CBS defends report on Bush service

WASHINGTON – CBS News on Friday defended its report about President Bush’s service in the Air National Guard, with anchor Dan Rather saying broadcast memos questioned by forensic experts came from “what we consider to be solid sources.”

On Friday’s “CBS Evening News,” Rather said that “no definitive evidence” has emerged to prove the documents are forgeries.

“If any definitive evidence comes up, we will report it,” Rather said.

The broadcast also showed excerpts of interviews with Marcel Matley, a San Francisco document expert, who said he believed the memos were genuine.

CBS can state “with absolute certainty” that the disputed memos could have been produced on typewriters available in the early 1970s when the memos are purported to have been written, the network said. Rather said the typeface and style of the memos were available on typewriters since well before the 1970s.

Some forensic experts were quoted by news organizations, including the Associated Press, saying the memos appeared to have been computer-generated with characteristics that weren’t available three decades ago.

Matley and Rather acknowledged the memos were difficult to definitively authenticate because CBS has only photocopies, not the originals. Matley did not return a telephone message left at his office immediately after Friday’s report.

At question are memos that carry the signature of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who was the commander of Bush’s Texas Air National Guard fighter squadron. They say Killian was under pressure to “sugar coat” Bush’s record, and Bush refused a direct order to take a required medical examination and discussed how he could skip drills.

Casting further doubt on the memos, the Dallas Morning News said in a report for today’s editions that the officer named in a memo as exerting pressure to “sugar coat” Bush’s record had left the Texas Air National Guard 1 1/2 years before the memo was dated.

The newspaper said it obtained an order showing that Walter B. Staudt, former commander of the Texas Guard, retired on March 1, 1972. The memo was dated Aug. 18, 1973. A telephone call to Staudt’s home Friday night was not answered.