Posted on 02/13/2004 11:33:52 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON -- A White House reeling from questions about President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service was hit this week by explosive new charges: A retired Guard officer claimed he witnessed a 1997 effort to purge Bush's files of damaging material.
By Thursday night, Bill Burkett of Abilene was a cable news phenomenon, telling his account of Bush aides and Texas guard officers conspiring in a cover-up.
But lost in those accounts were details of a long and bitter feud -- which could provide a motive for this story -- between Burkett and a cadre of friends and the Texas guard.
And while Burkett told a consistent story this week, he had published a more controversial account earlier.
In an essay Burkett wrote for an anti-Bush Web site in March 2003, he claimed he was sent to Panama, where he contracted a fatal disease, as retaliation by the Texas Guard after "refusing to alter personnel records of George W. Bush."
But in a telephone interview Friday, he backed off the claim that he was ordered to falsify Bush's records.
"That statement was not accurate, that is overstated," he said. He insisted the other allegation -- that he witnessed an effort to sanitize Bush's Guard record -- was true.
Burkett first raised his claim in the late 1990s and repeated it to a number of reporters in 2000. He alleged that he overheard Bush's one-time chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, tell a Texas Guard general to make sure there were no embarrassments in Bush's Guard record.
The story was not published then but was resurrected this week in major newspapers and on cable network talk shows as controversy swelled over whether Bush, who may face Vietnam War combat veteran John Kerry in the presidential election, completed his Guard service in the United States during that war.
In Burkett's account, he said he overheard both sides of a speakerphone call between Allbaugh and Gen. Daniel James III during the summer of 1997.
About 10 days later, he said he was approached by George Conn, a friend who coaxed him to the museum on the base in Camp Mabry in Austin, near the office of former Guard Gen. John Scribner. There, in a garbage can, he saw several pieces of paper.
"My eyes fixed on the first page," he said Friday. "It had Bush, George W. Lt1. What I did next still bothers me. I browsed through the top five or six pages."
All of those directly involved -- Allbaugh, Conn, James and Scribner -- emphatically deny Burkett's charges.
"This is baseless, groundless hogwash," Allbaugh said.
Conn, now a civilian working for the military in Germany, told the Boston Globe he had no recollection of the events described by Burkett.
Allbaugh said that during the governorship Bush asked him to find out if his Guard record was available. "What I found out then, for the first time, was that most of it was in Denver," Allbaugh said. "We did review it and there was nothing in there."
Details of Burkett's story rang false to some Guard officials.
For one thing, Texas Guard officials said no personnel records were ever stored at the museum. Also, even if the records had been scoured in 1997, it would have been too late. The bulk of the material in Bush's Guard records had been transferred to a Colorado facility where records are permanently stored and copied on microfilm, Guard officials said. Some Bush Guard records emerged from that facility this week.
Burkett could produce no one to directly corroborate his story. He said Friday that a few people knew about it around the time it happened. But he said two of those refuse to come forward, fearing retaliation by current Guard officials, and he didn't want to expose them.
A former Guard officer, Dennis Adams of Austin, did confirm Friday that Burkett told him about the records destruction in 1997. Adams said he was not surprised when Burkett told him what he'd overheard and seen.
"I have no doubt he is telling the truth," Adams said. "Bill is one of my heroes. He was trying to take on certain rotten SOBs inside the Guard."
Burkett and some friends from his Guard days have been involved in an ugly dispute with the Texas National Guard and officers appointed by then-Gov. Bush for several years.
One of those friends, Harvey Gough, said this week that he became so incensed at what he saw as malfeasance by the Guard's senior officers that he hired a private detective to delve into James' personal life. James is the son of former Gen. Chappy James, the first black four-star general.
Through a spokesman, James denied all of Burkett's charges.
Burkett, Gough, Adams and others have waged an ugly feud with the Guard over what they said was fraud, waste and corruption.
Burkett sued three officers in the Texas Guard in the late 1990s, claiming that they blocked him from receiving medical support after he went to Panama on a Guard-related mission and contracted a debilitating disease. Gough alleged in a lawsuit that he was subjected to anti-Semitic remarks from one of James' staffers, and when he complained, James retaliated by court-martialing him. Both lawsuits failed.
Burkett also raised charges against James and others at Texas legislative hearings in the late 1990s.
Rep. Bob Hunter, R-Abilene, conducted one of the hearings and said this week that there was no substance to Burkett's charges.
Burkett's writing about Bush and the Texas National Guard can be found on a number of anti-Bush Web sites. On the eve of the Iraq war in March 2003, he described Bush as one of "the three small men," along with Hitler and Napoleon, who sought to rule through tyranny.
Democrats said Friday the issue of Bush's Guard service had not been laid to rest.
"Each revelation of material from the Bush White House has raised more questions than it has answered. It remains to be seen if these newest documents will provide any answers," said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Debra DeShong.
After sputtering as a political issue in 2000, the questions about Bush's Guard duty were resurrected recently by harsh charges from political opponents like Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe. He accused Bush of being absent without leave from the Guard during the period when he transferred from Texas to Alabama.
The Vietnam War combat hero record of Bush's likely Democratic election rival, U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, adds to the political mix.
The president's opponents focus on 1972, when Bush took a job with the campaign of Winton "Red" Blount.*** [and the article prceeds to go into great detail and speculation.]
Kerry denies affair: 'It's untrue. Period' (and the Chronicle drops it)***John Kerry, making campaign rounds Friday in Madison, Wis., denied having had an extramarital affair.
Asked about the report by Internet Web site operator Matt Drudge, Kerry told reporters on his campaign: "I just deny it categorically. It's rumor. It's untrue. Period."
After denying the report, Kerry added: "And that's the last time I intend to."
Drudge, who broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal involving President Clinton, on Thursday said Kerry had had a two-year relationship, beginning in early 2001, with an unidentified young woman who had since left the country.
Meanwhile, the Democratic presidential front-runner gained more ground Friday with the promise of an endorsement by the AFL-CIO, the support of a former rival and fresh polls pointing toward victory in next week's Wisconsin primary.***
"He was very aggressive about doing his duty there. He never complained about it. ... He was very dedicated to what he was doing in the Guard. He showed up on time and he left at the end of the day."
Calhoun, whose name was supplied to the AP by a Republican close to Bush, is the first member of the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group to recall Bush distinctly at the Alabama base in the period of 1972-1973. He was the unit's flight safety officer.
The 69-year-old president of an Atlanta insulation company said Bush showed up for work at Dannelly Air National Guard Base for drills on at least six occasions. Bush and Calhoun had both been trained as fighter pilots, and Calhoun said the two would swap "war stories" and even eat lunch together on base.
Calhoun is named in 187th unit rosters obtained by the AP as serving under the deputy commander of operations plans. Bush was in Alabama on non-flying status.
"He sat in my office most of the time - he would read," Calhoun said. "He had your training manuals from your aircraft he was flying. He'd study those some. He'd read safety magazines, which is a common thing for pilots."
Democrats have asked for proof that Bush, then a 1st lieutenant with the Texas Air National Guard, turned up for duty in Alabama, where Bush had asked to be assigned while he worked on the U.S. Senate campaign of family friend Winton "Red" Blount.***
Would the TANG be so reckless as to not invest in a paper shredder instead of just tossing copies in the trash?
By 1997, wouldn't all the records be on file in multiple computers making any attempt at "cleansing" a multy-party conspiracy?
Logic itself indicates this is a "disgruntled former employee" type charge, without merit.
By the way CW, have you ever been "gruntled", whatever the heck that is?
Oh, wait, they've always done that.
Hehehe. One of the Bush haters in the press -- James Moore, coauthor of Bush's Brain, about how Bush is a creature of the e-vile king maker Karl Rove -- has a new book coming out, Bush's War for Re-election, that prominently and credulously features Burkett's insane ravings. Midst the press revival of this story, and preceding it's widespread debunking by only hours, Moore has defended Burkett's reputation as "impeccable". Way to go, Moore! May you and fellow 'Rat quislings in the press continue to make prominent asses of yourselves!
You are 100% right. We just need to hang on. Right now we need to let the DEANNIE BABIES AND THE BRECK GIRL expose SCARRY KERRY, or JFK- (Just Fishing with the Ketchup girl and nobody else honest)
Fortunately they will have a similar (less pronounced but crucial) effect on moderate and independent voters.
Gee, I don't even know if "fortunately" is the right word. I'm an American first and a partisan second. I'd prefer that both parties put forward their best candidates and strongest arguments. Eventually Republicans will become weak and intellectually lazy if all we have to do to increase our electoral margins is point (and laugh) at the under-medicated and over-amplified loons on the left.
In any case, watch your blood pressure and fear not. The 'Rats will only hurt themselves with all this bile and nonsense.
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