Finding Truth (with James B. Wells)

In this episode, we interview author and retired university criminologist James B. Wells about his investigative memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew. James recounts learning that his father supposedly died as the only passenger on a civilian plane shot down in Vietnam, then discovering more than 400 letters in 1991 that revealed his father as a truth-driven whistleblower who criticized corruption and war practices. We talk about standing up for marginalized people, speaking truth to power, and the belief that peace requires forgiveness and forgiveness requires truth.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

00:49 Origin of the Memoir

02:08 Father the Whistleblower

03:40 Investigating the Crash

05:51 Healing Through Story

08:11 Truth and Forgiveness

09:39 Vision for Change

11:32 Whistleblowing as Practice

14:02 New Writing Projects

16:04 Reading Inspiration

17:33 Advice for Impact

19:04 Where to Find James

20:32 Closing and Farewell

James’ Book

Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew

Other Books Mentioned

Precious Freedom by James Bradly 

Flyboys by James Bradly 

Flag of Our Fathers by James Bradly 

Rules for Whistleblowers: A Handbook for Doing What's Right by Stephen M. Kohn

Where to Find James

Jamesbwells.com

Thank you for being part of the Liberation is Lit podcast! If you have stories to share, want to suggest topics, or just want to connect, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @liberationislit or visit our website at liberationislit.com. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider leaving a review! Remember, your voice matters, and together, through the lens of stories, we're making a difference in the world.

Transcript

0:09

Hey y'all. Welcome to the Liberation is Lit Podcast, where the power of storytelling meet the force of social change. I'm your host, Tayler Simon, and in this podcast we believe in the profound impact of stories. And I'm so excited today to be here with author James B. Wells to tell us a little bit about his book. So I am excited to get into it. Hello James. How are you doing today? Hey Tayler, it's, it's great to be here. I think. You and your listeners will find my story to be very liberating in multiple senses. Awesome. Thank you so much and we're excited to get into this conversation. So to kick us off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself as a writer and what inspired you to write. Because A-C-C-I-A Coverup and a Son's Odyssey defined the father he never knew. Amazing title. So tell us a little bit about you as a writer in the book. Okay. I'm a recently retired university criminologist with a PhD in research and an MFA in creative writing. And I was nine years old in 1965 when the US government told the media and my family that my father was the only passenger on a civilian plane shot down by small arms fire in Vietnam, and that's what our family generally believed until 1991 when I found over 400 letters he had written to my mother. I didn't know the man, so like any son would do, I, I studied the letters to learn about the father. I never got to know, and I learned that my father was a very moral, righteous, and religious man, obsessed with the truth, committed to doing the right thing, and very intolerant of those around him who were not doing their jobs as they should. For example, I found out that he was a a whistleblower as early as when he was a 21-year-old provost sergeant at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials. He was overseeing a special confinement unit and caught, two soldiers, both friends, a so sergeant and a corporal selling contraband to the prisoners. My father turned him in where they face 20 years hard labor and a dishonorable discharge, and he's riding my mother. I'm a hated and hunted man. You don't have to worry as if he would, but I carry a pistol to bed and a weapon with me at all times. And he also told her he got a broken jaw during this period. And and when he's in Vietnam in both tours, he's very critical of how we're fighting the war opposed to the corruption and the war crimes we're committing and, and if I may, here's an excerpt from my book where he confesses to being a whistleblower. We give the Vietnamese officials money, food, et cetera, for the refugees. They lie and say there's 10,000 when there's only a thousand, and they won't give them the food or money hoping they, the refugees will move on. We must take over the issuing of these commodities or the people will never get a damn thing. But here, Betty, that's my mother's name, but here, Betty, the rich get richer and the poor get poor, and the fat ass Americans do nothing about it because they have no backbone or are afraid to work. But as long as I'll work, I'll call a spade a spade and no man will get me to write a white paper unless it's the truth. Now, he left clues in his letters for me, his youngest son, to follow and corroborate and given my skills as a researcher, I felt compelled to do research and my very first trip to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, I find out that the day my father is killed is the day he's piloting his program to reduce corruption in that same refugee program that he was so critical about in his letters to my mother. To make a long story short i've conducted archival and field research across the US and Vietnam, five archives in the US two in Vietnam. My field research has included interviewing former special forces, US Army, CIA, air America personnel. Come to find out he was on a twin engine cIA Air America plane with two pilots that was reportedly shot down by small arms fire. I've even interviewed former communist fighters near the crash site and Vietnamese eyewitness civilians. Who said, who saw his undamaged plane fly into their home and crash and burn, and the Vietnamese communist fighters they interviewed said they had nothing to do with the crash. They were just as puzzled as anyone else why it went down. But anyway, my investigative memoir was released Father's Day weekend. Last year, and my wife and I, since I'm retired, we bought a small class B RV, and we've been touring the country, sharing our story with as many people as we can. And that's why I'm talking with you today, and that's why I loved the title of your podcast because literature's liberating and that. Through my research and my story, I'm resurrecting my father's life. We're resurrecting each other's lives. I'm allowing him to tell the truth about how he lived and died, and he's helping me try to achieve peace with what I've been dealing with for the last 33 years, ever since I found those letters. But that's my short answer to that first question. Love it. And I love how, and that's why I do the work that I do because it is healing relationships of people we may not have gotten to know or other people's stories that have been comfort up and things like that. That's why I find that storytelling and writing books is so powerful in sharing that information and how it's healing for us as writers, but also. Feeling and affirmative and validating for those who are reading the stories and thinking about my gosh, my family went through this and really connecting human to human about that experience. And, I definitely wanted to ask what hope do you have for readers to take away from sharing your story in this way? Yeah, I'm glad you asked that question. The, the phrase, the least of us, among us comes to mind. I think it's from Mark in the Bible. But like, Jesus, my father fought for, served and cared for the marginalized, those in need, the poor, the sick, the refugees. He loved the Vietnamese people. But hated their government. If I may, he wrote in another letter. I could eat and sleep with the American military but don't feel a should. Never did think they should, like separate. Still don't know how in the hell you can know what people are doing, how they are living if you don't do it with them. I'm sure what I say is correct. I can do so much more than most Americans. I try to be a part of the people, even the Vietnamese communists know I am for the people I hope. So I like to think my story serves as a reminder that more of us need to be committed to the truth, be willing to take risk, and to stand up against injustice and corruption, especially for the marginalized. And perhaps it's due to my advancing age. I'll be 70 in May, but I, but I often wonder how can anyone find peace? While living a lie and fa face the end of life with that burden. So it may be taking risks and even being willing to die for the truth is how we can best leave our mark. Upon this world, and I guess one of the big biggest lessons I gained from my years of research, and I talk about this in my book, is that after I found the classified crash site and my siblings came over and we held a burial service, we're we're Episcopals, we held an Episcopal burial service for my father at this classified crash site. I thought I would be at peace, but I wasn't, and I came back home and underwent 20 hours of counseling sessions with our priest and the church's pastoral care team. And I recorded those sessions and the highlights are in my book. But what they helped me realize, and I think that this may help other people who've been exposed to trauma no matter what the circumstances, and they, they have questions to unresolvable questions, but I learned. Peace requires forgiveness. Forgiveness requires the truth. This book is my confession, my version of the truth. So once my father and I share it with the world, perhaps the two of us can forgive and finally come to peace. Hmm. And I love too, in the act of truth telling, you're allowing other people to forgive different systems that affected you with your questions that haven't been answered, but also your father, is kind of your vision for. The system these institutions that affected your family in this way, what is your vision for that system in the future? Well, I'm an optimist. The CIA's turned down all of my FOIA requests, even my, my appeals, my first FOIA was in 2015. But, but drawing on my book as a frame of reference, I guess, you know, and again, I'm an optimist. I guess my vision is for more of us to stand up for the marginalized speak truth to power reverse inequality prevent imperial overstretch, promote civic duty, encourage moral leadership embrace cultural flexibility and champion open expression through the arts just as you and I are doing right now. I don't know. It's. We have a long way to go, but I've always been an optimist, even my academic department at the university, you know how academicians can be so pessimistic, but I had the reputation as being an optimist. So. But yes, I, I am too. And there's so much doom and gloom in the world we have to think about instead of what we don't want in the world or complaining about what we don't want to see in the world. We need that space to imagine what we do want in the world. And that's why I think books telling our stories is so important because that allows us to express artistically, like you were saying, how the world we want to see in the future. And. I have the bad reputation of being an optimist as well. So, Yeah. but what keeps you grounded in this work? In truth telling and speaking, truth to power. That's a great question. Since my father was a whistleblower and me being a criminologist, whistle blowing is like a sub-discipline. And so the last third of my academic. Career. I became very familiar with whistle blowing theory and retaliation, and wrote several academic papers on it and even did a study of whistle blowing in a correctional institution and things of that nature. And even to this day, I'm, I'm no longer an academician, but every morning when I get up, the first thing I do is research and write a whistleblowing fact. A quote from our whistleblower, and I post that on social media. For example, Twitter, this morning I posted whistleblowing fact 1,177. So every morning I've been doing that and I've, because of my, my book and my interest and and whistle blowing and research, I've, I've attracted a following of people who are also interested in whistle blowing. But my wife and I have actually been invited to National Whistle Blowing Appreciation Day on July 30th on Capitol Hill, where my father and I will be recognized for our whistleblowing efforts. I've been told I'm a whistleblower too, since I'm blowing the whistle on the coverup of my father's death in Vietnam. Yes. And that, and again, that is speaking truth to power, and it's because of whistleblowers historically that we've gotten a lot of change and reform in a lot of these institutions because they uncover how these systems cover up a lot of things and. I have so much respect for whistleblowers because they are putting so much on the line when they do this and risking their livelihoods through their jobs, their reputation and things like that. But they believe in speaking truth to power. So I definitely admire the work you're doing and centering whistleblowers in this and people are just like, oh my gosh, whistleblower accounts. And it's like, no, these are actual people who are risking to, to enlighten the public about these truths. Yeah. so congratulations on being recognized for your work on Capitol Hill. That's so exciting. Do you have any other upcoming projects that you wanna share? Yeah. I gotta thank my MFA program, the Bluegrass Writer Studio from Eastern Kentucky University. I was a tenured professor, working full time, had a consulting job, and I did their MFA program. It kicked my butt. They taught me how to write in a variety of different genre. I'm, I'm, I'm doing a lot of what I call protest poetry where it, it, it demands. I do research. I enjoy doing research, and it lets me channel my thoughts and feelings into something purposeful where I get to confront social injustice. Challenge to status quo and call for change and things like that. So, I've been doing some of that and I, I still wanna write a short story collection about family members. Who've been involved in the military and fought in, in different wars, and so I'm working on that. I've also, I started a some two 10 minute plays. I actually finished two 10 minute plays based upon my story. I'd like to write a three act play based upon my story if I live long enough. And, and I also wanna write more about my father's experiences after he came back from Vietnam after the first tour. He was pro provost marshal for the South Atlantic Corps of Engineers, where he investigated crimes on core property reservoirs and federal parks and such. This is early 1960s, pre-Civil Rights Act, pre Voting Act. So a lot of the crimes he was investigating were Moonshining bootlegging. And sad to say KKK lynchings on core property and it's rumored that Dixie Mafia took out a contract on my father because his investigations were interfering so much with their operations. So I'd like to do more research and write about that, provided I live long enough. Oh my gosh. You have a plethora of genres that you write in. I am so impressed. And do you get any inspiration from anything that you're reading lately, You know this, this is an incredible story, but James Bradley. Four times. New York Times bestselling author who wrote Flag of Our Fathers and Fly Boys tracked me down because he heard of my research and book. I spent two months in Vietnam. He spent 10 years in Vietnam and he wanted to read my book and I wanted to read his book, and I just finished it. It's called Precious Freedom. It's historical fiction book about the Vietnam War where he discusses how the Vietnamese, a third world country defeated the most powerful country in the world, the United States, through a combination of strategy, morale, and, and, and, and guerilla fighting and such. It's a incredible book. It's 155,000 words. It, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a mammoth book, but it's a great book. But, but he and I have be, become friends and, and we've, we've, we've engaged in a, a few hour long conversations and such. But, but yeah, I highly encourage people to read that book. I'm sure it's gonna be another bestseller. It was released in 2025. Oh my gosh, yes. And I am linking all of those books as well as, because in the show notes so people can check them out and get them if they want to. So my last question for you is, what advice would you offer listeners who wanna make a positive impact in their communities? Well, it's probably kind of related to one of my other responses, but you know, I encourage people to do the right thing. Don't tolerate injustice. Speak truth to power, embrace whistle blowing. Try to bring any ethical and legal violations that you are aware of in your environment, in your workplace, or whatever. Bring it to the attention of either those in your organization. If you don't get a satisfaction there, go outside your organization. And if you're interested in whistle blowing, here's another book I, I know, the author by Stephen Kohn, KOHN. It's called A Whistleblower's Handbook, A step by Step guide to Doing What's Right and Protecting Yourself. It's quite popular. It's already, I forget what edition it's in now, but if you're, if you wanna report wrongdoing and, and try to do it in the safest manner possible, this handbook tells you how to do it. I'm definitely linking that in the. Note show notes as well so people can check that out. Thank you so much for all of the resources and just again, reminding us that whistleblowers are people who are just committed to telling the truth and standing up against injustice and that they're everyday people like you and me. So thank you so much for this amazing conversation. Make sure you check out James' book. Where can people find you And keep up with your work. Like you mentioned, your social media, where you share your whistleblowing facts. Okay you, you find my book on Amazon Barnes and Noble. I encourage you to go through your independent bookstore and order it. My website is james b wells.com. You can contact me there. Order a personal autographed copy if you like, but there on my website you can see links to presentations, interviews, reviews publications, awards. My books won nine literary awards to date. So also my book tour schedule. We're, we're heading to Pensacola next week for books by the Bay Festival and later this summer, Texas. So. But I, I love hearing from people and, and no matter what your story is I'd like to engage with you. So much of us have trauma in common, and perhaps people can learn to achieve peace through my book or talking with me or whomever, or listening to your podcast. I love this. You and I are similar minds. You and I have a lot in common. Yes, and this is why I started the bookstore. This is why the podcast, to have a space for people to just share their truths and promote their work and how their book is fighting towards liberation, so that's awesome. And I, here. We're right here, This has been great, Tayler. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, and thank you again listeners for being a part of the Liberation Is Lit podcast. If you have stories you wanna share, wanna suggest any topics or wanna connect with us, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Liberation is Lit or visit our website, liberation is lit.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review. And remember, your voice matters together through the lens of stories, we're gonna make a difference in the world. Until next time.