Move to Screen Bush File in 90's Is Reported
February 12, 2004
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
nytimes.com
HOUSTON, Feb. 11 — A retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard complained to a member of the Texas Senate in 1998 that aides to Gov. George W. Bush improperly screened Mr. Bush's National Guard files in a search for information that could embarrass the governor in future elections.
The retired officer, Bill Burkett, said in the letter to Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, a Democrat from Austin, that Dan Bartlett, then a senior aide to Governor Bush and now White House communications director, and Gen. Daniel James, then the head of the Texas National Guard, reviewed the file to "make sure nothing will embarrass the governor during his re-election campaign."
A copy of the letter was provided to The New York Times by a lawyer for Mr. Burkett to support statements he makes in a book to be published this month, which Mr. Burkett repeated in interviews this week, that Mr. Bush's aides ordered Guard officials to remove damaging information from Mr. Bush's military personnel files.
Mr. Bartlett denied on Wednesday that any records were altered. General James, since named head of the Air National Guard by President Bush, also denied Mr. Burkett's account. But Mr. Bartlett and another former official in Mr. Bush's administration in Texas, Joe Allbaugh, acknowledged speaking to National Guard officials about the files as Mr. Bush was preparing to seek re-election as governor.
Both said their goal was to ensure that the records would be helpful to journalists who inquired about Mr. Bush's military experience.
Questions about Mr. Bush's service in the National Guard have arisen in every campaign he has run since his 1994 race for governor. His 2004 re-election campaign is no different, as Democrats have pointed to apparent gaps in his service record with the National Guard.
On Tuesday, the White House released 18 months of payroll records that it says demonstrate that Mr. Bush fully completed his service. And on Wednesday, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the administration was awaiting more records and promised to make public any previously undisclosed information from the file.
Mr. McClellan and other administration officials criticized the Democrats for their attacks on Mr. Bush's service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War. "What you are seeing is gutter politics," Mr. McClellan said. "The American people deserve better. There are some who are not interested in their facts. They are simply trolling for trash."
Mr. Burkett's letter to Senator Barrientos was part of a running battle that he waged with the National Guard after retiring in January 1998. In it, Mr. Burkett complained of "severe retaliation" from General James for what he said was reporting "illegal acts" within the National Guard. He also complained about the government's failure to pay for his medical care after suffering from a tropical disease after a military assignment to Panama in 1997. Before finally winning medical benefits in July 1998, he said, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for depression.
A spokesman for Senator Barrientos, Ray Perez, said on Wednesday that "Mr. Burkett did correspond with this office." Senator Barrientos said he was trying to find the six-year-old records of contacts with Mr. Burkett. Another Texas legislator contacted at the time by Mr. Burkett, Representative Bob Hunter, Republican of Abilene, said Mr. Burkett had appeared before his committee overseeing military affairs and had complained of mishandling of his medical claims but did not mention Mr. Bush's files. He called Mr. Burkett "disgruntled."
In telephone interviews this week from his home near Abilene, Mr. Burkett, 55, a systems analyst with 27 years in the National Guard including service as deputy commandant of the New Mexico Military Academy, said he happened to be in General James' office at Camp Mabry in Austin in mid-1997 and overheard Mr. Allbaugh on a speakerphone telling General James that Mr. Bartlett and Karen P. Hughes, another aide to Governor Bush, would be coming to the Guard offices to review Mr. Bush's military files.
Ms. Hughes, who left the White House in 2002, did not return a call.
Mr. James said though a spokesman that "that discussion never happened" and that he would "never condone falsification of any record." Mr. Allbaugh called the account "pure hogwash," but said he talked to General James about making Mr. Bush's records available to reporters.
"We spoke about a lot of things," Mr. Allbaugh said. "I'm sure we had a conversation with General James where all the records were kept because it was an issue in 1994 and 1998 and would be in 2000. We wanted to make sure we could refer people of your profession where to go."
Mr. Burkett further said that about 10 days later he and another officer walked into the Camp Mabry military museum and saw the head of the museum, Gen. John Scribner, going through Mr. Bush's personnel records. Mr. Burkett said he saw a trash basket with discarded papers bearing Mr. Bush's name. Mr. Burkett said the papers appeared to be "retirement point certificates, pay documents, that sort of thing."
General Scribner dismissed the account. "It never happened as far as I know," he said. "Why would I be going into records?"
Mr. Burkett is quoted at length in a book to come out by the end of the month, "Bush's War for Re-election" by James Moore, a former Texas television reporter and co-author of "Bush's Brain."
The other Guard officer who Mr. Burkett says was with him the day he saw General Scribner going though the records, George Conn, declined in an e-mail message to comment on Mr. Burkett's statements. But Mr. Conn, a former chief warrant officer for the Texas Guard and now a civilian on duty with American forces in Europe, said: "I know LTC Bill Burkett and served with him several years ago in the Texas Army National Guard. I believe him to be honest and forthright. He `calls things like he sees them.' "
A retired officer, Lt. Col. Dennis Adams, said Mr. Burkett told him of the incidents shortly after they happened. "We talked about them several different times," said Mr. Adams, who spent 15 years in the Texas Guard and 12 years on active duty in the Army. He now works for the Texas Department of Public Safety as a security officer guarding the state Capitol.
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