<img src=newicons/smiley_salute.gif border=0 align=middle> for the legacy of edware r murrow.
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EXCLUSIVE // Mon Sep 20 2004 11:58:02 ET
STATEMENT FROM DAN RATHER:
Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.
Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—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.
But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.
Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.
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CBS Can't Vouch for Bush Guard Documents
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Sep 20, 12:32 PM (ET)
By DAVID BAUDER
(AP) President Bush departs the White House, Monday, Sept. 20, 2004, for a campaign trip to Derry, N.H.,...
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NEW YORK (AP) - CBS admitted Monday that it cannot vouch for the authenticity of documents used to support a "60 Minutes" story that questioned President Bush's Vietnam War-era National Guard service, after several experts denounced them as fakes.
The network said it was wrong to go on the air with a story that it could not substantiate.
"We should not have used them, CBS News President Andrew Heyward said. "That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."
CBS also said it was commissioning an independent review of the incident, and will announce the names of the people conducting the review will be announced shortly.
The announcement was a major blow to the credibility of CBS News and its chief anchor, Dan Rather, who reported the story.
Almost immediately after the Sept. 8 story aired, document experts questioned memos purportedly written by Bush's late squadron leader, saying they appeared to have been created on a computer and not a typewriter that was in use during the 1970s.
CBS strongly defended its story, and it wasn't until a week later - after the military leader's former secretary said she believed the memos were fake - did the news division admit they were questionable.
Even then, Rather said no one had disputed the story's premise: that the future president had pulled strings to get a relatively cushy National Guard assignment and failed to satisfy the requirements of his service.
Rather this weekend interviewed Bill Burkett, a retired Texas National Guard officials who has been mentioned as a possible source for the documents. His interview will be on "CBS Evening News" on Monday.
CBS said Burkett acknowledged he provided the documents and said he deliberately misled a CBS producer, giving her a false account of their origin to protect a promise of confidentiality to a source.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach Burkett for comment.
The documents were said to be written by Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, indicating he was being pressured to "sugarcoat" the performance ratings of a young Bush, then the son of a Texas congressman, and that Bush failed to follow orders to take a physical. Killian died in 1984.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040920/D857GCCG2.html
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