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Rather Concedes Papers Are Suspect
CBS Anchor Urges Media to Focus On Bush Service
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 16, 2004; Page A01
CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush's National Guard record last week on "60 Minutes."
"If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story," Rather said in an interview last night. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.' "
Rather spoke after interviewing the secretary to Bush's former squadron commander, who told him that the memos attributed to her late boss are fake -- but that they reflect the commander's belief that Bush was receiving preferential treatment to escape some of his Guard commitments.
The former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, is the latest person to raise questions about the "60 Minutes" story, which Rather and top CBS officials still defend while vowing to investigate mounting questions about whether the 30-year-old documents used in the story were part of a hoax. Their shift in tone yesterday came as GOP critics as well as some media commentators demanded that the story be retracted and suggested that Rather should step down.
"This is not about me," Rather said before anchoring last night's newscast. "I recognize that those who didn't want the information out and tried to discredit the story are trying to make it about me, and I accept that."
For Rather, 72, it is an all-too-familiar role. In his CBS career, he has survived an impertinent exchange with President Richard M. Nixon during Watergate, a clandestine trek through the mountains of Afghanistan, an on-air confrontation with George H.W. Bush over Iran-contra and a much-debated sitdown with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
Now, on the final leg of a career launched by a Texas hurricane, Rather is trying to weather his biggest storm. And some of his closest friends and associates are concerned.
"I think this is very, very serious," said Bob Schieffer, CBS's chief Washington correspondent. "When Dan tells me these documents are not forgeries, I believe him. But somehow we've got to find a way to show people these documents are not forgeries." Some friends of Rather, whose contract runs until the end of 2006, are discussing whether he might be forced to make an early exit from CBS.
In her interview with Rather yesterday, Knox repeated her contention that the documents used by "60 Minutes" were bogus. Knox, 86, worked for Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian while he supervised Bush's unit in the early 1970s.
"I know that I didn't type them," Knox said of the Killian memos. "However, the information in there is correct," she said, adding that Killian and the other officers would "snicker about what [Bush] was getting away with."
Rather said he was "relieved and pleased" by Knox's comments that the disputed memos reflected Killian's view of the favorable treatment that Bush received in the military unit. But he said, "I take very seriously her belief that the documents are not authentic." If Knox is right, Rather said, the public "won't hear about it from a spokesman. They'll learn it from me."
But he also delivered a message to "our journalistic competitors," including The Washington Post and rival networks: "Instead of asking President Bush and his staff questions about what is true and not true about the president's military service, they ask me questions: 'How do you know this and that about the documents?' "
CBS News President Andrew Heyward defended the work that went into the Guard story. "I feel that we did a tremendous amount of reporting before the story went on the air or we wouldn't have put it on the air," Heyward said last night. "But we want to get to the bottom of these unresolved issues," including questions about the memos' typography, signatures and format. "There's such a ferocious debate about these documents."
Heyward said the account by Knox is "significant, which is why we're putting it on our prime-time program," "60 Minutes."
USA Today Probe Could Spell Trouble for CBS News
Documents on Bushs Service in National Guard Under Review
By RODERICK BOYD Staff Reporter of the Sun
USA Todays willingness to investigate the authenticity of documents it and CBS News used in stories questioning President Bushs Air National Guard Service may set off a feeding frenzy on CBS News if it turns out the documents were faked,the chairmen of two of Americas top journalism departments said yesterday.
CBS said it stands by the story it ran on September 8 in which it broke the news of the documents, which alleged that Mr. Bush used political pressure to get out of the Guard early.
USA Today which ran a front-page story last Thursday using the same documents carried a story on Monday in which the papers executive editor, John Hillkirk, said the paper has become aware of questions about the documents authenticity and is pursuing those concerns aggressively...
Gem said:It will be extrememly interesting to see whether or not the left wing goes nuts attacking or defending CBS and Dan Rather for believing the validity of documents everyone else on earth believed were false.
After all, CBS has been saying that the documents were from an "impeachable source." So basically, even though everyone knew they were phony...the source seemed trustworthy so they went with it. They were misled.
Hmm....didn't GWB have evidence that was, unlike CBS's memos, SUPPORTED by the CIA, FBI, British, French, German, Russian, Egyptian, Saudia Arabian, and Australian intelligence, and don't forget about the UN. In fact, most EVERYONE agreed that Saddam HAD WMD it was just what exactly to do about it that people were fighting about. And it turns out that BUSH WAS MISLED by all of these "impeachable sources."
So we have CBS, who believed evidence that NO ONE ELSE believed. And we have the President, who believed evidence that EVERYONE ELSE believed...
Hmmmm.....
Palestinian Jew said:LOL, they could be fake? I think that they are definitely fake when their own document expert goes on "Hardball" to say that the documents weren't valid.
Avatar4321 said:And why do you think that matters? These people are in panic mode. Logic just doesnt apply.
According to See 
.Kathianne said:Again, Dan is asking that the administration respond to documents that are forged? This is asinine.
"I didn't vet these documents, they are likely bogus, respond to them..." Just like they teach in journalism school?
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Dan Rather must be hoping that his interview with Jerry Killian's former secretary, Marion Knox, will be viewed in isolation from any context, as in the old days when a large part of the population got its news from the Big Three Networks. Ms. Knox is a charming, soft-spoken senior, and I'm sure lots of people would rather not think that her memories of thirty years ago are colored in any way by her expressed desire for Bush to lose the coming election.
But in context, her interview makes Rather's fact-checking team look worse, not better. Rather claims that the best people in the business have been working this story for five years. Have they never spoken with Knox before? If they were speaking with Knox before, why didn't they ask her if the memos they had were forgeries? She was obviously in a position to know, and could have told them what she told the nation tonight: they are forgeries. If Rather's people weren't speaking with Knox before, why not? Were they afraid what she might tell them about the memos? Now let's do a thought experiment. Suppose CBS had attempted to do last week's broadcast without the memos. What would their Big Story have been? Former Lt. Gov. Barnes, fresh from raising $500,000 for Kerry's campaign, telling yet another of the many conflicting stories he has told about whether he got Bush into the National Guard? (This time, a version he has denied to his own daughter?) How would they have made anyone buy it? Well, had they known of Marion Knox's views, they could have had her come in and do her she-said against the recollection of Killian's wife and son (who worked with his father in the Guard) and others close to Killian. We could have heard Rather, as tonight, ask if Bush got into the Guard due to preferential treatment and watch Knox pause and dimple before replying, "I'm going to say Yes ... I think so." It's hard to believe that would have put it over.
Am I leaving somebody out? What about Bill Burkett, the disgruntled ex-officer who has it in for Bush? He could certainly have told a new variation on his accounts of just happening to walk in as various administrators were about to get rid of Bush documents. Of course, he's never described the documents as being memos from Killian -- back when everyone wanted to see Bush's pay records, he described them as looking like pay records. No, it's hard to believe that a few more denied and unsubtantiated charges from Burkett would have put it over either. Without documentation -- without the forged memos -- Rather had no Big Story. So authentication was skimped (the primary "authority" being a graphologist whose opinion was meaningless, since the signature on the photocopy he was looking at might easily have been cut and pasted to the original), experts who raised questions were ignored, Marion Knox was not asked, and the source of the memos was shielded from questions by anonymity. If, as seems increasingly likely, that source was Burkett, was CBS's secrecy really intended to protect Burkett (who has already put himself out there with various accusations) or to protect the credibility of the Big Story by not associating it with Burkett?
Rather had to have the memos, so he couldn't question their authenticity, even though it was his duty to do so.
Rather doesn't realize that with Knox's testimony, he's convicted himself. Astonishingly, he even passed up the chance to say, okay, they're forgeries, let's get past that. No, allegedly CBS is still looking into that issue -- implicitly impeaching half of Knox's story even as Rather insists we accept the other half.
Infuriating. Baffling. And embarrassing. How are the mighty fallen.
posted 09-15-04
