By Reporter-News staff reports
September 14, 2004
Burkett named as source
Bill Burkett, a former Abilene resident, has been identified by Newsweek as a ''principal source'' of last week's disputed report by CBS News and veteran anchor Dan Rather about documents that cast more negative attention on President Bush's Air National Guard service.
The documents in question purport to be memos of then-Guard pilot Bush's commanding officer, the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.
The documents reportedly record Killian's suspension of Bush from flying in 1972, and mention Killian's anxiety about pressure he was receiving from Col. Walter ''Buck'' Staudt to ''sugarcoat'' his evaluations of Bush.
CBS News and Rather have said they continue to believe in their story based on the documents, which aired last Wednesday on the CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes II. By Thursday, however, other media outlets such as the Washington Post were casting doubt on the CBS report, based on authorities who voiced the opinion that it was highly unlikely the controversial documents were produced on typing equipment available to Killian in the early 1970s.
Burkett, a rural Callahan County resident, excited a flurry of national publicity last February when he said that in 1997 he had spotted Guard records of then-Texas Gov. Bush in the trash. Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel, was then stationed at Camp Mabry in Austin, headquarters of Texas military forces.
Bush was assigned to the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Houston in 1972 before he was transferred to an Alabama unit.
The Newsweek report is in an article titled ''Slime Time Live'' in the magazine's online edition, which is dated Sept. 20.
Calls to Burkett's listed phone number were not returned Monday.
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