Memos debate eclipses content
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Questions about President Bush's service in the Texas National Guard have been shunted to the background by a debate over the authenticity of newly disclosed documents that purport to show problems with his performance as a pilot.
Document analysts differ over whether the memos, ostensibly written by Bush's commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, are genuine and could have been produced by typewriters available at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston in 1972 and 1973. Two retired FBI forensic document examiners who studied the memos at USA TODAY's request said Sunday that they probably are forgeries. Four other authorities interviewed by USA TODAY, including typewriter and type font experts, said the technology existed at the time to create the documents. None of the experts consulted offered an unequivocal opinion.
Whether the memos are authentic was further clouded by conflicting or changing stories — or refusal to comment — by some of the people who were Bush's superiors in the Guard.
White House spokesman Dan Bartlett declined to offer an opinion Sunday and said, "We have not conducted an independent analysis of the documents." He said he showed Bush copies of the memos and the president "had no specific recollection of any of the documents I showed him."
Here's a look at some of the key points in dispute.
Technical questions
The authenticity debate focuses on two areas:
•Typography. Within minutes after the documents were reported Wednesday night on the CBS program 60 Minutes, questions began to appear on Internet sites suggesting they were fake. The questions centered on whether the memos contained typographical elements that would not have been produced by typewriters in use at the time: the type face; a small, raised "th" character in type called "superscript" in references to Bush's unit, the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron; and the varied space taken up by letters of different widths.
Gerald Richards, who examined the documents on behalf of USA TODAY, is a document authentication expert who worked for the FBI for 20 years and was chief of its document examination and research unit. He said there was a typewriter available in 1972, the IBM Composer, that could have produced the elements in the memos attributed to Killian. But the machines were not easy to use and were expensive, he noted.
Richards qualified his assessment by pointing out that analyzing documents from copies rather than originals is less precise. He estimated that the copies given to him were at least third-generation copies.
"It is highly probable that (the original memos) were computer-generated," Richards said. "And it is highly probable that they were not generated by a typewriter vintage circa 1972."
•Signatures. Some doubters said Killian's signatures didn't match known samples of his writing.
Richard Williams, who examined the documents at USA TODAY's request, is a 23-year veteran of FBI document authentication who testifies frequently as an expert witness. He said he had questions about Killian's signature on the memos.
"In all probability, the signatures are forgeries," he said, pointing in particular to the spacing of the letters, and the more cramped appearance of the signature in the suspect documents. But because the documents are copies, much of the information that experts rely on, such as inks, watermarks and impressions on the paper, is unavailable, he said.
Cyrus Highsmith, one of the other four experts consulted, is a type designer with the Font Bureau, a digital type foundry in Boston. He said the memos' typeface, known as Times Roman, existed at the time and could have been produced by a typewriter. But another typeface expert, Jonathan Hoefler of Hoefler & Frere-Jones in New York, said he would be surprised if the documents were produced before the mid-1980s because such typewriters were not widely available in the 1970s.
Some experts pointed to the small "th" symbol raised above the line of type as the kind of symbol that could be produced only by computer. But a separate document released by the White House in February as part of Bush's military file contains a similar but not identical small "th" character on a form listing Bush's service assignments.
Colleagues
Retired major general Bobby Hodges, a Texas Air National Guard officer who is mentioned in the memos, said Saturday that he believes the documents are fake.
On Saturday, Hodges told The Washington Post he had been "misled" by CBS and now believes the documents are forgeries. Hodges made similar comments to The New York Times. He did not return calls from USA TODAY.
CBS would not comment on the record.
A second former Texas Air National Guard official who is mentioned in the memos, retired colonel Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, has been publicly silent since the program aired. In one memo, dated Aug. 18, 1973, Killian, Bush's squadron commander, purportedly wrote that Staudt was pushing him "to sugar coat" Bush's military job evaluation.
Records show that Staudt retired in 1972 and would not have been involved in Bush's military career in 1973. CBS acknowledged Sunday that Staudt retired in 1972 but said he remained influential in the Guard. The Dallas Morning News on Saturday quoted retired colonel Earl Lively, who was director of Air National Guard operations at state headquarters in 1972 and 1973, as saying that Staudt "wasn't on the scene" after he retired. "Once you're gone from the Guard, you don't have any authority," Lively said.
Some former Guard officials agree that Staudt may still have been wielding influence behind the scenes after he retired. Bob Strong, a former Texas Air National Guard officer who was assigned to state headquarters in 1972, said Sunday that Staudt was powerful and well-connected in Texas politics and had been influential in getting Bush into the Guard.
"Because of his political connections, he still had the potential to become involved in political decisions with Bush," Strong said.
So far, neither the White House nor former officers in the Texas National Guard have challenged the central assertions in the documents: that Bush's performance as a pilot was under scrutiny by commanders beginning in 1972 and that Killian, his supervisor, was unhappy with him.
In a 2002 interview with USA TODAY, Dean Roome, a former fighter pilot who lived with Bush in the early 1970s, said that during the first part of Bush's pilot service, he was a model officer. But he described Bush's Air Guard career as erratic — the first three years solid, the last two troubled.
"You wonder if you know who George Bush is," Roome said. "I think he digressed after a while. In the first half, he was gung-ho. Where George failed was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his life."
Pressed for details during the 2002 interview, Roome declined to elaborate. In February this year, replying to an e-mail from USA TODAY, Roome wrote that he admires Bush and does not want to be seen as attacking him. "Only George W. Bush knows why he was unable to continue flying in the Guard," Roome wrote.
Family and associates
Jerry Killian died in his sleep of a heart attack in 1984 while on active duty at Ellington Air Force Base. His son, Gary, who also served in the Guard at Ellington from 1971 until 1979, said standard procedure would be for someone at the base to clean out the deceased officer's desk and turn over personal effects to the family. The family had no knowledge of any files Killian kept, he said. "I can tell you with absolute certainty no files existed other than in his office," Gary Killian said in an interview.
Gary Killian and Killian's widow, Marjorie Connell, say Killian was not the type of person to write memos or keep files, and both are upset that his name has surfaced in connection with a highly charged political debate about Bush's Guard service.
"She's very upset that her husband's name was used in this way," said Ed Connell, her current husband. "It does appear that the documents are forgeries, but we're not experts and we have no way to prove it." He said his wife has told him that Killian "pretty well kept work separate from home" and did not bring home paperwork or talk much about what went on at the base.
Others who worked with Killian said the documents were consistent with the by-the-book officer they knew him to be. Strong, the former Texas Air Guard officer, called Killian "a straight-arrow kind of guy, a top-notch professional."
Strong reviewed the memos for CBS before they aired and said he thought they looked authentic, although he had no direct knowledge. The memos, he said, "are totally consistent with the way he (Killian) did business."
Retired general Belisario Flores, who ran the Texas Air Guard at the time, said it was common practice for officers to write memos for a personal file to be used in managing and evaluating subordinates. But he said it would be unusual for such files to be preserved for years after they were written.
"Nothing is impossible, but I find it very difficult to believe that would happen," Flores said. He called Killian "a good friend" and said he couldn't remember him ever mentioning problems dealing with Bush. Many of the people who worked with Bush in the Guard have since died, he said.
The politics
USA TODAY obtained copies of the documents independently soon after the 60 Minutes segment aired Wednesday, from a person with knowledge of Texas Air National Guard operations. The person refused to be identified out of fear of retaliation. It is unclear where the documents, if they are real, had been kept in the intervening three decades.
The White House, which was given copies of the documents by CBS, distributed them in e-mail to reporters Wednesday.
Bartlett, the White House spokesman, who was interviewed by CBS, did not address specifics contained in the memos but said as he has before that Bush fulfilled his service obligations. Bartlett cited as proof the fact that Bush received an honorable discharge.
No matter how it turns out, for now the controversy over the documents has blunted criticism of Bush's Guard record, which has been a persistent irritant for Bush since he first campaigned for the White House. It has sapped the power from an issue that had appeared to be a weapon for the Democrats against Bush.
This story was reported by Jim Drinkard, Kevin Johnson, Judy Keen, Toni Locy, Mark Memmott and Dave Moniz. It was written by Drinkard and Moniz.
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