| -Caveat Lector-
By Howard Kurtz Dan Rather vigorously defended his "60 Minutes" story on President Bush's
National Guard service yesterday, saying the 30-year-old memos he disclosed on
the show this week "were and remain authentic," despite questions raised by some
handwriting and document experts. "Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any
reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill," the CBS
anchor said. "My colleagues and I at '60 Minutes' made great efforts to
authenticate these documents and to corroborate the story as best we could. . .
. I think the public is smart enough to see from whom some of this criticism is
coming and draw judgments about what the motivations are." The memos, described as having been written by Bush's squadron commander, Lt.
Col. Jerry B. Killian, indicate that Bush got special treatment as a pilot in
the Texas Air National Guard and failed to carry out a superior's order to
undergo a physical exam. Several experts consulted by news organizations say the
memos contain typographical and formatting features that suggest they were
written on a computer or word processor rather than on an early 1970s government
typewriter. Rather said that CBS's lead expert was Marcel Matley of San Francisco, a
member of the National Association of Document Examiners who has taught,
lectured and written about his field, testified in numerous trials, and
consulted for government agencies. Matley said last night that a "60 Minutes"
executive had asked him not to give interviews. The Dallas Morning News cast fresh doubt on the documents by reporting last
night that the officer named in one memo as exerting pressure to "sugarcoat"
Bush's military record was discharged a year and a half before the memo was
written. The paper cited a military record showing that Col. Walter "Buck"
Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972, while the memo cited by CBS as
showing that Staudt was interfering with evaluations of Bush was dated Aug. 18,
1973. The White House is raising doubts for the first time about the documents'
authenticity. "I think there's a big question mark, like major news
organizations are suggesting," communications director Dan Bartlett said last
night. "Obviously, we see the same things that other people are pointing out
now. But at the time, I had every reason to believe that a major news
organization had authentic documents." Killian's widow and son have also questioned whether the documents are
real. CBS News President Andrew Heyward staunchly defended the piece. "I have full
confidence in our reporting on this story and in every reporter on both sides of
the camera," he said last night. "This is going to hold up. This was thoroughly
vetted." Conservatives hammered Rather and CBS yesterday on talk radio and Internet
sites. "I predict . . . that it's only a matter of time before CBS admits it was
deceived," wrote Weekly Standard Managing Editor Richard Starr. In an interview, Rather stressed that CBS had talked to two people who worked
with Killian in the Texas Guard -- his superior, retired Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges,
and his administrative assistant, Robert Strong -- and both described the memos
as consistent with what they knew of Killian. Hodges, who told CBS he was
"familiar" with the documents, is an avid Bush supporter, and "it took a lot for
him to speak the truth," Rather said. Before airing Wednesday's segment, he said, CBS "vetted" the confidential
source who provided the memos and concluded that "he did have the ability to get
access to these documents and he was being truthful." Beyond that, Rather said,
CBS consulted with military experts about Killian's language and the documents'
format and compared them to other Bush service records previously released by
the White House. "We decided there was a preponderance of evidence that they are
what they purport to be," he said. Asked if he was troubled by the handwriting and document analysts who say
some of the typography and spacing did not exist in the early 1970s, Rather said
he could not rule out the possibility of a hoax but sees no need for an internal
inquiry. Some CBS employees, who asked not to be identified while questioning their
bosses' actions, expressed concern that the network had issued only a terse
statement Thursday, when the authenticity of the documents was first questioned
and until yesterday had refused to name any of the experts it had consulted or
provide an on-the-record spokesman. One staff member, who has examined the
documents but did not work on the "60 Minutes" piece, saw potential problems
with them: "There's a lot of sentiment that we should do an internal
investigation." "The first rule of public relations is to get all the bad news out right
away," said Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean of Boston University's College of
Communication. "It looks like CBS News has made some serious errors here, and if
so, they should plead nolo contendere and not do the perp walk later." Others at the network noted that the producer on the Texas Air National Guard
segment was the highly regarded Mary Mapes, who helped "60 Minutes" break the
Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq. "It's hard to separate legitimate concern from political blowback and
propaganda," Heyward said. On last night's "CBS Evening News," Rather defended the piece against what he
called the "counterattack." He interviewed Matley, who said he concluded after
comparing Killian's signature on the memos to other undisputed documents that
"yes, it's the same person." Rather noted the critics' claim that typewriters in the Vietnam War era could
not produce a raised superscript, such as the letters "th," but he maintained:
"Some models did." As for contentions that the memos were written in a more
modern font called Times New Roman, Rather said: "The company that distributes
this typeface says it has been available since 1931." Other experts have told The Washington Post that the spacing between letters
is suspicious for documents of that era. But Rather cautioned that the memos
become less clear as they are downloaded and photocopied. In the interview, Rather said the controversy should not detract from these
questions raised by the program: "Did a wealthy oilman who was a friend of the
Bush family come to the speaker of the Texas House and ask for preferential
treatment for George Bush, and did he get it? Did or did not then-Lieutenant
Bush refuse to obey a direct order from a military superior?" In 1999, "60 Minutes" apologized, as part of a legal settlement with a
Customs Service official, for reporting on a memo that was later found to be
fake. Matley, who told Rather last night that he knew the Bush documents would be
professional "dynamite," has been involved in high-profile cases, including a
1997 controversy over purported John F. Kennedy documents. After "60 Minutes"
cast doubt on those documents, the man who unearthed them, Lawrence Cusack III,
retained Matley in a suit against CBS that was rejected in court. Matley could
not vouch for the documents' authenticity. Staff writer Mike Allen contributed to this report.
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