But Bob Walton, who was editor in chief of the Dallas Observer from 1980 to 1991, told Salon News he didn't recall ever working with Hatfield. "The name doesn't ring a bell," he said. "If somebody wrote for us a few times, I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't remember the name. But he wasn't a 'regular contributor' -- otherwise I would click on the name." Current Dallas Observer editor Julie Lyons, who took the helm after the publication was sold to the New Times weekly newspaper chain in 1991, said neither she nor her staff had ever heard of Hatfield, nor did the Observer's accounting office have any record of paying him. "My most charitable assumption," she said, "is that he wrote for us before 1991. I've never heard of him, nor has anyone else in this office."

Former Dallas Times-Herald editor Roy Bode also had no memories of working with Hatfield. "I don't recall that byline," Bode said in a telephone interview, adding that the Dallas daily had an extensive bureau system and used freelancers very rarely.

"I do not recall the name James Hatfield," said Lynn Ashby, former editor of the Houston Post. "We dealt with a whole lot of people over the years and I can't remember them all." But he added that he had done a comprehensive search of Post articles from 1985 through 1995, the year the paper folded, and had not turned up Hatfield's name.

Casting further doubts on the author's past, St. Martin's was unable to present evidence that Hatfield was, in fact, the recipient of what his biographical materials describe as the "prestigious international Isaac Asimov Foundation Literary Award for Outstanding Biography." Tracy Bernstein, the editorial director at Kensington Books who edited several of Hatfield's previous books -- including his "award-winning" biography of "Star Trek" star Patrick Stewart -- said she was unaware that Hatfield had won such an award. Nor had she heard of the award itself. Salon News has been unable to find any record of an Isaac Asimov Foundation or a literary award of that name.

Jesse Olsen, an assistant at the Ralph Vicinanza literary agency in New York, which handles literary rights for Asimov's estate, also said his agency had never heard of the award.

But Bernstein defended Hatfield's past work for his "professionalism."

"I found Jim Hatfield to be a tireless worker who I could count on to always deliver, and in every way an easy author to work with," she told Salon News in an e-mail interview. "Most of the books we worked on concerned pop-culture trivia, but even those books had a certain amount of 'backstage' info about the stars, creators or what have you. So those books, as well as the Patrick Stewart bio, were vetted by our lawyers and anything that was questioned he had reputable sources for. I thus never had cause to doubt his professionalism or honesty."

Bernstein said Kensington Books ended its relationship with Hatfield when it turned away from the unauthorized celebrity biographies and unofficial science-fiction television tie-in books the author favored. "We declined to do those books anymore because people like George Lucas and Paramount got very litigious. It's unfortunate. It didn't have anything to do with his professionalism."

The controversy also puts St. Martin's' fact-checking and legal review process under an intense spotlight. On Monday, Thomas Dunne told Salon News that the book was carefully fact-checked and scrutinized by lawyers. But Hatfield only provided his editor, Barry Neville, with the name of one source regarding the explosive Bush drug allegation. And it was unclear how thoroughly the publisher investigated Hatfield's credibility.

Numerous telephone calls from Salon News to Hatfield, his St. Martin's Press editor, Neville, and his publisher, Thomas Dunne, went unreturned Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thomas Dunne Books publicist James Brickhouse told Salon News on Tuesday that Hatfield was unavailable for interviews because "his wife recently had a child and there are complications." The author had been widely available to the media on Monday, but stopped returning calls as criticism of his biography mounted. "We're investigating our author's credibility and the allegations against him," added Brickhouse.

The "Fortunate Son" incident isn't Thomas Dunne's first brush with literary scandal. The St. Martin's imprint was forced to withdraw a biography of Third Reich propagandist Joseph Goebbels in 1996 after a storm erupted over the book, which was written by controversial British historian David Irving, who has been widely condemned as a Holocaust revisionist.

George W. Bush dismissed the book's charges as "ridiculous" on a campaign stop in Arizona Monday and his father, former President George Bush, issued a statement Tuesday calling the allegations a "vicious lie." "He has insulted our son's character and my character, and I resent it. This kind of nasty, groundless attack is the reason that many good people are unwilling to enter politics. I am proud that George is willing and strong enough to take the heat even in the face of this kind of mindless garbage."

"This guy should have stuck with writing science fiction," said Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Monday. "He's obviously trying to sell books with something absolutely untrue."

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