What if the official story about your father’s death wasn’t the whole story?
Meet James B. Wells at the 39th Annual Buckeye Book Fair on November 7 in Wooster and discover the extraordinary true story behind his investigative memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew.
After finding more than 400 letters written by his father during the Vietnam War, Wells spent three decades uncovering evidence, confronting classified records, and pursuing answers that still remain hidden today.
Meet Investigative Memoirist James B. Wells at Buckeye Book Fair
What happened to Jack Wells? That question has guided author James B. Wells on a thirty-three-year journey across archives, battlefields, government records, and family history.
Visitors to the 39th Annual Buckeye Book Fair on Saturday, November 7, 2026, at the Greystone Event Center in Wooster will have the opportunity to meet Wells and learn more about his compelling investigative memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew.
The book begins with a tragedy. On September 27, 1965, Wells’ father, Jack Wells, a senior Public Safety Division advisor with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was reported killed in a fiery plane crash in Vietnam along with two pilots. Official reports stated that the CIA Air America aircraft was shot down by enemy small-arms fire while attempting to land.
For decades, that explanation stood unquestioned. Then, twenty-six years after the crash, Wells made a discovery that changed everything: more than 400 handwritten letters his father had sent home to his mother, Betty, during two wars and a career in the U.S. Army and State Department. The letters contained not only family news, but also detailed observations about daily life in Vietnam, many of which had never appeared in national reports or histories.
Those letters launched Wells, a retired professor of criminology and criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University, on an extraordinary quest for answers.
“I learned my father was a very moral, righteous, and religious man committed to doing the right thing,” Wells said. “He was obsessed with the truth and extremely critical of those around him who were not doing their jobs as he saw fit. It’s not hard to believe he made enemies along the way.”
As his investigation deepened, Wells uncovered evidence suggesting that his father had become a whistleblower and that records surrounding his death remained classified. The search for truth has taken him through decades of archival and field research on two continents and has become far more than a historical investigation. It became a personal odyssey to understand the father he lost when he was just nine years old.
The journey has not been easy. In the book’s chapter titled “The Toll,” Wells candidly discusses the impact the investigation had on his own family life.
“About once a year my wife would threaten to leave me because of all the time my obsession over my father’s death stole from her and the family, and over my inability to move forward and leave the past behind me,” he said.
Because is the result of meticulous research, including twenty-three pages of notes and references. Wells says he used what he calls “triangulated research”—comparing his father’s letters with archival documents, interviews, and field investigations—to corroborate events, uncover inconsistencies, and challenge the official narrative surrounding the crash.
His pursuit of government records continues. The CIA denied his Freedom of Information Act request in 2017, and years later many documents remain withheld because of national security, foreign policy, and privacy concerns. Wells has continued to appeal the decision.
“My siblings are 76, 74, and I’m 70. We may not be around when we hear from the CIA again,” Wells said. “I now suspect it will remain forever classified.”
Despite the challenges, Wells and his wife have committed themselves to sharing the story with readers across the country, funding an extensive book tour that has taken them from Florida to Maine in 2025 and will continue westward in 2026.
Buckeye Book Fair attendees will have a rare opportunity to meet Wells in person, hear about the investigation behind the book, and discuss the decades-long search for truth, family, and understanding that shaped his memoir.
Join us on Saturday, November 7, 2026, at the Greystone Event Center in Wooster for the 39th Annual Buckeye Book Fair and meet James B. Wells, author of Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew—a powerful story of history, mystery, and a son’s determination to uncover the truth about the father he never had the chance to know.
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