Guardsman says he saw Bush's Guard records in trash

(CNN) -- A former officer in the Texas National Guard said Thursday he once overheard a conversation in which there was a request to sanitize President Bush's Guard records during Bush's tenure as Texas governor.

Soon afterward, he said, he saw Bush's Guard performance review in a trash can. Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War era.

Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, who was then an adviser to the Texas adjutant general, who in that capacity serves as the commander of the state's National Guard, made the allegations.

He said that in 1997 he overheard Joe Allbaugh -- who was Bush's chief of staff at the time -- ask Guard commander Maj. Gen. Daniel James to gather Bush's files and "make sure there wasn't anything there that would embarrass the governor."

Allbaugh reacted angrily to Burkett's charges, calling them "hogwash" and "absolute garbage." Allbaugh, who went on to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Bush administration, said he doesn't even know who the "goober" is, referring to Burkett.

Burkett said that the day after he overhead Allbaugh's request, he heard James convey a directive to the state services officer to gather Bush's files and go through them. Then, about 10 days later, he said, he came across "files on a table."

"But I also saw at the edge of that table a roughly 15-gallon, old metal waste can. At the top of that were several pages, 20 to 40 pages approximately," Burkett said on CNN's "Paula Zahn Now."

"I glanced down at the top of those documents. In ink was the word 'Bush, George W., 1 Lt.' This was a performance report. I was right at the trash can. I filtered through the top five or six pages in that, and they were all copies and originals of old performance documents and pay records for 'Bush, George W., 1 Lt."

Burkett said he was disheartened after the incident. "All of those efforts, I felt, had been -- had undermined our cause," said Burkett, who had worked to make the Texas National Guard more efficient.

"I'm not going to get in the mud. You know, this has become a political football," he told CNN. "I'm here to tell you the same facts that I said, and I reported, and I have worked through the state legislative system in the state of Texas," Burkett said.

"This is no new allegation, this is no new case, and this is no new fact. The fact is the same today as it was in 1997. And God is my pilot, and God is in my foxhole."

Burkett's claims about Bush's records were also made in a 1998 letter to a Democratic congressman, according to the Times. In the letter, Burkett complained that his battle over medical care with the Guard led to his being hospitalized for depression.

White House communications director Dan Bartlett, who as an aide to then-Gov. Bush handled the records in 1990s, on Wednesday called Burkett's allegations an "outrageously false statement," according to the Times.

White House officials referred to Burkett as an unhappy former guardsman who had a falling out with his superiors, the paper said.

Burkett is quoted in an upcoming book, "Bush's War for Re-election," by James Moore. Moore said Burkett's "reputation is impeccable."

"And we know that the president's record in terms of his grounding as a pilot is missing. The final points totals are missing. Any medical records are missing. And a retirement statement, in terms of the points he earned, is missing," Moore said.

Questions about Bush's Guard service have intensified in recent weeks after Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said Bush was AWOL, or absent without leave, from his Air National Guard service during a period from May 1972 to May 1973 when he was transferred from Texas to Alabama so he could work on a Senate political campaign.

The White House has fought back, releasing records it says prove Bush fulfilled his requirements and was honorably discharged. Most recently, the White House released a document showing that Bush got a dental exam at the Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Alabama on January 6, 1973. (Full story)

"This again shows he was there, he served in Alabama. He was honorably discharged," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

Burkett's allegations were on some Internet web sites just before the 2000 presidential election but were largely unreported by conventional media, according to USA Today.

But questions have lingered since that year's presidential campaign, after the Boston Globe uncovered a May 1973 evaluation by Bush's commander stating that the first lieutenant had not been seen during the previous year.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/02/13/doubts_raised_on_bush_accuser/

Doubts raised on Bush accuser
Key witness disputes charge by Guard retiree that files were purged
By Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff, 2/13/2004

For at least six years, a retired Texas National Guard officer has maintained that President Bush's record as a member of the Guard was purged of potentially embarrassing material at the behest of high-ranking Bush aides laying the groundwork for Bush's 2000 run for the presidency.

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Retired Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett, who has been pressing his charges in the national news media this week, says he even heard one high-ranking officer issue a 1997 order to sanitize the Bush file, and later saw another officer poring over the records and discovered that some had been discarded.

But a key witness to some of the events described by Burkett has told the Globe that the central elements of his story are false.

George O. Conn, a former chief warrant officer with the Guard and a friend of Burkett's, is the person whom Burkett says led him to the room where the Bush records were being vetted. But Conn says he never saw anyone combing through the Bush file or discarding records.

"I have no recall of that," Conn said. "I have no recall of that whatsoever. None. Zip. Nada."

Conn's recollection also undercuts another of Burkett's central allegations: that he overheard Bush's onetime chief of staff, Joe M. Allbaugh, telling a Texas Guard general to make sure there were no embarrassments in the Bush record.

Burkett says he told Conn, over dinner that same night, what he had overheard. But Conn says that, although Burkett told him he worried that the Bush record would be sanitized, he never mentioned overhearing the conversation between Allbaugh and General Daniel James III.

Burkett's allegations about the Bush records come as the White House is attempting to answer mounting questions about whether Bush fulfilled his obligations as a member of the Texas Air Guard during the early 1970s. Burkett's allegations also will be a major focus of a book on Bush to be published next month.

But the book's author, James Moore, a former Houston TV news correspondent, concedes he never interviewed some of the key players who could have verified Burkett's charges, including Conn and retired National Guard Colonel John Scribner -- the officer Burkett says he saw removing items from the Bush file.

Moore, told yesterday that Conn contradicts Burkett's story, said he believes Burkett's allegations are true. "I think we're into a classic he-said, she-said," Moore said.

Earlier this week, Burkett told the Globe that, in the telephone conversation between Allbaugh and James, Allbaugh said the Bush file had to be sanitized because two of Bush's aides were planning to review the records in preparation for Bush's 1999 autobiography, "A Charge to Keep." Burkett said that he overheard the conversation, conducted over James's speaker phone, while standing outside the open door of James's office, and that he was so troubled he told Conn about it that evening.

But Conn, now a civilian government employee working with the US Army in Germany, said Burkett never told him of the conversation. And Allbaugh, a Washington consultant and lobbyist, said, "I would never be so stupid as do something like that."

Allbaugh said he discussed Bush's file with Guard officials but only because Bush wanted to review it, and had never seen it.

Burkett, in his Globe interview and in Moore's book, titled "Bush's War for Re-election," said that a week to 10 days after he overheard the conversation between Allbaugh and James, Conn brought him to an office at the Camp Mabry military history museum, where Conn introduced Burkett to Scribner. Burkett says that at the moment they met Scribner, the officer was busy scrubbing the Bush file.

According to Burke, Conn asked Scribner what he was doing and Scribner replied that he was looking through Bush's records. Burkett said Conn and Scribner then briefly left him alone, and that he saw some pages of Bush's military records in a trash can near Scribner's desk.

Conn contradicts most of Burkett's rendition. He said that he remembers introducing Burkett to Scribner at the museum but that Scribner never said he was going over the Bush file. "If he had said he was going through George W. Bush's records I would have dropped my teeth. Wow," Conn said. "I would definitely have remembered that. I don't recall that at all."

Burkett also says that, before the encounter with Scribner, he was standing with a group of Guard officers, and heard a ranking officer order Scribner to review the Bush file and remove any documents that might be embarrassing to the then-governor.

But Scribner told the Globe yesterday that no such thing occurred. "It didn't happen. I wasn't even there," Scribner said.

Burkett has, in the past, raised his allegations about the Bush records as part of his personal struggle with the Guard over medical benefits.

For instance, in a 1998 letter to Texas state Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, Burkett complained that he had not received adequate medical care when he became seriously ill after returning from a mission to Panama.

He also said Guard officials had retaliated against him because he had conducted a management study critical of the Guard.

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