Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says

NYTIMES ^ | 09/15/04 | Maureen Balleza

[Pikamax]

September 15, 2004 Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says By THE NEW YORK TIMES

OUSTON, Sept. 14 - The secretary for the squadron commander purported to be the author of now-disputed memorandums questioning President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard said Tuesday that she never typed the documents and believed they are fakes.

But she also said they accurately reflect the thoughts of the commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, and other memorandums she typed for him about Mr. Bush. "The information in them is correct," the woman, Marian Carr Knox, now 86, said in an interview at her home in Texas. "But I doubt,'' she said, pausing, "it's not anything that I wrote because there are terms in there that are not used by Guards, the format wasn't the way we did it. It looks like someone may have read the originals and put that together."

"We did discuss Bush's conduct and it was a problem Killian was concerned about," Mrs. Knox said. "I think he was writing the memos so there would be some record that he was aware of what was going on and what he had done." But, she said, words like "billets," which appear in the memorandums, were not standard Guard terms.

Mrs. Knox, who was the secretary for the squadron at Ellington Air Force Base from 1957 to 1979, said she recalled Mr. Bush's case and the criticism of him because his record was so unusual. Mr. Killian had her type memorandums recording the problems, she said, and he kept them in a private file under lock and key. Asked about her politics, she said she had never voted for Mr. Bush.

Mr. Killian died in 1984; his widow and son have said that they did not find any memorandums among the private effects they cleared from his office after his death. Mr. Killian's son, Gary, who also served at the squadron and who initially thought that the signatures on the documents matched his father's, has come to believe they are fakes, and said he doubted Mrs. Knox's account, though he recalled her fondly.

"She's a sweet old lady, but she's wrong and it didn't happen,'' he said. "I always thought well of her, and I know my dad would have also, but she's a sweet old lady.''

Mrs. Knox's comments add to the mystery around the four memorandums that were reported by CBS News last Wednesday, which indicated that Mr. Bush had been suspended from flying because he failed to meet standards and report for a physical examination, and that Mr. Killian felt pressure to "sugar coat" his rating because the young Lieutenant Bush, then the son of a congressman, was "talking to someone upstairs."

Executives at CBS said Tuesday that they continued to stand by their statements that they believe the documents are authentic, despite the new questions, and concern from others inside the network, and a report on ABC News that

two more experts whom CBS News had consulted to authenticate the documents for its report said they had expressed concerns about the documents' authenticity to the network's producers.

When questions about the documents first arose last week, the anchorman Dan Rather said at least four experts had helped convince the network of their authenticity.

But the network has continually declined to provide the name of more than one of those experts. That one, Marcel B. Matley, said in interviews that he validated only that the signature on the documents was Colonel Killian's. But, he said, he did not vouch for the documents themselves and could not rule out that the signature had been cut and pasted from onto the records from known documents of Mr. Killian.

Tuesday two more experts came forward and said they had been consulted by CBS. One, a forensic document examiner from Texas, Linda James, said in a telephone interview with The New York Times that she noticed indications that the two documents she inspected were the product of a word processor and relayed that to the producers.

"I had questioned the superscript on there," she said, referring to the raised letters that appear after the number 111 to indicate the name of the flight squadron, adding she also had some questions about what she believed were some inconsistencies in the documents' signatures. She said she was awaiting more documents and more type samples to draw a stronger conclusion but with time running out she referred the network to another expert, who officials at CBS identified as Mr. Matley.

Ms. James first made her comments last night on "World News Tonight'' on ABC. The newscast also presented a second document expert, Emily Will, who said she raised still more serious concerns about the authenticity of a document she inspected for CBS's producers.

ABC News quoted Ms. Will as saying she urged the network producers not to rely on the documents as late as the night before the report was set to air and that she had questions "as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter."

The women's accounts seemed to undercut CBS network officials' previous denials that producers had questions about the documents' authenticity just one or two days before the report was shown last Wednesday night.

Betsy West, a senior vice president of CBS News, said Tuesday the network continued to stand by its story and that Ms. Will and Ms. James were "peripheral" to its reporting. And, she said, neither woman offered conclusive opinions.

"Emily Will did not implore us to hold the story, she was not adamant in any way," Ms. West said. "She raised concern about the superscript "th," which we discussed with the other experts."

Ms. West said Ms. James similarly "raised no objections."

Officials at CBS News said on Tuesday that they would at some point in the day provide the name of a document expert who expressed confidence in the records' authenticity before the report was broadcast. But they did not do so, and Ms. West declined to say why.

Officials also did not say why they did not report doubts about the documents' authenticity in their initial report.

CBS has refused to say how it obtained the documents. But one person at CBS, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed a report in Newsweek that Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard officer who has charged that senior aides to then-Gov. Bush had ordered Guard officials to remove damaging information from Mr. Bush's military personnel files, had been a source of the report. This person did not know the exact role he played.

Mr. Burkett declined to return telephone calls to his home near Abilene, Tex. His lawyer, David Van Os, on Tuesday repeatedly refused to say in a telephone interview whether the officer had played a part in supplying the disputed documents to CBS. Mr. Van Os said "the real story is and should be, where was George Bush?" and that Mr. Burkett "is not the proper object of attention."

Mr. Van Os called Mr. Burkett "a man of impeccable honesty who would not permit himself to be a party to anything fake, fraudulent or phony."

Maureen Balleza reported from Houston for this article, and Kate Zernike from New York. Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting from Washington and Ralph Blumenthal from Houston.

[Minuteman23]

The content of some of the hundreds of photographs he took over there, and the incredible stories he told (both horrifying and uplifting), were almost beyond description. I hope to be able to write at least something about it here sometime soon.

I will look forward to that. If there is anyone who can do justice to this young man's story, you can. Please ping me when you do.

[twigs]

Thanks for the details. I really don't care what Bush did then. He came clean and more than made up for whatever ill-spent youth that he experienced. And he married Laura. No one who planned to continue living irresponsibly would marry her. She's classy, out-spoken and no "shrinking violet" (words of President Bush).

Kerry has made his past the center of his campaign; Pres. Bush has done the exact opposite. And Kerry has continued to live on the path that he began in his youth. The president made a complete U turn.

[joanie-f]

Thanks for the kind words, Steve.

In the meantime :), if you want to read something inspiring, try this. The authors are way too optimistic and idealistic for me, but the picture they paint of genuine -- as opposed to lip service -- conservatism is beautiful and accurate. The degree of power it wields in America today is where I strenuously disagree with them. But if you can ignore that aspect of their presentation, it's a great read.

The Right Nation

[Minuteman23]

Thanks, lass. I'll check it out.

You have mail.