CBS News, in a stunning concession, said Monday that it was “deliberately misled” about the authenticity of documents that questioned President Bush’s service in the Air National Guard and apologized for airing a story raising new doubts about Bush’s performance three decades ago.
After more than a week of vigorously defending a “60 Minutes” report built around what appeared to be memos from Bush’s superior officers, the network conceded it was duped by Bill Burkett, a retired officer in the Texas Army National Guard and longtime critic of the president (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
What remained a mystery, though, is the true origin of the memos that have inflamed an already divisive race.
The White House late Monday suggested a Democratic operative and CBS News had worked in coordination with Burkett to produce the documents. Joe Lockhart, a senior adviser to John Kerry’s campaign, dismissed the accusation.
“We appreciate the fact that CBS deeply regrets it,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, “but there are still serious questions that we believe need to be answered.”
The story, anchored by Dan Rather on the network’s premier news magazine program on Sept. 8, received considerable attention because the White House distributed copies of the memos that were presented by CBS. Even though the documents implied Bush received preferential treatment in the Air National Guard, administration officials said they had no reason to believe the documents were not real.
Six weeks before Election Day, the story of the disputed documents has fueled an already impassioned debate over how Bush and Kerry served their country during the Vietnam War. The admission by CBS News leaves unresolved questions about how Bush gained entry into the Guard and what he did in 1972 after transferring from his Texas unit to work on an Senate race in Alabama.
“The failure of CBS News to properly, fully scrutinize the documents and their source led to our airing the documents. We should not have done so. It was a mistake,” Rather told viewers on his Monday evening broadcast. “CBS News deeply regrets it. Also, I want to say personally and directly, I’m sorry.”
`Mistake in judgment’
After 10 days of extraordinary scrutiny, CBS acknowledged it made a “mistake in judgment” by airing the story based on four documents alleging Bush had attempted to skirt his duties 32 years ago in the Texas Air National Guard. Document experts said the memos looked as though they were crafted on a computer instead of a 1970s government-issue typewriter.
The documents appeared to be signed by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, Bush’s squadron leader, who died in 1984. The Chicago Tribune and other news organizations used the documents released by the White House in stories published Sept. 9.
“We wanted the public to have them. We want the media to have them,” McClellan said, explaining why the White House passed along the memos. “Since that time, we have seen a number of serious questions raised by experts and by media organizations, and now finally CBS is acknowledging that the crux of their story was based on information that was likely forged and came from a discredited source.”
Later Monday, the White House intensified its criticism, saying that Lockhart, a Kerry adviser and former press secretary under President Bill Clinton, had talked by telephone to Burkett before the report aired on CBS. Lockhart confirmed he had talked to Burkett, after being referred to him by a CBS producer working on the story, but said he did not discuss the allegations in the memos.
“The fact that CBS News and a top-level adviser to the Kerry campaign coordinated on attacking the president is a stunning and deeply troubling revelation that raises serious questions,” White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said. “It is time for the Kerry campaign to come clean with its involvement in this growing scandal, and for Sen. Kerry to immediately hold responsible anyone on his campaign who was involved.”
In an interview, Lockhart replied, “There is no involvement in the documents at all.”
Within hours of the Sept. 8 broadcast, questions about the authenticity of the memos began circulating in conservative Internet chat rooms. Then, document experts cast doubts on the memos. Last week, Killian’s former secretary said she believed the memos were bogus but said the contents reflected the thinking of Bush’s commanders at the time.
`High degree of confidence’
“We had a high degree of confidence in the report and in the reporting that went into it,” said CBS News President Andrew Heyward. “Obviously, based on what we have learned since, there were flaws in the process that we now have to identify. In retrospect, we should not have aired the documents and we have expressed regret for that.”
Heyward said he has ordered an external review.
The retraction is an extraordinary about-face for CBS News, which had ferociously defended the documents and their authenticity. Two days after the report aired, Rather attributed attacks to “partisan political operatives” and stuck by his story.
In an interview Monday evening, a repentant Rather conceded it had been a mistake to broadcast the documents. But even though he could not vouch for their authenticity, he said he still did not believe that they were fakes.
“Do I think they’re forged? No,” Rather said. “But it’s not good enough to use the documents on the air if we can’t vouch for them, and we can’t vouch for them.”
Rather said he had no regrets for his defense of the story.
“I believed in it,” he said. “I wouldn’t have put it on the air if I hadn’t of believed in it. And what kind of reporter would I be if I put something on the air in which I believed, and as soon as it’s attacked and under pressure, you run, you fold, you fade, you side-wind? That’s not the kind of person I am, and it’s not the kind of reporter I am.”
The situation changed last Thursday, Rather said, when Burkett acknowledged during a conference call with Rather and CBS executives that he had lied about how he came to possess the documents.
Before the story aired, Rather said he had interviewed Burkett about the documents and how he obtained them. Rather said his reporting on Burkett’s background was one of the reasons for confidence in the story.
“When we talked to people in his home community in Texas,” Rather said, “even those people that didn’t like him said he’s a truth-teller.”
