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The Killian documents controversy (also called Memogate, Rathergate or RathergateThe name "Rathergate" comes from people who believe the superscripted "th" glyphs in the memos show that they were produced on a computer. For Killian documents authenticity issues#Superscripted "th", see the companion article.) involved four of six documents critical of President of the United States George W. Bush's service in the United States National Guard. The four documents were presented as authentic in a 60 Minutes II broadcast aired by CBS on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the United States presidential election, 2004, but had not been properly authenticated by CBS. Many media sources have asserted that the memos are forgeries. This has also been suggested by some typewriter and typography experts Making Headlines, Not Setting Them. As no original documents have been produced, it is difficult to ascertain their validity.

Copies of the documents were obtained by CBS News producer Mary Mapes from Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a former officer in the Texas Army National Guard (TexARNG). In the report, Dan Rather asserted the documents "were taken from Colonel Killian’s personal files" and that they had been authenticated by experts retained by CBS. The papers, purportedly made by Bush's commander, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, included criticisms of Bush's service in the Guard during the 1970s.

The authenticity of the documents was challenged within hours on Internet forums and blogs, with questions initially focused on alleged anachronisms in the documents' typography and content soon spreading to the mass media. Although CBS and Rather defended the authenticity and usage of the document for a two-week period, continued scrutiny from independent and rival news organizations and independent analysis of other copies of the documents obtained by USA Today raised questions about the documents' validity and led to a public repudiation 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," 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."

The documents have subsequently never been authenticated, and no originals have been produced for examination. Burkett claims he burned the originals. USA Today

Several months later, a CBS-appointed panel detailed criticism of both the initial CBS news segment and CBS' "strident defense" during the aftermath. The findings in the Thornburgh-Boccardi report led to the firing of producer Mary Mapes; several senior news executives were asked to resign, and CBS apologized to viewers. The panel did not specifically consider the question of whether the documents were forgeries but concluded that the producers had failed to authenticate the documents and cited "substantial questions regarding the authenticity of the Killian documents."

Background and timeline The memos, allegedly written in 1972 and 1973 were obtained by CBS News producer Mary Mapes and Michael Smith, a freelance journalist from Texas who was collaborating with Mapes, from Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a former Texas Air National Guard officer, although CBS did not name him as the source until other news organizations began to speculate about Burkett's role. Burkett had received publicity in 2000, after making and then retracting a claim that he had been transferred to Panama for refusing "to falsify personnel records of Governor Bush",Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 53. and in February of 2004, when he claimed to have knowledge of "scrubbing" of Bush's TexANG records According to the review panel, investigations by major news outlets at the time, including CBS, "revealed inconsistencies... which led to questions regarding his credibility and whether his claims could be proven."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 51. The review panel found that despite this coverage, "no one involved in the vetting of the September 8 segment seemed to be aware of it."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 52

Mapes and Smith made contact with Burkett in late August, and on August 24 Burkett offered to meet with them to share the documents he possessed. Emails between Smith and Mapes document their discussion of providing assistance to Burkett (financial compensation, help negotiating a book deal, security, and Burkett's request that they facilitate his contact with the John Kerry Campaign) in exchange for the documents but found no evidence that any of these proposals "contemplated in these emails was ever consummated, except for putting Burkett in touch with the Kerry campaign," which the report characterized as, "a clear violation of CBS News' standard II-I as an 'unethical newsgathering practice."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp. 60–62 During the last week of August, Mapes contacted her immediate superior, Josh Howard, who "emphatically denied giving Mapes permission to make the call." Mapes claims that Howard authorized the contact Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp. 64–65 and in any case, she was in contact with the campaign several times during the period of the end of August through September 6, when she spoke with senior Kerry advisor Joe Lockhart regarding the progressing story. Lockhart later told the Panel that he was "wary" of contact with Mapes at this stage, because if the story were true, his involvement might undermine its credibility, and if it were false, "he did not want to be associated with it."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp. 90–91

Two documents were provided by Burkett to Mapes on September 2 and four others on September 5, 2004. At the time he supplied the documents, Burkett told Mapes that they were copies of originals that had been obtained from Killian's personal files via Chief Warrant Officer George Conn, another former member of the TexANG (Later, Burkett changed his story more than once about his claims regarding how he supposedly came into possession of the documents). At this time, Mapes contacted Rather to keep him up to date on the progress of the story, which was being targeted to air on September 8.

Content of the memos The documents allegedly showed that Bush disobeyed orders while in the Guard, and had undue influence exerted on his behalf to improve his record, and included the following accusations:

  • An order directing Bush to submit to a physical examination. This order was not carried out.
  • A note that Killian had grounded Bush from flying due to "failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards," and for failure to submit to the physical examination as ordered. Killian also requested that a flight inquiry board be convened, as required by regulations, to examine the reasons for Bush's loss of flight status. Independent documents confirm Bush was grounded for failure to complete a physical.
  • A note of a telephone conversation with Bush in which Bush sought to be excused from "drill." The note records that Bush said he did not have the time to attend to his National Guard duties because he had a campaign to do (the Senate campaign of Winton M. Blount in Alabama).
  • A note (labeled "CYA" for "cover your ass") claiming that Killian was being pressured from above to give Bush better marks in his yearly evaluation than he had earned. The note attributed to Killian says that he was being asked to "sugarcoat" Bush's performance. "I'm having trouble running interference Bush and doing my job."


    • USA Today also received copies of the four documents used by CBS and two additional memos, and identified Burkett as the source for this set of documents.

    CBS investigations prior to airing the segment Mapes and her colleagues began preparing a news segment to air on the September 8 program, interviewing people who might be able to corroborate the information in the documents while also retaining four forensic document experts (Marcel J. Matley, James J. Pierce, Emily Will, and Linda James) to determine the validity of the memos.

    On September 5, CBS interviewed Robert Strong, a friend of Killian's who ran the Texas Air National Guard administrative office. Among other issues covered in his interview with Rather and Mapes, Strong was asked if he thought the documents were genuine. Strong had first seen the documents 20 minutes earlier and had said he had no personal knowledge of their content, but also replied, "they are compatible with the way business was done at the time. They are compatible with the man that I remember Jerry Killian being." Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p.88

    On September 6 CBS interviewed General Robert "Bobby" Hodges, a former officer at the Texas Air National Guard and Killian's immediate superior at the time. Hodges declined CBS' request for an on-camera interview, and Mapes read the documents to him over the telephone. According to Mapes, Hodges agreed with CBS's assessment that the documents were real, and CBS reported Hodges stating that details read to him over the phone were "the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."

    According to Hodges, when Mapes read portions of the memos to him he simply stated, "well if he wrote them, that's what he felt," and he claims he never confirmed the validity of the content of the documents, further asserting to the investigatory panel that he told Mapes at the time that Killian had never, to his knowledge, ordered anyone to take a physical and that he had never been pressured regarding Lieutenant Bush, as the documents alleged. Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg 103 Hodges also claims that when CBS interviewed him, he thought the memos were handwritten, not typed, Registration required. and following the September 8 broadcast, when Hodges had seen the documents and heard of claims of forgery by Killian's wife and son, he was "convinced they were not authentic" and told Rather and Mapes on September 10. Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg 12

    Response of the document examiners Prior to airing, all four of the examiners responded to Mapes' request for document analysis, though only two to Mapes directly: Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp 84–86



    The Segment, September 8 The segment, entitled "For The Record," aired on 60 Minutes Wednesday on September 8. A transcript is available here. After introducing the documents, Rather said, in reference to Matley,

    "We consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic,"

    The segment introduced Lieutenant Robert Strong's interview, describing him as a "friend of Killian" (without noting he had not worked in the same location and without mentioning he had left the TexANG prior to the dates on the memos). The segment used the sound bite of Strong saying the documents were compatible with how business was done but did not include a disclaimer that Strong was told to assume the documents were authentic.Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp. 128–129

    In Rather's narration about one of the memos, he referred to pressure being applied on Bush's behalf by General Buck Staudt, and described Staudt as "the man in charge of the Texas National Guard." Staudt had retired from the guard a year and a half prior to the dates of the memos.

    Interview clips with Ben Barnes, former Speaker of the Texas House, created the impression "that there was no question but that President Bush had received Barnes' help to get into the TexANG," because Barnes had made a telephone call on Bush's behalf, when Barnes himself had acknowledged that there was no proof his call was the reason, and that "sometimes a call to General Rose did not work." Barnes' disclaimer was not included in the Segment.Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg. 130

    Initial skepticism Within hours of the segment, the authenticity of the documents was questioned by posters on Free Republic, a conservative Internet forum, and discussion quickly spread to various weblogs in the blogosphere, principally Little Green Footballs and Powerline.

    The initial skepticism appeared in posts by Buckhead also known as Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta attorney who had worked for conservative groups such as the Federalist Society and the Southeastern Legal Foundation and who had helped draft the petition to the Arkansas Supreme Court for the disbarment of President Bill Clinton.



    From there, the story was picked up by the Drudge Report and broke into mass media outlets, including the Associated Press and the major television news networks, as well as getting serious attention from conservative writers such as National Review Online's Jim Geraghty, and Michael R. Caputo in the Christian Science Monitor. The first newspaper article questioning the documents appeared in The Washington Post on September 10. However, the September 9 edition of American Broadcasting Company's Nightline made mention of the controversy, along with an article on the ABC News website.

    CBS's response





    In an appearance on CNN that day, Rather asserted "I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn't have gone to air if they would not have been."

    On September 10, a CBS memo reiterated the company's confidence in the authenticity of the documents, which it said were "backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content" and insisted that no internal investigation would take place. A former Vice President of CBS News, Jonathan Klein, dismissed the allegations of bloggers, suggesting that the "checks and balances" of a professional news organization were superior to individuals sitting at their home computers "in their pajamas." In response, some conservative bloggers started to refer to themselves as Pajamahadeen.

    However, within CBS, Josh Howard spoke at length on the telephone with typewriter expert Peter Tytell. Howard later told the Panel that the discussion was, "an 'unsettling event' that shook his belief in the authenticity of the documents." Producer Mapes dismissed Tytell's concerns.Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg 174

    Concurrently, USA Today reported that it had also obtained copies of some of the memos and had hired independent document examiners to review them, and other news outlets began to pursue the story aggressively.Newspapers that carried stories questioning the documents' authenticity on September 10 or 11 included The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Houston Chronicle, The Chicago Sun-Times, and the Daily News (New York).

    On September 11, a CBS News Segment stated that document expert Phillip Bouffard had initially expressed doubts, but then reported to CBS that the documents "could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer Typewriter, available at the time,".Globe repudiates title of Sept 11 article.

    CBS noted that General Hodges had changed his opinion about the authenticity of the documents he had never seen, but stated "we believed General Hodges the first time we spoke with him," and "we believe the documents to be genuine."

    By September 13, Rather acknowledged that "some of these questions come from people who are not active political partisans," but reaffirmed that CBS "talked to handwriting and document analysts and other experts who strongly insist the documents could have been created in the 70s, (emphasis added)," a change from his and CBS' previous position that the material was authentic.

    The analysts and experts cited by Rather pointedly did not include the original four experts consulted by CBS, who had not authenticated the documents; instead, Rather presented two additional viewpoints, from Bill Glennon and Richard Katz. As a result, independent media and blog sites accused CBS of expert shopping to produce document examiners who supported CBS' minority view that the documents were genuine. Glennon, a former typewriter repairman with no specific credentials in typesetting beyond that job, was found by CBS after posting several opinionated defenses of the memos on left wing blog sites such as Daily Kos and Kevin Drum's blog hosted at Washington Monthly. However, in the actual broadcast, neither interviewee asserted that the memos were genuine; Rather ended by stating CBS "believes the documents to be authentic."

    Response statement, Carr interview By September 15, Emily Will was publicly stating that she had told CBS that she had doubts about both the production of the memos and the handwriting prior to the segment, and in interviews, Linda James stated that the memos were of "very poor quality" and that she did not authenticate them.

    In response, 60 Minutes Wednesday released a statement suggesting that Will and James had "misrepresented" their role in the authentication of the documents and had played only a small part in the process. CBS News concurrently amended their previous claim that Matley had authenticated the documents, saying instead he had only authenticated the signatures. On CNN, Matley stated he had only verified that the signatures were "from the same source," not that they were authentically Killian's: "When I saw the documents, I could not verify the documents were authentic or inauthentic. I could only verify that the signatures came from the same source," Matley said. "I could not authenticate the documents themselves. But at the same time, there was nothing to tell me that they were not authentic."

    CBS located and interviewed Marian Carr Knox, who was a secretary at Ellington Air Force from 1956 to 1979, and Colonel Killian's assistant on the dates of the memos. According to Knox, she did not type the memos and the memos were not written by Killian, though she believed they reflected the truth about Lieutenant Bush. She also stated she had no firsthand knowledge of Bush's time in the Guard. Referring to the disputed memos, Knox commented "The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones," she said. "I probably typed the information and somebody picked up the information some way or another." CBS also hired a private investigator to look into the matter after the story aired and the controversy began. $Registration required.

    Copies of the documents were first released to the public by the White House. Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated that the memos had been provided to them by CBS in the days prior to the report and that, "We had every reason to believe that they were authentic at that time." Some have critically suggested that this belief of authenticity by the White House could not have existed if the memos contained information they knew to be inaccurate. Others suggest that if the White House did not release what CBS gave them (documents/photocopies of unknown provenance), there would have been complaints of 'failure to disclose'.

    The Washington Post reported that at least one of the documents obtained by CBS had a fax header indicating it had been faxed from a Kinko's copy center in Abilene, Texas, leading some to trace the documents back to Burkett.

    It was reported that the new Killian memos were inconsistent with his endorsement of Lt Bush's May 1971 performance review, a year prior to the date on the disputed documents. Killian endorsed the rating officer's evaluation of Bush, which in part described him as "an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot". However, the more applicable performance review for the May 1, 1972 - April 30, 1973 period had all "Rating Factors" checked off as "Not Observed" and with the comment by the rating officer, "Lt Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report." This "Not Observed" rating report provoked the USAF, which overseers Air National Guard pilots, to issue a "Notice of Missing or Correction of Officer Effectiveness Training Report" on June 29, 1973. USAF Master Sgt. Daniel P. Harkness, wrote "Ratings must be entered on this officer in Sections V & VI. An AF Fm 77a should be requested from the training unit so that this officer can be rated in the position he held. This officer should have been reassigned in May 1972 since he no longer is training in his AFSC (Air Force Service Category, or job title) or with his unit of assignment." The inquiry evidently ended on November 12, 1973 when Harkness's request was denied by Major Rufus G. Martin with the comment, "Report for this period not available for administrative reasons."

    Analyses of these and other official records released by the Pentagon regarding Bush's military service suggest that some documents that should be in the official records are inexplicably missing: "Each of these actions by any member of the National Guard should have generated the creation of many documents that have yet to be produced," AP lawyer David Schulz wrote the Justice Department Aug. 26, 2004. White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said there were no other documents to explain discrepancies in Bush's files.

    CBS reported on September 9 that Killian's son, Gary Killian, questioned one of the memos but stated that others "appeared legitimate" and characterized the collection as "a mixture of truth and fiction".

    CBS states that use of the documents was a mistake As a growing number of independent document examiners and competing news outlets reported their findings about the documents, CBS News stopped defending the documents and began to report on the problems with their story. On September 20 they reported that their source, Bill Burkett, "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source." While the network did not state that the memos were forgeries, CBS News President Andrew Heyward did state

    "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."''

    Dan 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."

    On November 9, 2005, Mary Mapes gave an interview to ABC News correspondent Brian Ross. Mapes stated that the documents have never been proved to be forgeries. Ross expressed the view that the responsibility is on the reporter to verify their authenticity. Mapes responded with, "I don't think that's the standard." This stands in contrast to the statement of the president of CBS News that proof of authenticity is "the only acceptable journalistic standard."

    In an interview with Dan Rather, Burkett admitted that he misled CBS about the source of the documents, and then claimed that the documents came to him from "Lucy Ramirez", whom CBS was unable to contact or identify as an actual person. Burkett said he then made copies at the local FedEx Kinko's and burned the original documents.

    On September 21, CBS News addressed the contact with the Kerry campaign in its statement:"It is obviously against CBS News standards and those of every other reputable news organization to be associated with any political agenda." The next day the network announced it was forming an independent review panel to perform an internal investigation.

    Review panel established Soon after, CBS established a review panel "to help determine what errors occurred in the preparation of the report and what actions need to be taken." Dick Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and United States Attorney General, and Louis Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer and former executive editor of the Associated Press, made up the two-person review board.

    Findings On January 5, 2005, the Report of the Independent Review Panel on the September 8, 2004, 60 Minutes Wednesday Segment "For the Record" Concerning President Bush's Air National Guard Service was released. (The complete report is available here.)

    The purpose of the panel was to examine the process by which the September 8 Segment was prepared and broadcast, to examine the circumstances surrounding the subsequent public statements and news reports by CBS News defending the segment, and to make any recommendations it deemed appropriate. Among the Panel's conclusions were the following:

    The most serious defects in the reporting and production of the September 8 Segment were: # The failure to obtain clear authentication of any of the Killian documents from any document examiner; # The false statement in the September 8 Segment that an expert had authenticated the Killian documents when all he had done was authenticate one signature from one document used in the Segment; # The failure of 60 Minutes Wednesday management to scrutinize the publicly available, and at times controversial, background of the source of the documents, retired Texas Army National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett; # The failure to find and interview the individual who was understood at the outset to be Lieutenant Colonel Burkett’s source of the Killian documents, and thus to establish the chain of custody; # The failure to establish a basis for the statement in the Segment that the documents "were taken from Colonel Killian’s personal files"; # The failure to develop adequate corroboration to support the statements in the Killian documents and to carefully compare the Killian documents to official TexANG records, which would have identified, at a minimum, notable inconsistencies in content and format; # The failure to interview a range of former National Guardsmen who served with Lieutenant Colonel Killian and who had different perspectives about the documents; # The misleading impression conveyed in the Segment that Lieutenant Strong had authenticated the content of the documents when he did not have the personal knowledge to do so; # The failure to have a vetting process capable of dealing effectively with the production speed, significance and sensitivity of the Segment; and # The telephone call prior to the Segment’s airing by the producer of the Segment to a senior campaign official of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry — a clear conflict of interest — that created the appearance of a political bias.

    Once questions were raised about the September 8 Segment, the reporting thereafter was mishandled and compounded the damage done. Among the more egregious shortcomings during the Aftermath were: # The strident defense of the September 8 Segment by CBS News without adequately probing whether any of the questions raised had merit; # Allowing many of the same individuals who produced and vetted the by-then controversial September 8 Segment to also produce the follow-up news reports defending the Segment; # The inaccurate press statements issued by CBS News after the broadcast of the Segment that the source of the documents was “unimpeachable” and that experts had vouched for their authenticity; # The misleading stories defending the Segment that aired on the CBS Evening News after September 8 despite strong and multiple indications of serious flaws; # The efforts by 60 Minutes Wednesday to find additional document examiners who would vouch for the authenticity of the documents instead of identifying the best examiners available regardless of whether they would support this position; and # Preparing news stories that sought to support the Segment, instead of providing accurate and balanced coverage of a raging controversy.

    Panel's view of the documents themselves The Panel did not undertake a thorough examination of the authenticity of the Killian documents, but consulted Peter Tytell, a New York City-based forensic document examiner and typewriter and typography expert. Tytell had been contacted by 60 Minutes producers prior to the broadcast, and had informed associate producer Yvonne Miller and executive producer Josh Howard on September 10 that he believed the documents were forgeries. The Panel report stated, "The Panel met with Peter Tytell, and found his analysis sound in terms of why he thought the documents were not authentic...The Panel reaches no conclusion as to whether Tytell was correct in all respects."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg. 175

    Aftermath In the end, it is not clear if the story influenced the 2004 Presidential Election.

    CBS apologized to viewers, terminated Mary Mapes, and demanded the resignations of Senior Vice President Betsy West, who had been in charge of all prime time newscasts, 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard, and Howard's top deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. Murphy and West resigned on February 25, 2005, and after settling a legal dispute regarding his level of responsibility for the segment, Josh Howard resigned on March 25, 2005.

    Dan Rather also resigned as anchorman in 2005. It is unclear whether or not Rather's retirement was directly caused by this incident, although many believe that he had to step down a year earlier than planned.

    On November 7, 2006, Rather defended the report in a radio interview, and rejected the CBS investigation's findings. In response, CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco told the Associated Press, "CBS News stands by the report the independent panel issued on this matter and to this day, no one has been able to authenticate the documents in question."

    CBS was originally planning to show a '60 Minutes' report critical of the Bush administration justification for going to war in Iraq. This segment was replaced with the Killian documents segment. CBS further postponed airing the Iraq segment until after the election due to the controversy over the Killian documents. "We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election," CBS spokesman Kelli Edwards said in a statement.

    Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS/Viacom On Wednesday, September 19, 2007, Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former corporate parent, Viacom, claiming they had made him a "scapegoat" over the controversy caused by the 2004 "60 Minutes Wednesday" report that featured the Killian documents . The suit names as defendants: CBS and its CEO, Leslie Moonves; Viacom and its executive chairman, Sumner Redstone; and Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News. A PDF copy of the suit can be found on at .

    The day after Rather brought suit, Mapes defended the documents' authenticity in an column, writing, "Instantly, the far right blogosphere bully boys pronounced themselves experts on document analysis, and began attacking the form and font in the memos. They screamed objections that ultimately proved to have no basis in fact."

    Authentication issues No generally recognized document experts have positively authenticated the memos. Since CBS used only faxed and photocopied duplicates, authentication to professional standards is impossible, regardless of the provenance of the originals.

    Document experts have challenged the authenticity of the documents as photocopies of valid originals on a variety of grounds ranging from anachronisms of their typography, their quick reproducibility using modern technology, and to errors in their content and style.Kurtz, Howard Document Experts Say CBS Ignored Memo 'Red Flags' Washington Post Accessed April 2006

    Other commentators disagreed. Dr. David Hailey, director of the Interactive Media Research Labs in the English Department of Utah State University has argued that the Killian documents were produced on an unspecified typewriter, though he does not assert their authenticity.

    The CBS independent panel report did not specifically take up the question of whether the documents were forgeries, but retained a document expert, Peter Tytell, who concluded the documents used by CBS were most likely produced using modern technology. Tytell concluded ... that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle that the Killian documents were not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.

    For a detailed analysis of these issues, see Killian documents authenticity issues.

    Was the story politically motivated? Some critics of CBS and Dan Rather argued that by proceeding with the story when the documents had not been authenticated, CBS was exhibiting liberal bias and attempting to influence the outcome of the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election. Often cited as evidence of this theory is an email from freelance journalist Michael Smith to Mapes, in which he pitched the documents as the basis of a story by 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, hypotheticallyspeaking of course."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg. 62 The Thornburgh-Boccardi report found that producer Mary Mapes' contacting of 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."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg. 175 After interviewing Mapes, Rather and the other CBS staffers involved in the story, the panel did not "find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted or aired the Segment of having a political bias."Thornburgh-Boccardi Report, pg. 211 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."The Washington Post, Tuesday, January 11, 2005; Page A01, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2148-2005Jan11.htmlThe panel concluded that the problems occurred "primarily because of a rush to air that overwhelmed the proper application of the CBS News Standards."Thornburgh-Boccardi Report, pg. 221

    Some liberals and Democratic critics of the president suggested that the memos were produced by the Bush campaign to discredit the media's reporting on Bush's National Guard service. However, no evidence was ever offered linking the memos to the Bush campaign, or to Republican political operatives. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe, suggested that the memos might have originated with long-time Bush strategist, Karl Rove. He 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." via Lexis/Nexis Two weeks later, McAuliffe suggested that GOP consultant Roger Stone and Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie were involved, saying in a press release, "Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what they know about Mr. Stone's relationship with these forged documents? Will they unequivocally rule out Mr. Stone's involvement? Or for that matter, others with a known history of dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove or Ralph Reed?" via Lexis/Nexis At a community forum in Utica, New York in 2005, United States House of Representatives Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) repeated the claim that the documents originated with Karl Rove. No evidence was offered that the memos originated with the Bush campaign. Rove and Stone have denied any involvement.

    Dan Rather continues to stand by the story, and in subsequent interviews has articulated that he believes that the documents have never conclusively been proven to be forgeries — and that even if the documents are false, that the underlying story is true.

    See also

    Footnotes

    External links PDF copies of the CBS Killian documents The CBS News Killian documents: The USA Today Killian documents (in .pdf format):

    The Thornburgh-Boccardi Report

    News items



    The Killian documents controversy (also called Memogate, Rathergate or RathergateThe name "Rathergate" comes from people who believe the superscripted "th" glyphs in the memos show that they were produced on a computer. For Killian documents authenticity issues#Superscripted "th", see the companion article.) involved four of six documents critical of President of the United States George W. Bush's service in the United States National Guard. The four documents were presented as authentic in a 60 Minutes II broadcast aired by CBS on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the United States presidential election, 2004, but had not been properly authenticated by CBS. Many media sources have asserted that the memos are forgeries. This has also been suggested by some typewriter and typography experts Making Headlines, Not Setting Them. As no original documents have been produced, it is difficult to ascertain their validity.

    Copies of the documents were obtained by CBS News producer Mary Mapes from Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a former officer in the Texas Army National Guard (TexARNG). In the report, Dan Rather asserted the documents "were taken from Colonel Killian’s personal files" and that they had been authenticated by experts retained by CBS. The papers, purportedly made by Bush's commander, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, included criticisms of Bush's service in the Guard during the 1970s.

    The authenticity of the documents was challenged within hours on Internet forums and blogs, with questions initially focused on alleged anachronisms in the documents' typography and content soon spreading to the mass media. Although CBS and Rather defended the authenticity and usage of the document for a two-week period, continued scrutiny from independent and rival news organizations and independent analysis of other copies of the documents obtained by USA Today raised questions about the documents' validity and led to a public repudiation 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," 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."

    The documents have subsequently never been authenticated, and no originals have been produced for examination. Burkett claims he burned the originals. USA Today

    Several months later, a CBS-appointed panel detailed criticism of both the initial CBS news segment and CBS' "strident defense" during the aftermath. The findings in the Thornburgh-Boccardi report led to the firing of producer Mary Mapes; several senior news executives were asked to resign, and CBS apologized to viewers. The panel did not specifically consider the question of whether the documents were forgeries but concluded that the producers had failed to authenticate the documents and cited "substantial questions regarding the authenticity of the Killian documents."

    Background and timeline The memos, allegedly written in 1972 and 1973 were obtained by CBS News producer Mary Mapes and Michael Smith, a freelance journalist from Texas who was collaborating with Mapes, from Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a former Texas Air National Guard officer, although CBS did not name him as the source until other news organizations began to speculate about Burkett's role. Burkett had received publicity in 2000, after making and then retracting a claim that he had been transferred to Panama for refusing "to falsify personnel records of Governor Bush",Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 53. and in February of 2004, when he claimed to have knowledge of "scrubbing" of Bush's TexANG records According to the review panel, investigations by major news outlets at the time, including CBS, "revealed inconsistencies... which led to questions regarding his credibility and whether his claims could be proven."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 51. The review panel found that despite this coverage, "no one involved in the vetting of the September 8 segment seemed to be aware of it."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 52

    Mapes and Smith made contact with Burkett in late August, and on August 24 Burkett offered to meet with them to share the documents he possessed. Emails between Smith and Mapes document their discussion of providing assistance to Burkett (financial compensation, help negotiating a book deal, security, and Burkett's request that they facilitate his contact with the John Kerry Campaign) in exchange for the documents but found no evidence that any of these proposals "contemplated in these emails was ever consummated, except for putting Burkett in touch with the Kerry campaign," which the report characterized as, "a clear violation of CBS News' standard II-I as an 'unethical newsgathering practice."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp. 60–62 During the last week of August, Mapes contacted her immediate superior, Josh Howard, who "emphatically denied giving Mapes permission to make the call." Mapes claims that Howard authorized the contact Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp. 64–65 and in any case, she was in contact with the campaign several times during the period of the end of August through September 6, when she spoke with senior Kerry advisor Joe Lockhart regarding the progressing story. Lockhart later told the Panel that he was "wary" of contact with Mapes at this stage, because if the story were true, his involvement might undermine its credibility, and if it were false, "he did not want to be associated with it."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp. 90–91

    Two documents were provided by Burkett to Mapes on September 2 and four others on September 5, 2004. At the time he supplied the documents, Burkett told Mapes that they were copies of originals that had been obtained from Killian's personal files via Chief Warrant Officer George Conn, another former member of the TexANG (Later, Burkett changed his story more than once about his claims regarding how he supposedly came into possession of the documents). At this time, Mapes contacted Rather to keep him up to date on the progress of the story, which was being targeted to air on September 8.

    Content of the memos The documents allegedly showed that Bush disobeyed orders while in the Guard, and had undue influence exerted on his behalf to improve his record, and included the following accusations:

  • An order directing Bush to submit to a physical examination. This order was not carried out.
  • A note that Killian had grounded Bush from flying due to "failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards," and for failure to submit to the physical examination as ordered. Killian also requested that a flight inquiry board be convened, as required by regulations, to examine the reasons for Bush's loss of flight status. Independent documents confirm Bush was grounded for failure to complete a physical.
  • A note of a telephone conversation with Bush in which Bush sought to be excused from "drill." The note records that Bush said he did not have the time to attend to his National Guard duties because he had a campaign to do (the Senate campaign of Winton M. Blount in Alabama).
  • A note (labeled "CYA" for "cover your ass") claiming that Killian was being pressured from above to give Bush better marks in his yearly evaluation than he had earned. The note attributed to Killian says that he was being asked to "sugarcoat" Bush's performance. "I'm having trouble running interference Bush and doing my job."


    • USA Today also received copies of the four documents used by CBS and two additional memos, and identified Burkett as the source for this set of documents.

    CBS investigations prior to airing the segment Mapes and her colleagues began preparing a news segment to air on the September 8 program, interviewing people who might be able to corroborate the information in the documents while also retaining four forensic document experts (Marcel J. Matley, James J. Pierce, Emily Will, and Linda James) to determine the validity of the memos.

    On September 5, CBS interviewed Robert Strong, a friend of Killian's who ran the Texas Air National Guard administrative office. Among other issues covered in his interview with Rather and Mapes, Strong was asked if he thought the documents were genuine. Strong had first seen the documents 20 minutes earlier and had said he had no personal knowledge of their content, but also replied, "they are compatible with the way business was done at the time. They are compatible with the man that I remember Jerry Killian being." Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p.88

    On September 6 CBS interviewed General Robert "Bobby" Hodges, a former officer at the Texas Air National Guard and Killian's immediate superior at the time. Hodges declined CBS' request for an on-camera interview, and Mapes read the documents to him over the telephone. According to Mapes, Hodges agreed with CBS's assessment that the documents were real, and CBS reported Hodges stating that details read to him over the phone were "the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."

    According to Hodges, when Mapes read portions of the memos to him he simply stated, "well if he wrote them, that's what he felt," and he claims he never confirmed the validity of the content of the documents, further asserting to the investigatory panel that he told Mapes at the time that Killian had never, to his knowledge, ordered anyone to take a physical and that he had never been pressured regarding Lieutenant Bush, as the documents alleged. Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg 103 Hodges also claims that when CBS interviewed him, he thought the memos were handwritten, not typed, Registration required. and following the September 8 broadcast, when Hodges had seen the documents and heard of claims of forgery by Killian's wife and son, he was "convinced they were not authentic" and told Rather and Mapes on September 10. Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg 12

    Response of the document examiners Prior to airing, all four of the examiners responded to Mapes' request for document analysis, though only two to Mapes directly: Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp 84–86



    The Segment, September 8 The segment, entitled "For The Record," aired on 60 Minutes Wednesday on September 8. A transcript is available here. After introducing the documents, Rather said, in reference to Matley,

    "We consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic,"

    The segment introduced Lieutenant Robert Strong's interview, describing him as a "friend of Killian" (without noting he had not worked in the same location and without mentioning he had left the TexANG prior to the dates on the memos). The segment used the sound bite of Strong saying the documents were compatible with how business was done but did not include a disclaimer that Strong was told to assume the documents were authentic.Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pp. 128–129

    In Rather's narration about one of the memos, he referred to pressure being applied on Bush's behalf by General Buck Staudt, and described Staudt as "the man in charge of the Texas National Guard." Staudt had retired from the guard a year and a half prior to the dates of the memos.

    Interview clips with Ben Barnes, former Speaker of the Texas House, created the impression "that there was no question but that President Bush had received Barnes' help to get into the TexANG," because Barnes had made a telephone call on Bush's behalf, when Barnes himself had acknowledged that there was no proof his call was the reason, and that "sometimes a call to General Rose did not work." Barnes' disclaimer was not included in the Segment.Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg. 130

    Initial skepticism Within hours of the segment, the authenticity of the documents was questioned by posters on Free Republic, a conservative Internet forum, and discussion quickly spread to various weblogs in the blogosphere, principally Little Green Footballs and Powerline.

    The initial skepticism appeared in posts by Buckhead also known as Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta attorney who had worked for conservative groups such as the Federalist Society and the Southeastern Legal Foundation and who had helped draft the petition to the Arkansas Supreme Court for the disbarment of President Bill Clinton.



    From there, the story was picked up by the Drudge Report and broke into mass media outlets, including the Associated Press and the major television news networks, as well as getting serious attention from conservative writers such as National Review Online's Jim Geraghty, and Michael R. Caputo in the Christian Science Monitor. The first newspaper article questioning the documents appeared in The Washington Post on September 10. However, the September 9 edition of American Broadcasting Company's Nightline made mention of the controversy, along with an article on the ABC News website.

    CBS's response





    In an appearance on CNN that day, Rather asserted "I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn't have gone to air if they would not have been."

    On September 10, a CBS memo reiterated the company's confidence in the authenticity of the documents, which it said were "backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content" and insisted that no internal investigation would take place. A former Vice President of CBS News, Jonathan Klein, dismissed the allegations of bloggers, suggesting that the "checks and balances" of a professional news organization were superior to individuals sitting at their home computers "in their pajamas." In response, some conservative bloggers started to refer to themselves as Pajamahadeen.

    However, within CBS, Josh Howard spoke at length on the telephone with typewriter expert Peter Tytell. Howard later told the Panel that the discussion was, "an 'unsettling event' that shook his belief in the authenticity of the documents." Producer Mapes dismissed Tytell's concerns.Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg 174

    Concurrently, USA Today reported that it had also obtained copies of some of the memos and had hired independent document examiners to review them, and other news outlets began to pursue the story aggressively.Newspapers that carried stories questioning the documents' authenticity on September 10 or 11 included The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Houston Chronicle, The Chicago Sun-Times, and the Daily News (New York).

    On September 11, a CBS News Segment stated that document expert Phillip Bouffard had initially expressed doubts, but then reported to CBS that the documents "could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer Typewriter, available at the time,".Globe repudiates title of Sept 11 article.

    CBS noted that General Hodges had changed his opinion about the authenticity of the documents he had never seen, but stated "we believed General Hodges the first time we spoke with him," and "we believe the documents to be genuine."

    By September 13, Rather acknowledged that "some of these questions come from people who are not active political partisans," but reaffirmed that CBS "talked to handwriting and document analysts and other experts who strongly insist the documents could have been created in the 70s, (emphasis added)," a change from his and CBS' previous position that the material was authentic.

    The analysts and experts cited by Rather pointedly did not include the original four experts consulted by CBS, who had not authenticated the documents; instead, Rather presented two additional viewpoints, from Bill Glennon and Richard Katz. As a result, independent media and blog sites accused CBS of expert shopping to produce document examiners who supported CBS' minority view that the documents were genuine. Glennon, a former typewriter repairman with no specific credentials in typesetting beyond that job, was found by CBS after posting several opinionated defenses of the memos on left wing blog sites such as Daily Kos and Kevin Drum's blog hosted at Washington Monthly. However, in the actual broadcast, neither interviewee asserted that the memos were genuine; Rather ended by stating CBS "believes the documents to be authentic."

    Response statement, Carr interview By September 15, Emily Will was publicly stating that she had told CBS that she had doubts about both the production of the memos and the handwriting prior to the segment, and in interviews, Linda James stated that the memos were of "very poor quality" and that she did not authenticate them.

    In response, 60 Minutes Wednesday released a statement suggesting that Will and James had "misrepresented" their role in the authentication of the documents and had played only a small part in the process. CBS News concurrently amended their previous claim that Matley had authenticated the documents, saying instead he had only authenticated the signatures. On CNN, Matley stated he had only verified that the signatures were "from the same source," not that they were authentically Killian's: "When I saw the documents, I could not verify the documents were authentic or inauthentic. I could only verify that the signatures came from the same source," Matley said. "I could not authenticate the documents themselves. But at the same time, there was nothing to tell me that they were not authentic."

    CBS located and interviewed Marian Carr Knox, who was a secretary at Ellington Air Force from 1956 to 1979, and Colonel Killian's assistant on the dates of the memos. According to Knox, she did not type the memos and the memos were not written by Killian, though she believed they reflected the truth about Lieutenant Bush. She also stated she had no firsthand knowledge of Bush's time in the Guard. Referring to the disputed memos, Knox commented "The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones," she said. "I probably typed the information and somebody picked up the information some way or another." CBS also hired a private investigator to look into the matter after the story aired and the controversy began. $Registration required.

    Copies of the documents were first released to the public by the White House. Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated that the memos had been provided to them by CBS in the days prior to the report and that, "We had every reason to believe that they were authentic at that time." Some have critically suggested that this belief of authenticity by the White House could not have existed if the memos contained information they knew to be inaccurate. Others suggest that if the White House did not release what CBS gave them (documents/photocopies of unknown provenance), there would have been complaints of 'failure to disclose'.

    The Washington Post reported that at least one of the documents obtained by CBS had a fax header indicating it had been faxed from a Kinko's copy center in Abilene, Texas, leading some to trace the documents back to Burkett.

    It was reported that the new Killian memos were inconsistent with his endorsement of Lt Bush's May 1971 performance review, a year prior to the date on the disputed documents. Killian endorsed the rating officer's evaluation of Bush, which in part described him as "an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot". However, the more applicable performance review for the May 1, 1972 - April 30, 1973 period had all "Rating Factors" checked off as "Not Observed" and with the comment by the rating officer, "Lt Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report." This "Not Observed" rating report provoked the USAF, which overseers Air National Guard pilots, to issue a "Notice of Missing or Correction of Officer Effectiveness Training Report" on June 29, 1973. USAF Master Sgt. Daniel P. Harkness, wrote "Ratings must be entered on this officer in Sections V & VI. An AF Fm 77a should be requested from the training unit so that this officer can be rated in the position he held. This officer should have been reassigned in May 1972 since he no longer is training in his AFSC (Air Force Service Category, or job title) or with his unit of assignment." The inquiry evidently ended on November 12, 1973 when Harkness's request was denied by Major Rufus G. Martin with the comment, "Report for this period not available for administrative reasons."

    Analyses of these and other official records released by the Pentagon regarding Bush's military service suggest that some documents that should be in the official records are inexplicably missing: "Each of these actions by any member of the National Guard should have generated the creation of many documents that have yet to be produced," AP lawyer David Schulz wrote the Justice Department Aug. 26, 2004. White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said there were no other documents to explain discrepancies in Bush's files.

    CBS reported on September 9 that Killian's son, Gary Killian, questioned one of the memos but stated that others "appeared legitimate" and characterized the collection as "a mixture of truth and fiction".

    CBS states that use of the documents was a mistake As a growing number of independent document examiners and competing news outlets reported their findings about the documents, CBS News stopped defending the documents and began to report on the problems with their story. On September 20 they reported that their source, Bill Burkett, "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source." While the network did not state that the memos were forgeries, CBS News President Andrew Heyward did state

    "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."''

    Dan 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."

    On November 9, 2005, Mary Mapes gave an interview to ABC News correspondent Brian Ross. Mapes stated that the documents have never been proved to be forgeries. Ross expressed the view that the responsibility is on the reporter to verify their authenticity. Mapes responded with, "I don't think that's the standard." This stands in contrast to the statement of the president of CBS News that proof of authenticity is "the only acceptable journalistic standard."

    In an interview with Dan Rather, Burkett admitted that he misled CBS about the source of the documents, and then claimed that the documents came to him from "Lucy Ramirez", whom CBS was unable to contact or identify as an actual person. Burkett said he then made copies at the local FedEx Kinko's and burned the original documents.

    On September 21, CBS News addressed the contact with the Kerry campaign in its statement:"It is obviously against CBS News standards and those of every other reputable news organization to be associated with any political agenda." The next day the network announced it was forming an independent review panel to perform an internal investigation.

    Review panel established Soon after, CBS established a review panel "to help determine what errors occurred in the preparation of the report and what actions need to be taken." Dick Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and United States Attorney General, and Louis Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer and former executive editor of the Associated Press, made up the two-person review board.

    Findings On January 5, 2005, the Report of the Independent Review Panel on the September 8, 2004, 60 Minutes Wednesday Segment "For the Record" Concerning President Bush's Air National Guard Service was released. (The complete report is available here.)

    The purpose of the panel was to examine the process by which the September 8 Segment was prepared and broadcast, to examine the circumstances surrounding the subsequent public statements and news reports by CBS News defending the segment, and to make any recommendations it deemed appropriate. Among the Panel's conclusions were the following:

    The most serious defects in the reporting and production of the September 8 Segment were: # The failure to obtain clear authentication of any of the Killian documents from any document examiner; # The false statement in the September 8 Segment that an expert had authenticated the Killian documents when all he had done was authenticate one signature from one document used in the Segment; # The failure of 60 Minutes Wednesday management to scrutinize the publicly available, and at times controversial, background of the source of the documents, retired Texas Army National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett; # The failure to find and interview the individual who was understood at the outset to be Lieutenant Colonel Burkett’s source of the Killian documents, and thus to establish the chain of custody; # The failure to establish a basis for the statement in the Segment that the documents "were taken from Colonel Killian’s personal files"; # The failure to develop adequate corroboration to support the statements in the Killian documents and to carefully compare the Killian documents to official TexANG records, which would have identified, at a minimum, notable inconsistencies in content and format; # The failure to interview a range of former National Guardsmen who served with Lieutenant Colonel Killian and who had different perspectives about the documents; # The misleading impression conveyed in the Segment that Lieutenant Strong had authenticated the content of the documents when he did not have the personal knowledge to do so; # The failure to have a vetting process capable of dealing effectively with the production speed, significance and sensitivity of the Segment; and # The telephone call prior to the Segment’s airing by the producer of the Segment to a senior campaign official of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry — a clear conflict of interest — that created the appearance of a political bias.

    Once questions were raised about the September 8 Segment, the reporting thereafter was mishandled and compounded the damage done. Among the more egregious shortcomings during the Aftermath were: # The strident defense of the September 8 Segment by CBS News without adequately probing whether any of the questions raised had merit; # Allowing many of the same individuals who produced and vetted the by-then controversial September 8 Segment to also produce the follow-up news reports defending the Segment; # The inaccurate press statements issued by CBS News after the broadcast of the Segment that the source of the documents was “unimpeachable” and that experts had vouched for their authenticity; # The misleading stories defending the Segment that aired on the CBS Evening News after September 8 despite strong and multiple indications of serious flaws; # The efforts by 60 Minutes Wednesday to find additional document examiners who would vouch for the authenticity of the documents instead of identifying the best examiners available regardless of whether they would support this position; and # Preparing news stories that sought to support the Segment, instead of providing accurate and balanced coverage of a raging controversy.

    Panel's view of the documents themselves The Panel did not undertake a thorough examination of the authenticity of the Killian documents, but consulted Peter Tytell, a New York City-based forensic document examiner and typewriter and typography expert. Tytell had been contacted by 60 Minutes producers prior to the broadcast, and had informed associate producer Yvonne Miller and executive producer Josh Howard on September 10 that he believed the documents were forgeries. The Panel report stated, "The Panel met with Peter Tytell, and found his analysis sound in terms of why he thought the documents were not authentic...The Panel reaches no conclusion as to whether Tytell was correct in all respects."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg. 175

    Aftermath In the end, it is not clear if the story influenced the 2004 Presidential Election.

    CBS apologized to viewers, terminated Mary Mapes, and demanded the resignations of Senior Vice President Betsy West, who had been in charge of all prime time newscasts, 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard, and Howard's top deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. Murphy and West resigned on February 25, 2005, and after settling a legal dispute regarding his level of responsibility for the segment, Josh Howard resigned on March 25, 2005.

    Dan Rather also resigned as anchorman in 2005. It is unclear whether or not Rather's retirement was directly caused by this incident, although many believe that he had to step down a year earlier than planned.

    On November 7, 2006, Rather defended the report in a radio interview, and rejected the CBS investigation's findings. In response, CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco told the Associated Press, "CBS News stands by the report the independent panel issued on this matter and to this day, no one has been able to authenticate the documents in question."

    CBS was originally planning to show a '60 Minutes' report critical of the Bush administration justification for going to war in Iraq. This segment was replaced with the Killian documents segment. CBS further postponed airing the Iraq segment until after the election due to the controversy over the Killian documents. "We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election," CBS spokesman Kelli Edwards said in a statement.

    Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS/Viacom On Wednesday, September 19, 2007, Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former corporate parent, Viacom, claiming they had made him a "scapegoat" over the controversy caused by the 2004 "60 Minutes Wednesday" report that featured the Killian documents . The suit names as defendants: CBS and its CEO, Leslie Moonves; Viacom and its executive chairman, Sumner Redstone; and Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News. A PDF copy of the suit can be found on at .

    The day after Rather brought suit, Mapes defended the documents' authenticity in an column, writing, "Instantly, the far right blogosphere bully boys pronounced themselves experts on document analysis, and began attacking the form and font in the memos. They screamed objections that ultimately proved to have no basis in fact."

    Authentication issues No generally recognized document experts have positively authenticated the memos. Since CBS used only faxed and photocopied duplicates, authentication to professional standards is impossible, regardless of the provenance of the originals.

    Document experts have challenged the authenticity of the documents as photocopies of valid originals on a variety of grounds ranging from anachronisms of their typography, their quick reproducibility using modern technology, and to errors in their content and style.Kurtz, Howard Document Experts Say CBS Ignored Memo 'Red Flags' Washington Post Accessed April 2006

    Other commentators disagreed. Dr. David Hailey, director of the Interactive Media Research Labs in the English Department of Utah State University has argued that the Killian documents were produced on an unspecified typewriter, though he does not assert their authenticity.

    The CBS independent panel report did not specifically take up the question of whether the documents were forgeries, but retained a document expert, Peter Tytell, who concluded the documents used by CBS were most likely produced using modern technology. Tytell concluded ... that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle that the Killian documents were not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.

    For a detailed analysis of these issues, see Killian documents authenticity issues.

    Was the story politically motivated? Some critics of CBS and Dan Rather argued that by proceeding with the story when the documents had not been authenticated, CBS was exhibiting liberal bias and attempting to influence the outcome of the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election. Often cited as evidence of this theory is an email from freelance journalist Michael Smith to Mapes, in which he pitched the documents as the basis of a story by 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, hypotheticallyspeaking of course."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg. 62 The Thornburgh-Boccardi report found that producer Mary Mapes' contacting of 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."Thornburgh-Boccardi report, pg. 175 After interviewing Mapes, Rather and the other CBS staffers involved in the story, the panel did not "find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted or aired the Segment of having a political bias."Thornburgh-Boccardi Report, pg. 211 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."The Washington Post, Tuesday, January 11, 2005; Page A01, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2148-2005Jan11.htmlThe panel concluded that the problems occurred "primarily because of a rush to air that overwhelmed the proper application of the CBS News Standards."Thornburgh-Boccardi Report, pg. 221

    Some liberals and Democratic critics of the president suggested that the memos were produced by the Bush campaign to discredit the media's reporting on Bush's National Guard service. However, no evidence was ever offered linking the memos to the Bush campaign, or to Republican political operatives. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe, suggested that the memos might have originated with long-time Bush strategist, Karl Rove. He 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." via Lexis/Nexis Two weeks later, McAuliffe suggested that GOP consultant Roger Stone and Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie were involved, saying in a press release, "Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what they know about Mr. Stone's relationship with these forged documents? Will they unequivocally rule out Mr. Stone's involvement? Or for that matter, others with a known history of dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove or Ralph Reed?" via Lexis/Nexis At a community forum in Utica, New York in 2005, United States House of Representatives Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) repeated the claim that the documents originated with Karl Rove. No evidence was offered that the memos originated with the Bush campaign. Rove and Stone have denied any involvement.

    Dan Rather continues to stand by the story, and in subsequent interviews has articulated that he believes that the documents have never conclusively been proven to be forgeries — and that even if the documents are false, that the underlying story is true.

    See also

    Footnotes

    External links PDF copies of the CBS Killian documents The CBS News Killian documents: The USA Today Killian documents (in .pdf format):

    The Thornburgh-Boccardi Report

    News items





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