CBS News Concludes It Was Misled on National Guard Memos, Network Officials Say

New York Times ^ | 9/20/04 | Jim Rutenberg

[LibWhacker]

After days of expressing confidence about the documents used in a "60 Minutes'' report that raised new questions about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS News officials have grave doubts about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.

Those officials, who asked not to be identified, said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents' origins, and that it was mounting an intensive news investigation of where they came from.

But these people cautioned that CBS News could still pull back from an announcement. Officials were meeting last night with Dan Rather, the anchor who presented the report, to go over the information it has collected about the documents one last time before making a final decision.

People at the network said it was now possible that officials would open a formal internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report, which officials now say they are beginning to believe was too flawed to have gone on the air.

The report relied in large part on four memorandums purported to be from the personal file of Mr. Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago. The memos, dated from the early 1970's, said that Colonel Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat'' the record of the young Lieutenant Bush and that the officer had disobeyed a direct order to take a physical.

Mr. Rather and others at the network are said to still believe that the sentiment in the memos accurately reflected Mr. Killian's feelings, but that the documents' authenticity is now in grave doubt.

The developments last night marked a dramatic turn for CBS News, which for a week stood steadfastly by its Sept. 8 report as various document experts asserted that the typeface of the memos could have been produced only by a modern-day word processor, not Vietnam War-era typewriters.

The seemingly unflappable confidence of Mr. Rather and top news division officials in the documents allayed fears within the network and created doubt among some in the news media at large that those specialists were correct. CBS News officials had said they had reason to be certain that the documents indeed came from the personal file of Colonel Killian.

Sandy Genelius, a network spokeswoman, said last week, "We are confident about the chain of custody; we're confident in how we secured the documents.''

But officials decided yesterday that they would most likely have to declare that they were misled about the records' origin after Mr. Rather and a top network executive, Betsy West, met in Texas with a man who was said to have helped the news division obtain the memos, a former Guard officer named Bill Burkett.

Mr. Rather interviewed Mr. Burkett on camera this weekend, and several people close to the reporting process said his answers to Mr. Rather's questions led officials to conclude that their initial confidence that the memos came from Mr. Killian's own files was not warranted. These people indicated that Mr. Burkett had previously led the producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, to have the utmost confidence in the material.

It was unclear last night whether Mr. Burkett told Mr. Rather that he had been misled about the documents' provenance or that he had been the one who did the misleading.

In an e-mail message yesterday, Mr. Burkett declined to answer any questions about the documents.

Yesterday, Emily J. Will, a document specialist who inspected the records for CBS News and said last week that she had raised concerns about their authenticity with CBS News producers, confirmed a report in Newsweek that a producer had told her that the source of the documents had said they were obtained anonymously and through the mail.

During an interview last night she declined to name the producer who told her this but said that the producer had been in a position to know. CBS News officials have disputed her contention that she warned the network the night before the initial "60 Minutes'' report that it would face questions from documents experts.

In the coming days CBS News officials plan to focus on how the network moved ahead with the report when there were warning signs that the memorandums were not genuine.

Ms. Will is one of two documents experts consulted by the network who said they raised doubts about the material before the segment was broadcast. Another expert, Marcel B. Matley, said in interviews that he had only vouched for Colonel Killian's signatures on the records and not the authenticity of the records themselves. Mr. Matley said he could not rule out that the signatures were cut and pasted from official records pertaining to Colonel Killian.

In examining where the network went wrong, officials at CBS News were turning their attention to Ms. Mapes, one of their most respected producers, who was riding particularly high this year after breaking news about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal for the network.

In a telephone interview this weekend, Josh Howard, the executive producer of the "60 Minutes'' Wednesday edition, said he did not initially know who was Ms. Mapes' primary source for the documents but that he did not see any reason to doubt them. He said he believed Ms. Mapes and her team had appropriately answered all questions about the documents' authenticity and, he noted, no one seemed to be casting doubt upon the essential thrust of the report.

"The editorial story line was still intact, and still is, to this day,'' he said, "and the reporting that was done in it was by a person who has turned in decades of flawless reporting with no challenge to her credibility.''

He added, "We in management had no sense that the producing team wasn't completely comfortable with the results of the document analysis.''

Ms. Mapes has not responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Howard also said in the interview that the White House did not dispute the veracity of the documents when it was presented them on the morning of the report. That reaction, he said, was "the icing on the cake'' of the other reporting the network was conducting on the documents. White House officials have said they saw no reason to challenge documents that had been presented by a credible news organization.

Several people familiar with the situation said that they were girding for a particularly tough week for Mr. Rather and the news division should the network announce its new doubts.

One person close to the situation said the critical question would be, "Where was everybody's judgment on that last day?''

[Bonaparte]

"Such a way to end a career, Dan."

Look on the bright side, Danny boy -- now you can spend more time fishing with Fidel. Hey! You could move to Cuba! I'll bet Fidel would give you your own beachfront hacienda -- for all the years of faithful propagandizing on his behalf.

[doblin]

"Mr. Rather and others at the network are said to still believe that the sentiment in the memos accurately reflected Mr. Killian's feelings, but that the documents' authenticity is now in grave doubt."

"Does this reporter have any idea how ridiculous this sounds?"

Wasn't there a quote near the beginning where they said:

"We are confident that the memos represent the true feeling of the author, at the time they were written." ?

[Bonaparte]

WHAT DID DAN KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?

[Bonaparte]

"Cheney isn't like that at all, I told him."

I'm smiling, pr. Can you tell?

[doblin]

"Forgery of a military document is a F-E-L-O-N-Y."

So was Bergler's theft of Secret documents from the National Archives. Conservatives don't have the capacity for righteous indignation that libs have. There should be a loud clamor for prosecution.

[Erasmus]

Courage.

Carnage.

[Bonaparte]

Thanks schouston. And goodnight to you. Sleep well.

[Edit35]

I am afraid this entire thing was a ploy to change the subject from the Swift Boat Vets to get the heat off Kerry. It took that story off the front burner

Absolutely.

[LadyPilgrim]

With all the weather chaos, mr sandypants has almost been forgotten.

But not by the hottest ticket on the web!
FreeRepublic!

[Erasmus]

"We are confident that the memos represent the true feeling of the author, at the time they were written." ?

If you give that the Clinton parsing, it's technically correct. You just have to realize that the "author" they're referring to is the forger.

[Bonaparte]

"Feelings, wo wo wo feeeeeelings..."

That song is at its best when sung in a karaoke bar in Manila...

Sing along everybody!

Peelings... Nodding more don peelings
Prying doo porget my peelings ob lahb
Peelings! Wo wo wo peelings...

Ah, that's better. Much better.

[Bonaparte]

"What a farce, they are trying to hide the obvious..."

Hey, Ernie. Have you ever shot an animal and after it falls, it's lying there on it's side trying to run? Legs are pumping like crazy and the only reason its not going anywhere is because it's dead.

[NYCVirago]

It just occurred to me something else they're trying to do by claiming Burkett got these documents sent anonymously in the mail to him -- they're trying to pin this on Karl Rove. Their next step will be to insinuate that this had to be a Republican plot.

[MeekOneGOP]

People at the network said it was now possible that officials would open a formal internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report, which officials now say they are beginning to believe was too flawed to have gone on the air.

The report relied in large part on four memorandums purported to be from the personal file of Mr. Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago. The memos, dated from the early 1970's, said that Colonel Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat'' the record of the young Lieutenant Bush and that the officer had disobeyed a direct order to take a physical.

What is interesting to me is that See BS was given SIX documents. But two apparently didn't fit See BS's story, so they totally left the other two docs out of the story. Not even a mention. If they expect me to believe See BS was deceived ..... ha!!

[Oh, I also have noticed that some DemocRATS are using the phrase "Sugar Coat" regarding Bush and Iraq this weekend.]

[NYCVirago]

It seems like we will have to have every Mapes story reviewed to see if she has consistently lied to smear GWB...

That's what the New York Times did during the Jayson Blair scandal -- they went back and reviewed everything he ever wrote, and corrected the record in a massive story. And two higher-ups, Boyd and Raines, actually lost their jobs over the scandal. It seems like CBS should follow their example, but it sounds like they're still stonewalling.

[Jim Noble]

CBS News officials have grave doubts

Are there any other kind?

[piasa]

Speaking of DUh... what's the next psychological stage after denial?

[Jim Noble]

collusion to pass a fraud off on the American people against a sitting President.

The offense is no worse because of the job that citizen Bush happens to hold.

To put it another way, our political system allows, in fact requires, that election opponents strongly and forcefully criticize those who hold high office. The fact that someone is a "sitting President" does not and should not give his political opponents a second's hesitation about attacking him or his record, as long as they are truthful.

OTOH, a coordinated fraudulent attack using major media is just as bad when directed at a private citizen-maybe worse, since said citizen has no tools to respond effectively, whereas a President does have some resources at his disposal to fight back.

The issue is not Bush's status, it's the lies.

[Mago]

"According to this sentence, Dan Rather is an "it". "

That's hilarious! Kind of reminds you of Gollum. "We hates it, the tricksy, false Dan Rather."