Publisher Pulls Gov. Bush Biography

Under fire for publishing a George W. Bush biography that contains damaging but unproved allegations of drug use, St. Martin’s Press on Friday finally pulled the plug on the book, recalling all copies.

The publisher said it took that highly unusual step after learning of the author’s “questionable past.” According to the Dallas Morning News, James Hatfield--who wrote “Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President”--allegedly is a convicted felon who tried to hire a hit man 11 years ago to murder his boss.

Hatfield could not be reached for comment Friday.

In his recently published book, the author alleged that the GOP presidential candidate was convicted of cocaine possession in 1972 but got a judge friendly with his father to expunge the record in exchange for community service at a Houston mentoring program. Bush and his family have denied the accusations, which were made in an “afterword” to the book by three anonymous sources whom Hatfield has refused to identify.

“We have enough information from our own investigation to make the decision that the book must be pulled,” Sally Richardson, president and publisher of the trade division of St. Martin’s Press, said Friday. “We strongly believe it would be irresponsible to continue to keep the book in the marketplace.”

Flap Over Bush Book ‘in a Separate Class’

The company had shipped 70,000 copies to stores and has 20,000 in storage.

Few industry observers could recall an instance in which a book that generated such political heat was recalled. At the most, said Nora Rawlinson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, “we’ve had cases where a cookbook was pulled off the shelves because the publisher discovered you’d have an explosion in the kitchen if you carefully followed one of the recipes. . . . But the flap over this [Bush book] is in a separate class.”

Many in the book world expressed anger and dismay Friday over the necessity of St. Martin’s action, viewing it as an embarrassing reminder that few publishers bother to check facts anymore in nonfiction books. Others say the fiasco underscores the decline of literary standards--and a respect for accuracy--in the increasingly commercialized book world.

These days, most publishers subject forthcoming books to a legal analysis--to protect themselves against possible libel lawsuits--but do not engage in heavy-duty fact-checking with authors. Editors, who once prided themselves on inspecting every word in a manuscript, are more often busy with acquiring and helping to promote new titles, according to many literary observers.

At St. Martin’s, officials subjected the Bush book to the same legal analysis they give thousands of other nonfiction titles, said spokesman John Murphy. “It had come in completed, and it was thoroughly vetted by an independent law firm,” he noted. “The afterword [containing the drug allegations] that came in was very brief--only a few pages--and because of our attorneys’ previous experience with the author, they had no reason to doubt his research.”

Publishing Firm Confronts Author

Murphy said he had no personal knowledge of Hatfield’s sources, adding that the firm had stood behind the book until St. Martin’s confronted the author about his criminal past.

“He denied those charges to us in the offices, but we later proved that he lied to us. We found it difficult to trust the veracity of his reporting for the book, and that in turn raised a lot of other questions about the book,” Murphy said. Soon afterward, the publishing house decided to recall all copies of the biography.

“There is always a certain leap of faith that editors have made with their nonfiction writers,” said A. Scott Berg, who has written biographies of Charles Lindbergh and legendary book editor Maxwell Perkins. “If the trust is broken, things can get very embarrassing for the writers and the publisher.”

Hatfield’s work is the latest in a string of titles that have sparked controversy by blurring the line between fact and fiction. In his recent biography of former President Reagan, Edmund Morris drew fire for inserting himself as a fictional character into the narrative; in an earlier biography of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, author Joe McGuinness was blasted for inventing conversations.

“I don’t know what you can believe anymore in a nonfiction book,” said Harper’s Magazine Editor Lewis H. Lapham, adding that he was “appalled” by the unsubstantiated charges made against Bush. “It’s all about marketing in the book world today, not about whether something is verifiably true or not.”

The controversy surfaced last week when word leaked out that Hatfield’s book contained the sensational allegations. Almost immediately, critics smelled a rat: The charges were made by three vaguely described sources in a hastily written afterword. The author has since admitted that he altered descriptions of his sources--without telling readers--in order to protect their identities.

The final bombshell hit Thursday, when the Dallas newspaper alleged that Hatfield--who also has written a biography of “Star Trek” actor Patrick Stewart--had a criminal past and had concealed it from his publisher.

Hatfield denied the charge, saying a different man with his name bore such a record--even though the author shared the same birth month and year as the ex-convict identified in the newspaper story.

“Somebody, somewhere had the responsibility to do a much better job of checking this writer’s facts,” said historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. “It’s just not fair to print anything that comes along, especially when the subject of a biography is alive and in the midst of a presidential campaign.”

But others say publishing has never aspired to the accuracy of newspapers and magazines.

“That’s the little secret that’s rarely talked about,” said Michael Kinsley, editor of Slate, an online political magazine. “Unlike newspapers, which stand behind the articles they print, publishers make no such promises. They simply put the books out there, hope they sell and say: ‘We hope you find this interesting.’ It’s just an entirely different standard.”

Although newspapers and magazines have had their share of credibility problems, they are typically more determined to check facts, said a host of observers familiar with both worlds.

Ronnie Dugger, an investigative journalist and presidential biographer, said St. Martin’s role in publishing Hatfield’s book is “shocking . . . a sad benchmark in biography.”

“Can you imagine a responsible newspaper or magazine publishing such a serious story about a presidential candidate, on the eve of a national campaign, without a host of editors demanding: ‘Who are your sources?’ ” he asked. “To me, it’s a scandalous debasement of making books.”

Yet others chalk it up to the risks publishers take every time they send a book into the stores. In the book world, said Stuart Applebaum, senior vice president at Random House Inc. publishers, “nobody--and I mean nobody--is immune from the potential of these disturbing and embarrassing incidents. There’s a certain amount of good faith that has to be there in publishing, and if it’s abused, you’re just going to be sadder and wiser the next time.”