Katana VentraIP

Killian documents controversy

The Killian documents controversy (also referred to as Memogate or Rathergate[1][2]) involved six documents containing allegations about President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard in 1972–73, allegedly typed in 1973. Dan Rather presented four of these documents[3] as authentic in a 60 Minutes II broadcast aired by CBS on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the 2004 presidential election, but it was later found that CBS had failed to authenticate them.[4][5][6] Several typewriter and typography experts soon concluded that they were forgeries.[7][8] Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett provided the documents to CBS, but he claims to have burned the originals after faxing them copies.[9]

Further information: Killian documents authenticity issues and George W. Bush military service controversy

CBS News producer Mary Mapes obtained the copied documents from Burkett, a former officer in the Texas Army National Guard, while pursuing a story about the George W. Bush military service controversy. Burkett claimed that Bush's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, wrote them, which included criticisms of Bush's service in the Guard during the 1970s. In the 60 Minutes segment, Rather stated that the documents "were taken from Lieutenant Colonel Killian's personal files",[10] and he falsely asserted that they had been authenticated by experts retained by CBS.[11]


The authenticity of the documents was challenged within hours on Internet forums and blogs, with questions initially focused on anachronisms in the typography, and the scandal quickly spread to the mass media.[12] CBS and Rather defended the authenticity and usage of the documents for two weeks, but other news organizations continued to scrutinize the evidence, and USA Today obtained an independent analysis from outside experts. CBS finally repudiated the use of the documents on September 20, 2004. Rather stated, "if I knew then what I know now – I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question",[13] and CBS News President Andrew Heyward said, "Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."[13][14]


Several months later, a CBS-appointed panel led by Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi criticized both the initial CBS news segment and CBS's "strident defense" during the aftermath.[15] CBS fired producer Mapes, requested resignations from several senior news executives, and apologized to viewers by saying that there were "substantial questions regarding the authenticity of the Killian documents".


The story of the controversy was dramatized in the 2015 film Truth starring Robert Redford as Dan Rather and Cate Blanchett as Mary Mapes, directed by James Vanderbilt. It is based on Mapes' memoir Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power. Former CBS President and CEO Les Moonves refused to approve the film, and CBS refused to air advertisements for it. A CBS spokesman stated that it contained "too many distortions, evasions, and baseless conspiracy theories".[16]

Emily Will noted discrepancies in the signatures on the memos, and had questions about the letterhead, the proportional spacing of the font, the "th" and the improper formatting of the date. Will requested other documents to use for comparison.[47]

superscripted

Linda James was "unable to reach a conclusion about the signature" and noted that the superscripted "th" was not in common use at the time the memos were allegedly written; she later recalled telling CBS, "the two memos she looked at 'had problems.'"

[47]

James Pierce concluded that both of the documents were written by the same person and that the signature matched Killian's from the official Bush records. Only one of the two documents provided to Pierce had a signature. James Pierce wrote, "the balance of the Jerry B. Killian signatures appearing on the photocopied questioned documents are consistent and in basic agreement", and stated that based on what he knew, "the documents in question are authentic". However, Pierce also told Mapes he could not be sure if the documents had been altered because he was reviewing copies, not original documents.[49]

[48]

Marcel Matley's review was initially limited to Killian's signature on one of the Burkett documents, which he compared to signatures from the official Bush records. Matley "seemed fairly confident" that the signature was Killian's. On September 6, Matley was interviewed by Rather and Mapes and was provided with the other four documents obtained from CBS (he would prove to be the only reviewer to see these documents prior to the segment). Matley told Rather "he could not authenticate the documents due to the fact that they were poor quality copies". In the interview, Matley told Rather that with respect to the signatures, they were relying on "poor material" and that there were inconsistencies in the signatures, but also replied "Yes", when asked if it would be safe to say the documents were written by the person who signed them.[51]

[50]

Both Emily Will and Linda James suggested to Mapes that CBS contact typewriter expert Peter Tytell (son of ). Associate producer Yvonne Miller left him a voicemail on September 7; he returned the call at 11 am on September 8 but was told they "did not need him anymore".[52]

Martin Tytell

In the broadcast, Rather stated that Marcel Matley "analyzed the documents for CBS News. He believes they are real", and broadcast additional excerpts from Matley's September 6 interview showing Matley's agreement that the signatures appeared to be from the same source. Rather did not report that Matley had referred to them as "poor material", that he had only opined about the signatures or that he had specifically not authenticated the documents.

Rather presented footage of the Strong interview, introducing it by stating Robert Strong "is standing by his judgment that the documents are real", despite Strong's lack of standing to authenticate them and his brief exposure to the documents.

[79]

Rather concluded by stating, "If any definitive evidence to the contrary of our story is found, we will report it. So far, there is none."[80]

[79]

Accusations of bias[edit]

Some critics of CBS and Dan Rather argued that by proceeding with the story when the documents had not been authenticated, CBS was exhibiting media bias and attempting to influence the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. Freelance journalist Michael Smith had emailed Mapes, asking, "What if there was a person who might have some information that could possibly change the momentum of an election but we needed to get an ASAP book deal to help get us the information?" Mapes replied, "that looks good, hypothetically speaking of course".[129] The Thornburgh–Boccardi report found that Mapes' contact with Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart was "highly inappropriate", and that it "crossed the line as, at a minimum, it gave the appearance of a political bias and could have been perceived as a news organizations' assisting a campaign as opposed to reporting on a story";[113] however, the Panel did not "find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted or aired the Segment of having a political bias".[130] In a later interview with The Washington Post, when asked about the issue of political bias, review panel member Louis Boccardi said "bias is a hard thing to prove".[131] The panel concluded that the problems occurred "primarily because of a rush to air that overwhelmed the proper application of the CBS News Standards".[132]


Some Democratic critics of Bush suggested that the memos were produced by the Bush campaign to discredit the media's reporting on Bush's National Guard service. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe, suggested that the memos might have originated with long-time Bush strategist Karl Rove. McAuliffe told reporters on September 10, "I can tell you that nobody at the Democratic National Committee or groups associated with us were involved in any way with these documents", he said. "I'm just saying that I would ask Karl Rove the same question."[133][134] McAuliffe later pointed out that Rove and another Republican operative, Ralph Reed, had "a known history of dirty tricks", and he asked whether Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie would rule out any involvement by GOP consultant Roger Stone.[135][136] At a community forum in Utica, New York in 2005, U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) pointed out that the controversy served Rove's objectives: "Once they did that, then it undermined everything else about Bush's draft dodging. ... That had the effect of taking the whole issue away."[137] After being criticized, Hinchey responded, "I didn't allege I had any facts. I said this is what I believe and take it for what it's worth."[137]


Rove and Stone have denied any involvement.[138][139] In a 2008 interview in The New Yorker, Stone said "It was nuts to think I had anything to do with those documents ... [t]hose papers were potentially devastating to George Bush. You couldn't put them out there assuming that they would be discredited. You couldn't have assumed that this would rebound to Bush's benefit. I believe in bank shots, but that one was too big a risk."[140]

George W. Bush military service controversy

Questioned document examination

External links[edit]

Killian documents PDF files[edit]

These are the Killian documents supplied to CBS Reports by Bill Burkett: