CBS stands by Bush 'sugar coat' documents

America’s CBS News has mounted an aggressive defence of its report about President George Bush’s service in the Air National Guard, saying broadcast memos questioned by forensic experts came from “what we consider to be solid sources”.

On yesterday’s CBS Evening News, anchorman Dan Rather said that “no definitive evidence” had emerged to prove the documents were forgeries. “If any definitive evidence comes up, we will report it,” Rather said.

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

The memos 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.

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 had said the memos appeared to have been computer-generated with characteristics that were not available three decades ago.

But CBS News said in a statement: “The documents are backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but sources familiar with their content.” Matley was the only expert cited, and he focused on signatures on the memos.

Matley and Rather acknowledged the memos were difficult to definitively authenticate because CBS had only photocopies, not the originals.

The 60 Minutes broadcast relied on the documents as part of a Wednesday segment – reported by Rather – on Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard from 1968 to 1973.

Retired Col Maurice Udell, the unit’s instructor pilot who helped train Bush, said he thought the documents were fake.

“I completely am disgusted with this (report) I saw on 60 Minutes,” Udell said. “That’s not true. I was there. I knew Jerry Killian. I went to Vietnam with Jerry Killian in 1968.”

Killian’s son also questioned some of the documents, saying his father would never write a memo like the “sugar coat” one.

Several of the document examiners said one clue that the documents may be forgeries was the presence of superscripts – in this case, a raised, smaller “th” in two references to Guard units.

Rather said typewriters were available in the early 1970s which were capable of printing superscripts. CBS pointed to other Texas Air National Guard documents released by the White House that include an example of a raised “th” superscript.

That superscript, however, is in a different typeface from the one used for the CBS memos.

Document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines of Paradise Valley, Arizona, who examined the documents, said she was “virtually certain” they were generated by computer.

Lines said that meant she could testify in court that, beyond a reasonable doubt, her opinion was that the memos were written on a computer.

CBS has not revealed its source or sources for the documents or the names of experts besides Matley it said examined the memos before Wednesday’s report.

Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday the White House, which distributed the memos after obtaining them from CBS News, was not trying to verify their authenticity.

”We don’t know if the documents are fabricated or authentic,” McClellan told reporters travelling with the president to West Virginia.

McClellan suggested the memos surfaced as part of “an orchestrated effort by Democrats and the Kerry campaign to tear down the president”.