial, why hide it? Voters have shown little inclination to punish candidates for youthful drug use, at least in the cse of marijuana. And if it's substantial, why should those voters be denied the facts?"
"He's been drawing all kinds of distinctions, rather than just giving an anaswer which will put these queries to rest for good," said Mark Rozell, a political scientist at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. "It's sort of piecemeal, hopin-it-will-go-away approach. But this line of inquiry will not goa aaway until he does what only he can do to end it: Tell the flat-out truth about what happened."
Bush flip flops on the drug use question only heightened the mystery and invited deeper scrutiny by the media. On August 25, the online magainze Salon reported on allegations that "back in the '60s or '70s," Bush "was ordered by a Texas judge to perform community service in exchange for expunging his record showing illicit drug use and that this service was performed at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Service Center in Houston.
That was the question Helen Thomas kept asking Scotty the other day.
Then Hatfield cites replies from one of his sources as he pursued the line about Bush's community service:
This is from one of Bush's former Yale classmates:
I was wondering when someone was going to get around to uncovering the truth," he replied, surprisingly unruffled by my direct approach. "Evidently, you kind of glossed over in the book like a lot of other rporters have done in their newpaper and magazine articles. It doesn't fit, does it?"
"George W. was arrested for possession of cocaine in 1972, but due to his father's connections, the entire record was expunged by a state jusdege whom the elder Bush helped get elected," he explained. "It was one of those 'behind closed doors in the judge's chambers' kind of thing betweenthe old man and one of his Texas cronies who owed him a favor. In exchange for successfully completing communtiy service at Project P.U.L.L., where Bush senior was a heavy contributor and honorary chairman, the judge purged George W.'s record. "
Can you tell me more about the incident involving his arrest or give me a name of the police officer or, better yet, the judge?" Hatfield asked.
"I've told you enough already," he replied, sounding uncharacteristically apprehensive. "There's oly a handful of us that know the truth. I'm not even sure his wife knows about it." Then he paused and added, "Just keep digging, But keep looking over your shoulder.
From another source "a longtime Bush friend":
Take this anyway it sounds, but do you think George would take time out from speeding around town in his TR-6 convertible sports car, bedding down just about every single woman--and a few marrie ones--and patying like there's no tommorrow to go work full-time as a mentor to a bunch of streetwise balck kids? Get real, man, this ia a white bread boy fromt eh tother side of town wer're talking about. (page 300--05)
From yet another source of Hatfield's:
Hatfield: My informed source said that Bush was arrested in 1972 in Houston for possession of cocaine, a "controlled substance or whatever the hell they called it thirty years ago,"and the elder Bush worked out an agreement with the judge, a fellow Republican and elected official, to allow George W. to perform community service at Project P.U.L.L. in exchange for having the entire record expunged.
....Sensing it might be our last chance to talk before the book was published--perhaps even our final conversation--I thanked him for sharing his information, recollections, and insight during the past five months.
"Be careful and watch your back every step of the way," he warned speaking almost in a whisper. "Without sounding paranoid, I think I would be amiss (sic) if I didn't remind you that George's old man was once director of the CIA. Shit man they named the building after the guy not to long ago. Besides, W.'s raised almost a staggering sixty million dollars for his White House run in a matter of only a few months and his corporate sponsors and GOP fat cats aren't going to roll over and play dead when you expose the truth about their investment."
I swallowed hard, remembering what my other source had said about looking over my shoulder. (page 311)
....................
Reuters - July 20, 2001
Writer of Recalled Bush Biography Apparent Suicide
By Steve BarnesLITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - James Howard Hatfield, whose biography of President Bush won national attention before its publisher withdrew it over the author's criminal past, died in an Arkansas motel in what police on Friday called a suicide. Police said Hatfield, 43, died of an apparent drug overdose. His body was found by a maid on Wednesday, the day after he checked into the motel in Springdale, near his native Bentonville and about 200 miles northwest of Little Rock. Detective Sgt. Mike Shriver of the Springdale PD said there was no question it was a suicide. ``He left a note and everything,'' Shriver said of Hatfield. ''It's really cut and dried.'' Hatfield's unauthorized biography, ``Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President,'' made headlines in October1999 when Bush was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, with allegations based on unnamed sources that Bush had a record of cocaine use in the 1970s. Bush declined to comment directly on the cocaine allegations, saying only that he had made mistakes in his youth but had not used illegal drugs since at least 1974. No witnesses came forward to support the allegations. Bush's father denied the book's allegations that his son was arrested for cocaine possession in 1972 and that a Texas state judge wiped the arrest off the younger Bush's record in return for political favors. Hatfield's credibility was quickly called into question and publisher St. Martin's Press recalled all unsold copies after revelations that Hatfield had pleaded guilty in 1988 and served time in Arkansas for attempted murder. Hatfield denied he was the ex-convict with the same name, but Arkansas parole officials said he was the same man. Shriver said Hatfield had checked into the motel the night before his body was found. He said a suicide note near the body referred to financial problems, and that friends had told investigators Hatfield was becoming increasingly depressed in his last days. Hatfield lived in nearby Bentonville, where he was born. Shriver said prescription drug bottles were found at the scene, but declined to identify the pharmaceuticals pending a toxicology report from the Arkansas medical examiner that could require three months to complete.
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