George W. Bush Military Service Controversy - Memos Allegedly From Jerry Killian

Memos Allegedly From Jerry Killian

The "Killian documents" were initially claimed by CBS to have come from the "personal files" of the late Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, Bush's squadron commander during Bush's Air National Guard service. They describe preferential treatment during Bush's service, including pressure on Killian to "sugar coat" an annual officer rating report for the then 1st Lt. Bush. CBS aired the story on September 8, 2004, amid more releases of Bush's official records by the Department of Defense, including one just the day before as the result of a FOIA lawsuit by the Associated Press.

The Killian documents were alleged to be fakes, starting with a Free Republic web posting by Harry MacDougald, a conservative Republican lawyer posting under the blogger name, "Buckhead." MacDougald and multiple fellow bloggers pointed out that the formatting shown in the documents used proportional fonts that did not come into common use until the mid-to-late 1990s and alleged that the documents were therefore likely forgeries.

The forgery allegations subsequently came to the attention of the mainstream media, especially after experts also questioned the documents' authenticity and lack of a chain of custody. The original documents have never been submitted for authentication. The man who delivered the copies, Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a former officer in the Texas Army National Guard and outspoken Bush critic, claimed that he burned the originals. Burkett admitted lying to CBS and USA Today about where he had obtained the papers and eventually expressed doubts of his own about their authenticity.

CBS and Dan Rather initially defended the documents and the report, but on September 20, 2004 – less than two months before Election Day, CBS News stated that it had been "misled" and that it could not authenticate the documents and should not have used them. CBS then formed an independent panel headed by former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and retired Associated Press president Louis D. Boccardi to investigate the story and the handling of the Killian memos. The final report of the panel, while not addressing the authenticity of the documents, faulted many of the decisions made in developing the story, and producer Mary Mapes along with three others were forced to resign from CBS News.

Prior to the panel report being completed, Rather announced the date of his retirement, left "60 Minutes Wednesday", stepped down as anchor on March 9, 2006, and then left CBS altogether on June 20, 2006. The CBS news show that had aired the memos, "60 Minutes Wednesday" was canceled on May 18, 2005, allegedly due to poor ratings and not because of the memos broadcast.

In September 2007, Rather sued CBS and its former parent company, Viacom, for US$70 million, claiming that he had been made a "scapegoat" over the memos story. His legal fight with CBS ended in January 2010 when the New York State Supreme Court declined to hear his motion to reinstate his lawsuit.