Bush Vietnam service records may be fake

Documents which suggest President George Bush lost his status as a National Guard pilot during the Vietnam war because he fell below Air Force standards and disobeyed an order may be fake, it emerged today.

The CBS flagship programme 60 Minutes unveiled the memos this week, which also said senior officers tried to “sugar coat” a young Lieutenant Bush’s performance records.

But document experts said the style of type on the papers suggested they were written using computer technology that did not exist in the Vietnam era.

And relatives of the officer who supposedly wrote the memos, who has since died, also doubted their authenticity.

The debate over Vietnam service has become a hot issue in the election campaign, with less than two months to go before Americans go to the polls.

Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry is a decorated Vietnam war hero who served two tours of duty and volunteered as a Swift Boat captain, suffering three injuries.

Mr Bush remained in the United States and joined the Texas Air National Guard before transferring to Alabama.

How well he performed and how often he turned up for duty has been a matter of debate.

So Democrats thought they had found the smoking gun when the memos apparently showed that Mr Bush was offered a National Guard position and avoided going to Vietnam due to his family connections.

At the time, his father, George Bush Sr, was a Texas congressman, who would later rise to the presidency himself.

Memos purportedly written by Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian, one of Mr Bush’s commanders in 1972 and 1973, also said Mr Bush disobeyed an order to take a physical test and fell below Air Force and National Guard standards.

But Col Killian’s son, Gary Killian, who also served in the National Guard, said he doubted his father would have written an unsigned memo which said there was pressure to “sugar coat” Mr Bush’s performance review.

“It just wouldn’t happen. No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that,” he said.

His widow, Marjorie Connell, told ABC News Radio: “The wording in these documents is very suspect to me. I just can’t believe these are his words.”

She added: “He was a person who did not take copious notes. He carried everything in his mind.”

The personnel chief in Col Killian’s unit at the time also said he believed the documents are fake.

“They looked to me like forgeries. I don’t think Killian would do that, and I knew him for 17 years,” he said.

CBS is standing by its story. It said experts had examined the documents and said they were authentic.

But independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos appeared to have been written on a computer with Microsoft Word software.

Ms Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, highlighted a small superscript “th” in the words “111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron”.

She said such an effect was created automatically with Microsoft Word.

“I’m virtually certain these were computer generated,” she said.

Bill Flynn, one of US’s top authorities on document authentication, added: “These documents do not appear to have been the result of technology that was available in 1972 and 1973.

“The cumulative evidence that’s available ... indicates that these documents were produced on a computer, not a typewriter,” he told ABC.

He also noted that the memos were written using a “proportional” typeface, where letters take up space according to their size, rather than fixed-pitch typeface used on typewriters, where each letter is allotted the same space.

Such technology was available only on computers or on very high-end typewriters that were unlikely to be used by the National Guard.

Mr Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, serving more than a year on active Air Force duty while being trained to fly F-102A jets.

He was honourably discharged from the Guard in October 1973 and left the Air Force Reserves in May 1974.

The White House has remained silent on the controversy, allowing it to play out in the media.

Mr Bush, who was today making campaign stops in West Virginia and Ohio, has not commented on the matter.