On my mother’s birthday this year, the same day we start our fall book tour, I can’t help but think of her involvement in my story and what led to my investigative memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew.
In many of my father’s 400 letters, I found 26 years after his death, he left clues about what actually led to his death and why, and which I was later able to confirm through my archival and field research. My mother left a clue after her death, which I was able to use to prove who was most likely responsible for my father’s death. I sometimes think of that message as the first clue, besides my father’s letters, that started my odyssey.
Three days after my mother’s death, when going through her box of “important papers,” I came across a note she had left among her financial records and insurance policies. There was no date on it, but knowing she wrote it on the back of a mimeographed assignment for a class I hadn’t taught in twenty years, its date was around 1991. At that time, we lived a half-mile from each other, and she often babysat our youngest daughter at our home. Most likely, she removed the assignment from the trash can in my home office. She usually left notes on little scraps of paper all over her house when her memory started to fail.
The note read:
Jack had written about how furious a certain Vietnamese colonel was at whatever Jack had said to him. I couldn’t help but wonder at the time, when Jack was shot down, if that colonel might have had something to do with it; might have had connections with the V.C. — or somehow been involved — yet of course, perhaps not.
Happy Birthday, Mother. You were right. Thank you.
James B. Wells 