Was Rather Duped by Anti-Bush Hoax?

During last night's 60 Minute program on President George W. Bush's Air National Guard service, the CBS News touted a number of documents which seemingly indicate that the future president failed to meet his service obligations.

That may well be the case but it is becoming increasingly evident that 60 Minutes, and the Dan Rather, the reporter behind the story, may have been relying on forged documents to prove their case.

Several indicators point to this conclusion including the fact that the four memoranda, which Rather said were written during the early 1970s by Bush's commanding officer Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian, are printed in a proportionally spaced type style similar to the common computer font Times New Roman. But such computer technology had not even been invented when the documents were allegedly written.

This does not imply, however, that the memos could not have originated during the 1970s since IBM, the dominant player in the office equipment at the time had several years earlier invented a typewriter which allowed typists to use proportional fonts.

Such machines, marketed mainly under the model name Selectric had become quite popular by the early seventies even though they were extremely expensive according to Jim Forbes, who collects the now-discontinued machines and operates a web site about them called Selectric.org.

For the most part, organizations who could afford the typewriters only allowed professional typists to use them especially since they were often cumbersome to use. Non-professionals stuck to the older, less-complicated typewriters which printed in the traditional monospace fonts like Courier.

As a government installation, it is quite possible that the Texas Air National Guard had a few Selectric (or its successor models) in its possession. However, examination of Bush's official records released by the Pentagon reveals that Killian and his fellow officers did not use proportional spacing typewriters (1, 2, 3, 4) for their correspondence.

For its part, CBS has refused to disclose where it had obtained the controversial documents. During last night's program, Rather stated "we are told [they] were taken from Colonel Killian's personal file." Contacted by The Washington Post, Kelli Edwards, a spokesperson for 60 Minutes declined to elaborate any further.

Other evidence points toward the conclusion that CBS News may have been duped. Two of the alleged memos, dated May 4, 1972 and August 18, 1973, use a font technology that was beyond the capabilities of the day.

Both documents use relatively sized fonts to write out ordinal numbers, a typographical convention used to spell out numerical orderings or rankings such as "twenty-fourth." In normal English usage are often written in shorted form using the relevant number followed by an ordinal suffix. Thus "twenty-fourth" becomes 24^th. The 1972 document uses the ordinal 111^st and the other refers to 187^th.

The fact that the person who made the documents used this notation casts doubt on their authenticity since typing it out numerically with a superscript ordinal suffix was quite difficult to do on an Selectric model typewriter which required a very involved process in which the user would have to feed the paper up half a line, manually remove the device's "font ball" which was used to place characters onto the paper, replace it with a ball with a smaller-sized font, advance the page back down half a line, and then put back the original font ball.

While it is conceivable that the memos' creator may have actually followed the elaborate procedure to get the perfect superscript ordinal suffix, that does not seem likely according to Gerry Kaplan, another Selectric collector who operates IBMComposer.org.

"The person who produced this copy does not appear to have taken the time to properly space things out, such as 'May,1972' has no space after the comma; '(flight)IAW' has no space after the parenthesis. So, it would be hard to believe that they would take the time to produce the superscript 'th' manually. So, if no general-use typewriter existed with such keys, it is unlikely that they took the time to superscript that," Kaplan says.

Theoretically, it is possible that Killian may have had access to a font ball which contained superscript-sized ordinal suffixes, but such an accessory would have been very rare.

"If one had a font ball that had a superscript font, then it could be done, but as far as I know, the only common superscript font was the number set available on the Symbol balls," says Forbes. "These would be used for formal papers with footnotes, most likely. So, the short answer to your question about a letter superscript is 'No.'"

The typographical case against the documents' authenticity is further undermined considering that all of the memos appear to use a font that was not in wide use on Selectric machines during the early seventies. A search of Forbes's online archive of common Selectric fonts reveals none matching typeface used in the purported Killian memos. In fact, the CBS documents' font looks much more similar to the modern-day Times New Roman.

In the face of such evidence (including the fact that Killian has long since been deceased), and CBS's refusal to reveal its third-party source, it seems increasingly likely that Dan Rather's "exclusive" has turned out to be a hoax. Should that be the case, it would not be the first time that the 72-year-old anchorman has been embarrassed by reporting unconfirmed stories.

In his legendary book on the 1972 presidential campaign The Boys on the Bus, author Timothy Crouse relayed how many of Rather's rivals on the White House beat resented him for his gung-ho approach to the facts.

"Rather often adhered to the 'informed sources' or 'the White House announced today' formulas, but he was famous in the trade for the times when he bypassed these formulas and 'winged it' on a story. Rather would go with an item even if he didn't have it completely nailed down with verifiable facts. If a rumor sounded solid to him, if he believed it in his gut or had gotten it from a man who struck him as honest, he would let it rip. The other White House reporters hated Rather for this. They knew exactly why he got away with it: being handsome as a cowboy, Rather was a star on CBS News, and that gave him the clout he needed. They could quote all his lapses from fact, like the three times he had Ellsworth Bunker resigning, the two occasions on which he announced that J. Edgar Hoover would step down, or the time he incorrectly predicted that Nixon was about to veto an education bill."

From their website...just so it's captured in case they change it later...

New Scrutiny Of Bush's Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2004

Bush Guard Duty Scrutinized

Lt. George W. Bush scored high marks on exams but failed to show up for a 1972 physical (Photo: AP)

"For anybody to try to interpret or presume they know what somebody who is now dead was thinking in any of these memos, I think is very difficult to do."
Dan Bartlett, the president's communication director

Barnes claims he was contacted by the late oilman Sid Adger, a friend to both Barnes and then-Congressman George Bush, to get George W. Bush into the Guard. (Photo: CBS)

A decorated Vietnam combat veteran, John Kerry recently has faced questions over his record as a Navy officer and an anti-war protester. (Photo: AP)

MORE INFORMATION
View the following documents obtained by 60 Minutes:

• Memorandum, May 4, 1972

• Memo to File, May 19, 1972

• Memorandum For Record,
Aug. 1, 1972

• Memo to File, Aug. 18, 1973

Read a transcript of Dan Rather's interview with Ben Barnes:

Also view documents released by the White House reflecting President Bush's National Guard service:

• Memo from retired Lt. Col. Albert C. Lloyd on whether Mr. Bush satisfied Guard requirements

• Personnel Card listing points Mr. Bush earned from May 1972 to May 1973

• Service Record showing days Mr. Bush was credited with service from October 1972 to May 1973

• Service Record showing days Mr. Bush was credited with service from May 1973 to July 1973

• Pay Record listing days of service in 1972 and 1973, along with computer printouts of each quarter

• Dental Record showing the results of a dental examination Mr. Bush had on Jan. 6, 1973.

(CBS/AP) President Bush received preferential treatment in gaining entry to the National Guard during the Vietnam War and did not meet standards during his service period, a CBS News interview and newly released documents suggest.

In an interview broadcast Wednesday, former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes told CBS News Anchor Dan Rather that in 1968, at the request of a Houston businessman friendly with the Bush family, he helped arrange to get George W. Bush into the Texas National Guard.

Having graduated from Yale near the height of the U.S. presence in Vietnam, Mr. Bush could have been drafted. Enlistment in the Guard reduced the chances of being sent overseas.

Barnes, then the 29-year-old speaker of the Texas House, claims he was contacted by the late oilman Sid Adger, a friend to both Barnes and then-Congressman George Bush.

"It's been a long time ago, but he said basically would I help young George Bush get in the Air National Guard," says Barnes, who then contacted his longtime friend Gen. James Rose, the head of Texas' Air National Guard.

"I was a young ambitious politician doing what I thought was acceptable," says Barnes. "It was important to make friends. And I recommended a lot of people for the National Guard during the Vietnam era - as speaker of the house and as lieutenant governor."

"I would describe it as preferential treatment. There were hundreds of names on the list of people wanting to get into the Air National Guard or the Army National Guard," says Barnes.

Mr. Bush has denied he received special treatment.

The White House ascribed Barnes' remarks to political motives. Barnes is an adviser to Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry. A decorated Vietnam combat veteran, Kerry recently has faced questions over his record as a Navy officer and an anti-war protester.

"I chalk it up to the politics they play down in Texas. I've been there. I've seen how it works. But the bottom line is that there's no truth to this," the president's communication director, Dan Bartlett, told Senior White House Correspondent John Roberts.

The president's service record emerged as an issue during the 2000 race and again this winter.

In May 1968, Mr. Bush signed a six-year commitment to fly for the Air Guard. The questions about his service center on how Mr. Bush got into the Guard and whether he fulfilled his duties during a period from mid-1972 to mid-1973, during which Mr. Bush transferred to an Alabama unit because he was working on a campaign there.

Earlier in his military career, Mr. Bush received glowing evaluations from his squadron commander, Col. Jerry Killian. Documents released this week show Mr. Bush with scores of 88 on an airmanship test, 98 on aviation physiology and 100 on navigational abilities.

Killian called Lt. Bush "an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot" who "performed in an outstanding manner." That is part of the public record.

But previously unseen documents from Killian's personal file obtained by 60 Minutes include a memorandum from May 1972, where Killian writes that Lt. Bush called him to talk about "how he can get out of coming to drill from now through November."

Lt. Bush tells his commander "he is working on a campaign in Alabama…. and may not have time to take his physical." Killian adds that he thinks Lt. Bush has gone over his head, and is "talking to someone upstairs."

One of the Killian memos is an official order to Mr. Bush to report for a physical. The president never carried out the order.

In an Aug. 1, 1972 memo, Killian wrote, "On this date I ordered that 1st Lt. Bush be suspended from flight status due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet annual physical examination ... as ordered."

The same memo notes that Mr. Bush was trying to transfer to non-flying status out of state and recommends that the Texas unit fill his flying slot "with a more seasoned pilot from the list of qualified Vietnam pilots that have rotated."

And in a memo from Aug. 18, 1973, Killian says Col. Buck Staudt, the man in charge of the Texas Air National Guard, is putting on pressure to "sugar coat" the evaluation of Lt. Bush.

The memo continues, with Killian saying, "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job."

The authenticity of at least one of the memos was questioned Thursday by the son of the late officer who reportedly wrote the memos.

"I am upset because I think it is a mixture of truth and fiction here," said Gary Killian, son of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.

Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father and retired as a captain in 1991, said one of the memos, signed by his father, appeared legitimate. But he doubted his father would have written another, unsigned memo which said there was pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's performance review.

"It just wouldn't happen," he said. "The only thing that can happen when you keep secret files like that are bad things. ... No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that."

CBS stood by its reporting. "As is standard practice at CBS News, the documents in the 60 Minutes report were thoroughly examined and their authenticity vouched for by independent experts," CBS News said in a statement. "As importantly, 60 Minutes also interviewed close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian. They confirm that the documents reflect his opinions and actions at the time."

The White House distributed the four memos from 1972 and 1973 after obtaining them from CBS News. The White House did not question their accuracy.

Staudt, a longtime supporter of the Bush family, would not speak to CBS News.

Killian died in 1984. 60 Minutes consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.

Asked about Killian's statement in a memo about the military's investment in Mr. Bush, Bartlett told CBS News: "For anybody to try to interpret or presume they know what somebody who is now dead was thinking in any of these memos, I think is very difficult to do."

Bartlett also said Mr. Bush's superiors granted permission to train in Alabama in a non-flying status and that "many of the documents you have here affirm just that."

In another revelation, the Boston Globe this week reported that Mr. Bush promised to sign up with a Boston-area Guard unit when he left his Texas unit in 1973 to attend Harvard Business School. Mr. Bush never signed up with a Boston unit.

Bartlett claimed in 1999 that Mr. Bush had joined a Boston unit. Bartlett told the Globe this week that he "misspoke."

Facing poll numbers showing that attacks on Kerry's war record have damaged his candidacy, Democrats were quick to seize on the new questions about Mr. Bush's time in uniform.

Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe said, "George W. Bush needs to answer why he regularly misled the American people about his time in the Guard and who applied political pressure on his behalf to have his performance reviews 'sugarcoated.'"

Meanwhile, a group called Texans for Truth unleashed an ad Wednesday charging President Bush was AWOL from the Alabama National Guard in the summer of 1972.

©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU SEPT 09, 2004 22:45:32 ET XXXXX

Marjorie Connell — widow of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the reported author of memos suggesting that Bush did not meet the standards for the Texas Air National Guard — questions whether the documents are real on tonight's NIGHTLINE, sources tell DRUDGE.

Transcript:

I WAS ANGRY, BECAUSE HERE THEY ARE GOING BACK AND PULLING RECORDS OF A MAN WHO IS DECEASED TWENTY YEARS, WHO IS NOT HERE TO EXPLAIN WHAT ANY OF THESE DOCUMENTS SAID OR SUPPOSED TO HAVE SAID, AND I JUST FOUND IT APPALLING. I WAS SICK THAT HERE WITHOUT WARNING HIS PICTURES ARE UP THERE, HIS NAME IS BEING BATTLED BACK AND FORTH AND I, LIVID I GUESS IS A BETTER WORD FOR IT."

"I THINK THERE WAS SO MUCH UNTRUTHS BEING SAID THAT THAT FRUSTRATED ME AND THAT I KNEW THAT IF JERRY WERE ALIVE TODAY THAT HE WOULD JUST, NUMBER ONE HE WOULD BE TURNING OVER IN HIS GRAVE TO KNOW THAT A DOCUMENT SUCH AS THIS WOULD BE USED AGAINST A FELLOW GUARDSMAN."

"THAT IS WHAT AGGRAVATED ME SO MUCH, WAS THAT HE CAN NOT BE HERE TO SAY AND YET THEY CAN DRAG HIS NAME ONTO TELEVISION, MAKING BAD ACCUSATIONS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENT AND A MAN THAT HE RESPECTED AND I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT HE THOUGHT THIS YOUNG MAN AS A SECOND LIEUTENANT OR FIRST LIEUTENANT WAS AN EXCELLENT AVIATOR, AN EXCELLENT PERSON TO BE IN THE GUARD AND WAS VERY HAPPY TO HAVE HIM BECOME A MEMBER OF THE 111TH F-I-S."

"NUMBER ONE, HE WOULD NOT HAVE TYPED BECAUSE HE DID NOT TYPE. NUMBER TWO, THE WORDING IN THESE DOCUMENTS IS VERY SUSPECT TO ME. I JUST DON'T BELIEVE THAT, IT LOOKS LIKE SOME THINGS MAY HAVE BEEN PICKED UP OUT OF A DOCUMENT AND THEN OTHER THINGS JUST MADE FICTITIOUSLY TO FILL IN THINGS, TO MAKE THEM FLOW. I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE THAT THIS IS HIS WORDS, MY LATE HUSBAND'S WORDS."

"NOT A TYPIST, DEFINITELY NOT A TYPIST. WE HAD NO COMPUTERS AT HOME BUT HE WASN'T A TYPIST, AND WHAT IS REMARKABLE TO ME IS THAT HE WAS A PERSON WHO DID NOT TAKE OR MAKE COPIOUS NOTES. HE CARRIED EVERYTHING IN HIS MIND AND HE DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO MAKE NOTES."

"I AM STILL PRESENTLY LOOKING FOR OTHER DOCUMENTS. I HAVE FOUND SOME THAT SAY THE 147TH ON THEM AND THEY GO BACK TO 1970. I CAN NOT FIND ANY AT THIS MOMENT THAT HAVE ANY 1972 INDICATIONS ON THEM OTHER THAN A, AND I TOLD HER THAT, A FLIGHT SCHEDULE THAT HE HAD JUST SIGNED HIS NAME TO."

"UNFORTUNATELY WHEN WE MOVED I PUT THINGS IN DIFFERENT LOCATIONS AND I JUST DON'T KNOW WHERE EVERYTHING IS AT THIS MOMENT AND I WAS SEARCHING FOR THEM AND I STILL HAVE NOT FOUND ANY OTHER DOCUMENTS. I DO HAVE ALL OF HIS FLIGHT RECORDS THOUGH AND THEY ARE IN MY HANDS."

"HE DISCUSSED WITH ME HOW PROUD HE WAS TO BE ABLE TO GO AND PIN THE WINGS ON YOUNG GEORGE AND TO MEET THEN MR. BUSH, I'VE FORGOTTEN IF HE WAS WITH THE CIA OR WHAT OFFICE HE HELD AT THAT TIME AND BARBARA BUSH."

"HE LEFT THE 147TH, FLEW TO WHEREVER GEORGE GOT HIS WINGS AND JERRY PINNED THEM ON HIM AND HE WAS, CAME HOME JUST, HE TOLD ME ABOUT THAT AND HOW PROUD HE WAS TO HAVE MET THE FAMILY."

"HE WOULD JUST WRITE LITTLE NOTES ON THE BACK OF ANYTHING. UNFORTUNATELY OR FORTUNATELY AS THE CASE MAY BE, IF HE NEEDED TO JOT SOMETHING DOWN HE WOULD JOT IT ON ANY PAPER THAT HE COULD FIND, ON A CARD, LIKE A CALLING CARD THAT YOU WOULD HAVE, OR JUST LITTLE BITS OF PAPER. HE ALWAYS KNEW WHERE EVERYTHING WAS, AND IF HE NEEDED TO PULL IT OUT OF HIS WALLET ON A LITTLE NOTE OR SOMETHING, BUT HE JUST DIDN'T TAKE MANY NOTES."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

George W. Bush was ^AWOL from the TANG.

Love, Dan

George W. Bush was AWOL from the TANG.

Love, Dan

George W. Bush was ^AWOL from the TANG.