Ernest Gill's account of Dean's life, including his death, is about as far off base as one can get. Problem is, once something is written about a person, it's usually taken as fact by the reader.

For example, Dean's body was NOT found at the bottom of a lake in his car. His body was found wedged under a bridge, fully clothed, wearing 2 heavy coats in the middle of June in Germany.

He NEVER embrassed communism. He believed in socialism. What's the difference? Ask the folks in Canada or England, just to name a couple.

Was he capable of committing suicide? We all are, or have at least contemplated the idea at one time or another. Dean addressed the suicide idea during an interview on ABC World News when he stated that if he couldn't have the one thing he desired the most - a career in the US - he sure wasn't going to commit suicide over it.

As for the statement that the US was upset with his comments on 60 Minutes in the early part of 1986, that is probably true. But they would never have attempted to keep Dean from returning to the US. He had his American passport and could enter the country any time he pleased.

Did Dean commit suicide? I doubt it, but it's easier to accept that theory than to search for the facts. Did he write the suicide note? Sure looks like his handwritting.....all 16 or 17 pages of it. You'd think that writing such a long farewell note you'd eventually talk yourself out of the act.

The truth of how Dean died will probably never be known. But keep the following in mind. "It takes a real profession to cause a death by natural causes."