Questions are being raised about the authenticity of newly unearthed memos that say President Bush’s National Guard commander believed Mr. Bush was shirking his duties.
The memos, which were obtained by CBS News’ 60 Minutes, say Mr. Bush ignored a direct order from a superior officer and lost his status as a Guard pilot because he failed to meet military performance standards and undergo a required physical exam.
The network defended the autheniticity of the memos, saying its experts who examined the memos concluded they were authentic documents produced by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.
But Killian’s son, one of Killian’s fellow officers and an independent document examiner questioned the memos.
Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father and retired as a captain in 1991, said he doubted his father would have written an unsigned memo which said there was pressure to “sugar coat” Mr. Bush’s performance review.
“It just wouldn’t happen,” he said. “No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that.”
The personnel chief in Killian’s unit at the time also said he believes the documents are fake.
“They looked to me like forgeries,” Rufus Martin told the Associated Press. “I don’t think Killian would do that, and I knew him for 17 years.” Killian died in 1984.
Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript — a smaller, raised “th” in “111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron” — as evidence indicating forgery.
Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by 60 Minutes, she said.
“I’m virtually certain these were computer generated,” Lines said to the Associated Press after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer’s Microsoft Word software.
Quipped conservative radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy, “Dan Rather? I used to bang guys like him in prison. So soft you could spread him on a cracker. The punk.”
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