** CBS Bombshell - PROOF of foregery OR authenticity IS POSSIBLE

It has come to my attention that the CBS 60 Minutes program, with Dan Rather, has aired documents purportedly from a military Colonel, with the apparent intent to malign the current Commander in Chief, George W. Bush. These documents also appear to impugn the character of Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt (Retired, 1972).

Dan Rather and CBS News have “produced” supposed memoranda, which are the subject of great controversy, from Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian (deceased, 1984). The controversy stems from the fact that these memoranda, in all respects, appear to be forgeries where Dan Rather of CBS 60 Minutes on behalf of himself, and on behalf of CBS, is vouching for their authenticity after having the validity of the documents called into question. By adhering to the document’s purported authenticity, while there are easily verifiable problems with the documents in question, both Dan Rather and CBS News have now accepted full responsibility and liability for the authenticity of these memos.

There is a very simple way to resolve this conclusively, with copies of ANY memoranda, duty reports, or Officer Effectiveness Reports. These documents, from before, during, and after the dates in question will conclusively demonstrate the following related to the late Lt. Col. Killian:

ü Typeface of the typewriters that were used by Lt. Col. Killian during that period

It is widely accepted that the documents produced by CBS are forgeries, this additional documentation would be able to provide conclusive proof so that the next steps of pursuing potential criminal actions against both CBS News and Dan Rather may begin:

18 U.S.C. 506 - - Seals of departments or agencies (may include military signatures and branch)

In closing, it is a routine tactic for those on the left to attack and undermine our US Military and those individuals who have served our country. I will not tolerate this and will not stand by idly while those at CBS News attempt to use a deceased Lt. Col.’s name, for their own personal political agenda, to impugn our current Commander in Chief with what appears to be falsified documentation.

Please consider this a plea to make this request the highest priority, and of the utmost urgency so that this entire matter may be resolved in a very public fashion. I realize that there is much going on in the military right now, but the nature of this matter is of the utmost urgency.

2. I understand the penalties provided in 5 USC 552a(i)(3) for requesting, or obtaining access to records, or information, under false pretenses.

3. If some of this request is exempt from release, please send me those portions reasonably separable or redacted to remove any sensitive or privileged information.

4. This document constitutes my firm promise to pay fees and costs for duplicating the requested records. Enclosed you shall find a money order in the amount of $100 to cover reasonable copying and clerical fees pursuant to 32 CFR 286. Please contact me for additional requirements fees if this is not sufficient before continuing.

Any memoranda, duty reports, or Officer Effectiveness Reports, personally signed by Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, from the following date ranges:

ü One (1) or Two (2) documents of any of the above from January 1972 until May 19, 1972.

ü One (1) or Two (2) documents of any of the above from May 19, 1972 until August 1, 1972.

ü One (1) or Two (2) documents of any of the above from August 1, 1972 until August 18, 1973

ü One (1) or Two (2) documents of any of the above from August 18, 1973 until September 5, 1973.

6. Please see the accompanying transmittal letter for many of the reasons for this request. Also, the following summary is offered:

CBS 60 Minutes program, with Dan Rather, promoted a handful of questionable memos, by a now deceased military officer, which “suddenly appeared” after several years of rehashing this same National Guard incident with the current Commander in Chief, George W. Bush. Meanwhile, hundreds of living Swiftvets who've signed affidavits and are prepared to testify on camera were ignored. This tends to increase the likelihood that CBS, Dan Rather, and 60 Minutes may have knowingly been promoting forgeries.

The documents which form the basis of this request will conclusively demonstrate whether or not the CBS documents which Dan Rather has personally endorsed, and stands behind as a representative of CBS, are in fact forgeries and frauds. These documents may further serve to demonstrate whether CBS, and in particular Dan Rather, were negligent in not performing even minimal due diligence in verifying and authenticating these documents against existing documentary records. This would be the proper, non-negligent measure of preparation before disseminating documentation which casts a dark shadow on the military careers of Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt (Retired, 1972), Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian (deceased, 1984), and the current Commander in Chief, George W. Bush. Further, it is assumed this is the proper level of “vetting” the documents before promoting them on the Nationally televised news program, 60 Minutes.

See the attached exhibit as a detailed account of the incident which has given rise to this request. This attachment is what has caused tremendous suspicion about the authenticity of the documents which Dan Rather and CBS still adhere to as “authentic”.

7. Please respond within Fourteen (14) business days of this request with the documents, or simply contact me to discuss any progress or additional time needs.

** NOTE: The underlined words represent Internet / HTML hyperlinks to the original supporting documentation.

Dan Rather's defense of himself tonight, while probably impressive to shallow observers was far from convincing. Here's a list of things he ignored, did not properly address, or concealed from viewers. Feel free to send us your suggestions to this live fisking. For the transcript, click here.

The Washington Post reported earlier today that CBS considered Hodges its "trump card":

"A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."

"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said. "Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles."

The official said the network regarded Hodges's comments as "the trump card" on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not want to hurt Bush. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine in Texas.

"Do not passively accept a copy as the sole basis of a case. Every copy, intentionally or unintentionally, is in some way false to the original. In fact, modern copiers and computer printers are so good that they permit easy fabrication of quality forgeries."
In his defense tonight, Rather admitted that "the documents CBS started with were also photocopies."

"Well, they are compatible with the way business was done at that time. They are compatible with the man that I remember, Jerry Killian, being. I don't see anything in the documents that are discordant with what were the times, what were the situation and what were the people that were involved."
Reached by the AP today, Strong was even more lukewarm toward the documents'

authenticity. His former colleague, Retired Col. Maurice Udell called them fakes: "That's not true. I was there. I knew Jerry Killian. I went to Vietnam with Jerry Killian in 1968."

The problem with this statement is that Rather fails to list any such typewriters which might have the capability or how an Air National Guard office would be able to afford such expensive machines. Simply showing a photocopy of a letter in Bush's official file which originated from the Army's national office is no proof at all.

Assuming Killian somehow had access to an IBM Selectric Composer (or similar model), Blogger Jeff Harrell wondered what one of the CBS memos would look like if typed in one of the re-famous devices. His results are yet more evidence that the CBS docs are forgeries.

Some observations concerning the alleged 04 May 1972 Memorandum to 1st Lt. George W. Bush.

The Air Force Style Manual, Tongue and Quill, in use in the 1970s was changed little until the early 1990s. The updates of the 1990s dealt with how the Air Force would treat e-mail which had not be in the earlier manuals even though e-mail existed on some computer systems as early as the mid- to late 1970s.

Tongue and Quill was the Air Force style manual which specified how official Air Force correspondence was to be prepared. One of the things I noticed missing from the letter were file notations. CBS would be highly unlikely to have a copy of the original letter since that letter would have been sent to then-1Lt George W. Bush. Only that copy of any genuine letter -- or a xerographic copy made from the original but not used as a file copy of the letter (a highly unusual procedure) -- would lack annotations indicating where the copy was to be filed. Such annotations were typed along the left side of the page.

Another missing element is an indication of who drafted the letter and who typed it. That is, I did not see any annotation such as MGH/ldm. (The upper case letters are the initials of the person who drafted the letter. The lower case letters are the initials of the typist.)

My experience was that commanders rarely had the time to draft their own correspondence. A letter of this type would have almost certainly been drafted by the executive officer or the deputy commander of the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron and typed by the commander's secretary. Why? Because -- again assuming the letter is genuine -- this subject deals with a sensitive personnel matter which could lead to disciplinary action. I doubt Dan Rather and the CBS crew knows who the executive officer was or who the commander's secretary was.

The letter does not appear to be on squadron letterhead stationery. The unit name and information appears to have been typed across a plain sheet of bond paper. While that practice was permitted when letterhead was not available, for example, when a person was in the field and needed to execute a memorandum of understanding, it was not permitted when letterhead was available. To think that the commander of the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron did not have access to letterhead stationery for a letter of this type is incredible.

If my memory of the early 1970s version of Tongue and Quill is correct, the proper order of the lines identifying the functional office from which the letter was sent, the subject of the letter, and the person or functional units to which the letter was being sent was:

From:

Subject:

To:

In this particular case that information should have been:

From: 111 FIS/CC

Subject: Annual Flight Physical

To: 1Lt George W. Bush

111 FIS/DON

Street Address

Houston, Texas 77027

I do not believe the “MEMORANDUM FOR” was used until the late 1980s or early 1990s. The reason the “To:” was the last line was so multiple addressees could be added before the body of the letter.

The proper official abbreviation in the 1970s for a First Lieutenant was 1Lt, not “1st Lt.” and no official abbreviation of rank had a period.

Notice I wrote the unit abbreviation in the From line as “111 FIS/CC” and not “111st F.I.S./CC”. No periods were allowed in unit abbreviations. It is incredible to believe a squadron commander would not know how to use the correct designation of his own squadron. It is also incredible to believe he would not know the correct abbreviation for a first lieutenant as he was signing numerous Officer Effectiveness Reports (that’s what they were called in the early 1970s) for first lieutenants. My experience with OERs was that any OER which used an incorrect unit designation or an incorrect abbreviation of rank came back to be retyped.

I also find it incredible that Lt Col Killian, his executive officer, and his secretary all did not know what the commander’s signature block should look like. While the signature block is lined up under the date on the letter which is correct form, both the date and the signature block are in the wrong place. The proper location was four spaces to the right of the middle of the page. My secretary had both her Remington manual typewriter and her new IBM Selectric® (which she was fearful to use in 1972 because she had pounded the manual typewriter for so long she ruined numerous documents and had to start over because of the Selectric®’s sensitivity resulted in double (or triple or quadruple or more) characters being typed if she hit the keys too hard.) with hard tabs for precisely those locations. The correct form for the commander’s signature would have been:

JERRY B. KILLIAN, Lt Col, TXANG

Commander

If my memory is correct, the Remington used a Courier typeface. The only way that typewriter could create a superscript was to roll the paper one-half line. The type would be the same fixed font as the rest of the text not a few points smaller as MS Word automatically formats superscripts. The IBM Selectric® had very expensive type balls. We had an OCR typeface for AUTODIN messages to be read by the Optical Character Readers in the message center. (The OCRs didn’t work very well, but they did reduce the workload on the people in the communications center some.) We also had a Courier 10 point type ball. The IBM Selectric® had a key which would move the paper a half-line up for superscripts or a half-line down for subscripts. But the superscript and the subscript were the same point size as the rest of the text, not smaller as in the second paragraph of the letter.

The body of the letter itself would not have been signed by any commander for whom I worked for several reasons. While it is possible that the squadron commander ordered 1Lt Bush to report to him, Lt Col Killian is unlikely to have ordered 1Lt Bush to conduct an annual flight physical because 1Lt Bush is not a flight surgeon. Perhaps Lt Col Killian’s syntax is the problem and that he wanted 1Lt Bush to report to him so he could conduct a flight physical on 1Lt Bush. But I do not think Lt Col Killian was a flight surgeon. Back in the early 1970s the orderly room would receive a computer printout of individuals whose annual physicals needed to be scheduled within the next 3 to 6 months. The orderly room would send a form letter signed by the commander of the “headquarters squadron section” to those individuals with instructions on how to make the appointment. Whenever I received a notification I need to make an appointment with the dental clinic or schedule a flight physical, I was always given the name and phone number of the person who would schedule the appointment. That person also received a “cc” on the notification. There are no carbon copies to either the orderly room or the hospital/clinic at Ellington AFB.

While the date on the letter has the correct form, the date by which 1Lt Bush has been reported to report to the commander is not. The correct form for military dates in the 1970s through the present is day month year with no commas. One of the features of MS Word is that it inserts a comma after the date. There is also no space after the closing parenthesis surrounding the word flight.

There is no indication how Lt Col Killian transmitted the letter to 1Lt George W. Bush. Since the street address is blacked out, it would appear he mailed the letter on that date (assuming he followed the required practice of dating the letter on the date he signed it and it was posted the same day). That date was a Thursday which means Lt Col Killian could not have expected the letter to be delivered even though the address has a zip code in Houston until Monday, 09 May 1972. That means Lt Col Killian expected 1Lt Bush to receive the letter, make an appointment for a meeting with the commander and make an appointment with the flight surgeon (and Lt Col Killian did not have the authority to compel the flight surgeon to perform a flight physical on a specific date) to schedule the flight physical.

Tongue and Quill was hammered into the head of everyone who attended Officer Training School, Squadron Officer School, and Air Command and Staff College. Lt Col Killian had to have been sick of that document by the time he became a squadron commander. But he also had to have been reasonably proficient in the contents of that manual. One of the tenets of Tongue and Quill is to write and to speak clearly. I know a few of my classmates in Squadron Officer School graduated without learning how to avoid pompous writing. Maybe one of my classmates at Squadron Officer School would have graduated without being able to write a clear declarative sentence. I am fairly certain none of my classmates from Air Command and Staff College would have written the first sentence in the letter. Lt Col Killian seems to have a bad case of third person speak and an inability to end a sentence at the end of the thought. Even if Lt Col Killian had such problems, his executive officer and his secretary are unlikely to have suffered from those maladies. The first paragraph should have been: “1. You are ordered to report to me NLT 14 May 1972. I need to ensure you schedule your annual flight physical as required by AFM 35-13.” (I have assumed that AFM 35-13 from 1972 was the prescribing document but I doubt it was. Back in the dark ages of 1972 we had Air Force Regulations, Pamphlets, and Manuals. Manuals noted procedures to be followed. Regulations were the directives. I am not certain the number of the 35-series (Military Personnel) regulation was mandating that individuals on flight status have an annual flight physical but it is unlikely an Air Force Manual was the directive.)

The second paragraph is difficult to reconcile with the first paragraph. The first paragraph seems to say, “George, see me within a week of your receipt of this letter because you need a flight physical which will be conducted when you report.” The second paragraph seems to say, “Well, okay, seem me but contact Captain So-and-so who is scheduling appointments. He will provide you with additional instructions.”

The last sentence in the letter seems pretty standard for a Guardsman or a Reservist. It simply says 1Lt Bush will get credit for a drill day when the flight physical is performed. That sentence seems to indicate that Lt Col Killian knew (assuming again that the letter is genuine despite all the problems noted above) that 1Lt Bush was not scheduled to report of drill during next week.

If the computer printout from the hospital listed 1Lt Bush as requiring a flight physical within the next 6 months while 1Lt Bush was assigned to the 111 FIS but had permission to do his duty elsewhere, Lt Col Killian may have sent him a letter saying, “George, please give me a call. You need to schedule your next flight physical. I need to know you got this letter and will take action. The action you need to take is to call Captain So-and-so to schedule your flight physical. He can give you any additional information you need.” I was required to have a flight physical 91 or fewer days before my birthday. I believe President Bush was born July 6, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut. He would have had to have had his flight physical between 6 April 1972 and 6 July 1972. Since one month of that window had passed, Lt Col Killian (assuming he wrote this letter) may wanted to ensure 1Lt Bush was aware he was due for a flight physical. One of the rather annoying aspects of a central computer spitting out the names of individuals scheduled for flight physicals is that the list of names was only as good as the data in the computer’s database. People who do not remember what life was like B.C.N., that is, before computer networks, are likely to be unaware that the processes for updating the computer databases (regardless of the database) was often disjoint from the process of supplying the service. It would often take months before the database reflected flight physicals which had been performed (or parts that had been ordered or delivered or whatever else was required.) Each base had a computer center. I think the computer centers were called Phase IV computer centers. (I don’t know what Phase I , Phase II, and Phase III centers were, but they must have been extraordinarily bad because Phase IV was really bad.) The people in the hospital filled out forms on procedures accomplished, appointments made, appointments kept, etc. Those forms were then punched on IBM 029 keypunch machines creating a deck of Hollerith cards. The Hollerith cards were then delivered to the Phase IV computer center and transmitted over AUTODIN to a front-end processor for the hospital records computer. Any error by anyone in the hospital or the keypunch operator or the computer center operator resulted in the rejection of the record. For example, if a card had the wrong information or the wrong format or used an improper character in a field, the card was rejected by the front-end processor. The list of rejections was (I kid you not!) printed out and mailed to the originator and the process began (or at least was supposed to begin) again. In many cases, people simply submitted the forms with the format error which resulted in another rejection. If there were a front-end processor for the 04 May 1972 letter, that letter would have been rejected for the format errors.

CBS really should tell the American people the source of the 04 May 1972 letter and allow individuals who are experts in authenticating documents to examine the documents rather than simply posting images of them on their website. One need not be ancient to remember numerous cases of fraudulent documents being passed off as genuine by various media sources. CBS seems only able to produce a handwriting analyst who notes that Lt Col Killian’s signature seems to match other known signatures. But we do not know if the signature has been scanned from another document (perhaps with the top portion of the document) with the body having been added later. I find CBS’s inability or unwillingness to provide any of this information to be an indication that the letter is not genuine.

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