Some Question Authenticity of Papers on Bush
By Michael Dobbs and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A01
Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.
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Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their authenticity. <font size=3>
The documents, which were aired Wednesday night on "60 Minutes II," bear dates from 1972 and 1973 and include an order for Bush to report for his annual physical exam and a discussion of how he could get out of "coming to drill."
The dispute over the documents' authenticity came as Democrats stepped up their criticism of Bush's service with the National Guard between 1968 and 1974. The Democratic National Committee sought to fuel the controversy yesterday by holding a news conference at which Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) pointed to the documents as a fresh indictment of Bush's credibility.
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CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying that each of the documents <font color=blue>"was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity."<font color=black> The statement added that CBS reporters had verified the documents by talking to unidentified individuals who saw them <font color=blue>"at the time they were written." <font color=black>
CBS spokeswoman Kelli Edwards declined to respond to questions raised by experts who examined copies of the papers at the request of The Washington Post, or to provide the names of the experts CBS consulted. Experts interviewed by The Post pointed to a series of telltale signs suggesting that the documents were generated by a computer or word processor rather than the typewriters in widespread use by Bush's National Guard unit.
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A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said that a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone, and that Hodges replied that <font color=blue>"these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."
"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people,"<font color=black> the CBS News official said. <font color=blue>"Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles." <font color=black>
The official said the network regarded Hodges's comments as <font color=blue>"the trump card"<font color=black> on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not want to hurt Bush. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine in Texas.
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In a telephone interview from her Texas home, Killian's widow, Marjorie Connell, described the records as <font color=green>"a farce,"<font color=black> saying she was with her husband until the day he died in 1984 and he did not <font color=green>"keep files."<font color=black> She said her husband considered Bush <font color=green>"an excellent pilot."
"I don't think there were any documents. He was not a paper person,"<font color=black> she said, adding that she was <font color=green>"livid"<font color=black> at CBS. A CBS reporter contacted her briefly before Wednesday night's broadcasts, she said, but did not ask her to authenticate the records.
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If demonstrated to be authentic, the documents would contradict several longstanding claims by the White House about an episode in Bush's National Guard service in 1972, when he abruptly gave up flying and moved from Texas to Alabama to take part in a political campaign. The CBS documents purport to show that Killian, who was Bush's squadron commander, was unhappy with Bush for his performance toward meeting his National Guard commitments and resisted pressure from his superiors to "sugarcoat" the record.
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After their initial airing on the <font color=blue>"CBS Evening News" and "60 Minutes II"<font color=black> programs Wednesday night, the documents were picked up by other news organizations, including The Post. A front-page story in The Post yesterday noted that CBS declined to provide details about the source of the documents, the authenticity of which could not be independently confirmed. [more]<font size=3>
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