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Because: A CIA Coverup & A Son's Odyssey To Find The Father He Never Knew
James B. Wells was only nine when his father, Jack, an Army veteran working for USAID as a senior public safety officer in 1965, died in an Air America plane crash in Vietnam.
Decades later, James discovers hundreds of letters in his mother's home and embarks on a thirty-three-year odyssey to uncover the truth and meaning behind his whistleblower father's covered-up and still CIA-classified death.
Through archival and field research across two continents and a meticulous reconstruction of his father's life-from Jack's love for God, family, country, duty, and truth to the circumstances of a coverup-a son finally connects with the father he barely knew and seeks peace with what he learns and what he may never know.
Decades later, James discovers hundreds of letters in his mother's home and embarks on a thirty-three-year odyssey to uncover the truth and meaning behind his whistleblower father's covered-up and still CIA-classified death.
Through archival and field research across two continents and a meticulous reconstruction of his father's life-from Jack's love for God, family, country, duty, and truth to the circumstances of a coverup-a son finally connects with the father he barely knew and seeks peace with what he learns and what he may never know.
364 pages, Paperback
Published June 8, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 29, 2025
Excellent!
The detail and degree of research that Mr. Wells completed is more than my brain can comprehend. His quest for justice for his father is remarkable. It’s long, there is much language that I don’t understand from a military perspective, but the author puts things in such perspective and is articulate in his ability to translate the information to the reader is so well done. I love the spiritual component at the end that came from his conversations with his priest and his fellow church members. Thank you for sharing.
The detail and degree of research that Mr. Wells completed is more than my brain can comprehend. His quest for justice for his father is remarkable. It’s long, there is much language that I don’t understand from a military perspective, but the author puts things in such perspective and is articulate in his ability to translate the information to the reader is so well done. I love the spiritual component at the end that came from his conversations with his priest and his fellow church members. Thank you for sharing.
November 28, 2025
Vietnam radically changed the way American writers approach the war narrative. This is not to say that James B. Wells’ current tome, Because: A CIA Coverup & a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew, is a war narrative, really, but it uses one of the country’s most unpopular conflicts to examine issues that reach beyond any standard retelling of a military scandal or incompetence by superior officers. The book instead focuses on our country and the ancillary organizations and NGOs it uses to accomplish its goals, what these institutions ask of us, the effect that lies and corruption have on future generations, and especially the price we pay, both for remaining silent and for choosing to take a stand. Like Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried or Nick Turse’s Kill Anything That Moves, Because is another important Vietnam story from a decidedly unglamorous point of view, with tough investigating and solid research to back it up.
Wells brings some serious bona fides, including a PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing. His father, Jack J. Wells, had spent the previous two decades in the US military before dying in a plane crash over Vietnam in 1965, leaving the young boy traumatized. Starting with a treasure trove of 400 letters written by his father, who was working with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), James continues, for decades, to investigate and piece together a narrative of whistleblowing and moral courage in the middle of what was essentially an administrative and moral quagmire.
As I said, at the time of his death, the author’s father was a senior public safety division advisor for USAID. He remarks that his father was a highly moral man who expected others to live up to professional expectations. As Wells begins to look into things, he notices conflicting information and inconsistencies. This book is the result of his research, and it’s based on a mix of field work, meetings, and interviews with family members, friends, veterans, USAID employees, the Central Intelligence Agency, and even South Vietnamese authorities.
Chapter one begins when some faceless government representatives in black suits visit the home of young James to tell the family that his father had died. Wells goes on to give a bit of family history and talks about how he felt at school afterwards, but it’s not long before he tears into the letters, and the real payoff is in getting to know his Dad. The fact that his father’s life would end in complications that suggest whistleblowing is unsurprising. As these words to his wife attest, this is a man who does not simply go through life’s motions:
“Sometimes I feel so close to God and at other times so very far away. It’s like two people in my work, Betty. I pray my children will never have to do the things I’ve done.”
One of the first things to shake up the author comes when he learns that the wreckage of the plane was being guarded, and that the actual site had come under attack:
“In a more recent action in the Hậu Nghĩa Province on the night of 27 September, policemen assigned to guard the wreckage of the Air America aircraft in which PSD Advisor Jack Wells was killed came under enemy assault.”
First, Wells had been told that his father was a passenger on a civilian plane that had simply crashed, and now he was suddenly the sole passenger on a plane shot down by the North Vietnamese.
Now, part of USAID’s job is to administer the logistical problems faced by the Vietnamese refugees we had helped create. Among many other pressing demands included the need to feed, house, and provide medical care for thousands of human beings. Ultimately, his father raises questions about the commodities and goods that are not getting to the people that they are meant to get to, and this breaks Jack’s heart:
“We must take over the issuing of these commodities or the people will never get a dam thing. I bet one thing – if the VC caught one of their men cheating, they would cut his head off. But here, Betty, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and the fat ass Americans do nothing about it because they have no backbone or are afraid to work.”
Any more would be pure spoiler, but Wells is to be commended, not only for writing a solid piece of investigative journalism, but also for composing a touching, unflinchingly honest memoir that pulls no punches. It’s one whose message is as urgent and vital as ever, for if this country does not start making individuals like Jack Wells again, then I don’t hold out much hope for where we are right now. James B. Wells’ Because is a very timely book that asks the right questions.
Wells brings some serious bona fides, including a PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing. His father, Jack J. Wells, had spent the previous two decades in the US military before dying in a plane crash over Vietnam in 1965, leaving the young boy traumatized. Starting with a treasure trove of 400 letters written by his father, who was working with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), James continues, for decades, to investigate and piece together a narrative of whistleblowing and moral courage in the middle of what was essentially an administrative and moral quagmire.
As I said, at the time of his death, the author’s father was a senior public safety division advisor for USAID. He remarks that his father was a highly moral man who expected others to live up to professional expectations. As Wells begins to look into things, he notices conflicting information and inconsistencies. This book is the result of his research, and it’s based on a mix of field work, meetings, and interviews with family members, friends, veterans, USAID employees, the Central Intelligence Agency, and even South Vietnamese authorities.
Chapter one begins when some faceless government representatives in black suits visit the home of young James to tell the family that his father had died. Wells goes on to give a bit of family history and talks about how he felt at school afterwards, but it’s not long before he tears into the letters, and the real payoff is in getting to know his Dad. The fact that his father’s life would end in complications that suggest whistleblowing is unsurprising. As these words to his wife attest, this is a man who does not simply go through life’s motions:
“Sometimes I feel so close to God and at other times so very far away. It’s like two people in my work, Betty. I pray my children will never have to do the things I’ve done.”
One of the first things to shake up the author comes when he learns that the wreckage of the plane was being guarded, and that the actual site had come under attack:
“In a more recent action in the Hậu Nghĩa Province on the night of 27 September, policemen assigned to guard the wreckage of the Air America aircraft in which PSD Advisor Jack Wells was killed came under enemy assault.”
First, Wells had been told that his father was a passenger on a civilian plane that had simply crashed, and now he was suddenly the sole passenger on a plane shot down by the North Vietnamese.
Now, part of USAID’s job is to administer the logistical problems faced by the Vietnamese refugees we had helped create. Among many other pressing demands included the need to feed, house, and provide medical care for thousands of human beings. Ultimately, his father raises questions about the commodities and goods that are not getting to the people that they are meant to get to, and this breaks Jack’s heart:
“We must take over the issuing of these commodities or the people will never get a dam thing. I bet one thing – if the VC caught one of their men cheating, they would cut his head off. But here, Betty, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and the fat ass Americans do nothing about it because they have no backbone or are afraid to work.”
Any more would be pure spoiler, but Wells is to be commended, not only for writing a solid piece of investigative journalism, but also for composing a touching, unflinchingly honest memoir that pulls no punches. It’s one whose message is as urgent and vital as ever, for if this country does not start making individuals like Jack Wells again, then I don’t hold out much hope for where we are right now. James B. Wells’ Because is a very timely book that asks the right questions.
September 14, 2025
Heart-wrenching...a story, yes, but a true story. A family was devastated by his death, but his eight-year-old son couldn't feel the pain until a life-time later. How many families have suffered the same loss, both emotional and physical, at the hands of our government? And...how many don't even know it?
There were times during reading that I had to put down the book for a day or two just to give my
heart a break...to breathe again.
There were times during reading that I had to put down the book for a day or two just to give my
heart a break...to breathe again.
December 2, 2025
Because is a powerful, compelling memoir of the author’s search for the truth about the incident that took the life of his father, a whistleblower. Wells’s use of vivid descriptions coupled with his father’s letters to his mother offer readers an intimate look at the physical and emotional terrain of war. This book is a wonderful achievement with lasting impact for readers.
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