Dan Rather’s Long Goodbye: Who Done It?(Mapes,Smith and Burkett)

NY OBSERVER ^ | 03/09/05 | Joe hagan

[Ditto]

"...but Mabry is indeed TANG HQ, and Burkett could theoretically have seen some sort of records when he was there in 1998 (not saying I believe him, just that Burkett apparently was indeed working at TANG HQ in '98 when Bush was the Governor)."

I understand that TANG HQ was there. The question is, were Air National Guard personnel records stored there? We know for a fact that the Dept. of the Air Force maintains a dedicated personnel records archive facility in Denver that has the records of all Air National Guard members from all the states. Would 25 year-old records be maintained in two places?

For operational reasons, especially in the 60s-70s time frame, The Army and the Air Force had different relationships with their National Guard counterparts with the Air Force keeping the Guard units much more integral to it's operations than the Army. Air National Guard units, unlike Army Guard units, actually do preform active duty missions, outside of their state, or even overseas, directly under Air Force Command, on a daily basis. Army NG only do that when nationalized by presidential decree.

[beyond the sea]

In fact, Rather and Mapes have still claimed as late as last week that somehow, someway, they can still authenticate the memos. Dan said so on Letterman. ---

Yes, I saw it. He just needs a little more time to authenticate them. Courage!

;-)

[Space Wrangler]

Burkett could have done it himself, but we have the phone call originating from the Houston Holiday Inn that he recieved that he says was "Lucy Ramirez" telling him to meet him at the cattle auction. Again, this could have just been a friend of Burkett calling him. A cattle auction is a strange place to meet, so we're left with two scenarios; Burkett doing them himself, and saying he recieved them there, or someone knowing enough about Burkett to know that would be a good place to meet him. Finding out who was at the other end of that call is the only way to know for sure, and nobody seems to want to find out, so we're all left to wonder.

[TheRightGuy]

Maybe Dan (the hard charging news man) can pursue this story in his retirement

Gee, I thought he'd be out there on the golf course with OJ, searching for the real killer.