Killian documents - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Killian documents controversy (also referred to as Memogate, Rathergate or Ra^thergate) involved six documents critical of President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

's service in the Air National Guard

Air National Guard

The Air National Guard , often referred to as the Air Guard, is the air force militia organized by each of the fifty U.S. states, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia of the United States. Established under Title 10 and...

in 1972–73. Four of these documents were presented as authentic in a 60 Minutes Wednesday
60 Minutes II
60 Minutes II was a weekly primetime news magazine television program that was intended to replicate the "signature style, journalistic quality and integrity" of the original 60 Minutes series.It aired on CBS on Wednesdays, then later moved to Fridays at 8 p.m...

broadcast aired by CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the 2004 Presidential Election

United States presidential election, 2004

The United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...

, but it was later found that CBS had failed to authenticate the documents. Subsequently, several typewriter

Typewriter

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...

and typography

Typography

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...

experts concluded the documents are forgeries, as have some media sources. No forensic document examiners

Questioned document examination

Questioned document examination is the forensic science discipline pertaining to documents that are in dispute in a court of law...

or typography experts have authenticated the documents, and this may not be technically possible without original documents. The provider of the documents, Lt. Col. Bill Burkett

Bill Burkett

Bill Burkett was the CBS source in the Killian documents affair of 2004. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel from the Texas Army National Guard....

, claims to have burned the originals after faxing copies to CBS.

CBS News producer Mary Mapes

Mary Mapes

Mary Mapes is an American journalist and former television news producer. She was a Peabody Award-winning producer for the American television show 60 Minutes , from which she was fired for her part in the Killian documents scandal....

obtained the copied documents from Burkett, a former officer in the Texas Army National Guard, while pursuing a story about the George W. Bush military service controversy

George W. Bush military service controversy

George W. Bush's National Guard service was an issue in the 2000 presidential campaign and in the 2004 presidential campaign. A controversy centered on questions of how George W...

. The papers, purportedly made by Bush's commander, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, included criticisms of Bush's service in the Guard during the 1970s. In the 60 Minutes segment, anchor Dan Rather

Dan Rather

Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...

stated: "We are told [the documents] were taken from Lieutenant Colonel Killian’s personal files" and incorrectly asserted that "the material" had been authenticated by experts retained by CBS.

The authenticity of the documents

Killian documents authenticity issues

During the Killian documents controversy in 2004, the authenticity of the documents themselves was disputed by a variety of individuals and groups. Proof of authenticity is not possible without original documents, and since CBS used only faxed and photocopied duplicates, authentication to...

was challenged within hours on Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

forums and blog

Blog

A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

s, with questions initially focused on alleged anachronism

Anachronism

An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...

s in the documents' typography

Typography

and content soon spreading to the mass media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

. Although CBS and Rather defended the authenticity and usage of the documents for a two-week period, continued scrutiny from other news organizations and independent analysis of the documents obtained by USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

and CBS raised questions about their validity and led to a public repudiation on September 20, 2004. Rather stated, "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," and CBS News President Andrew Heyward

Andrew Heyward

Andrew Heyward is a former President of CBS News, serving from January 1996 until early November 2005. Currently, he is a Senior Advisor to Marketspace LLC, Monitor Group's digital media practice, where he works with clients to create and strengthen original online content, make more effective use...

said, "Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."

Several months later, a CBS-appointed panel led by Dick Thornburgh

Dick Thornburgh

Richard Lewis "Dick" Thornburgh is an American lawyer and Republican politician who served as the 41st Governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987, and then as the U.S...

and Louis Boccardi

Louis Boccardi

Louis D. Boccardi was President and Chief Executive Officer of The Associated Press , the world’s largest news organization, from 1985 until his retirement in 2003...

criticized both the initial CBS news segment and CBS' "strident defense" during the aftermath. CBS fired producer Mary Mapes, several senior news executives were asked to resign, and CBS apologized to viewers. The panel did not specifically consider whether the documents were forgeries but concluded that the producers had failed to authenticate them and cited "substantial questions regarding the authenticity of the Killian documents."

Background and timeline

The memos, allegedly written in 1972 and 1973, were obtained by CBS News producer Mary Mapes

Mary Mapes

and freelance journalist Michael Smith, from Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a former US Army National Guard officer. Mapes and Dan Rather, among many other journalists, had been investigating for several years the story of Bush's alleged failure to fulfill his obligations to the National Guard

George W. Bush military service controversy

George W. Bush's National Guard service was an issue in the 2000 presidential campaign and in the 2004 presidential campaign. A controversy centered on questions of how George W...

.

Burkett had received publicity in 2000, after making and then retracting a claim that he had been transferred to Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

for refusing "to falsify personnel records of [then-]Governor Bush", and in February 2004, when he claimed to have knowledge of "scrubbing" of Bush's TexANG records. Mapes was "by her own account [aware that] many in the press considered Burkett an 'anti-Bush zealot,' his credibility in question."

Mapes and Smith made contact with Burkett in late August, and on August 24 Burkett offered to meet with them to share the documents he possessed, and later told reporters from USA Today

USA Today

USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

"that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would arrange a conversation with the Kerry

John Kerry

John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

campaign," a claim substantiated by emails between Smith and Mapes detailing Burkett's additional requests for help with negotiating a book deal, security, and financial compensation. During the last week of August, Mapes asked Josh Howard, her immediate superior at CBS, for permission to facilitate contact between Burkett and the Kerry campaign, and Howard and Mapes subsequently disputed whether such permission was obtained.

Two documents were provided by Burkett to Mapes on September 2 and four others on September 5, 2004. At that time, Burkett told Mapes that they were copies of originals that had been obtained from Killian's personal files via Chief Warrant Officer

Warrant Officer

A warrant officer is an officer in a military organization who is designated an officer by a warrant, as distinguished from a commissioned officer who is designated an officer by a commission, or from non-commissioned officer who is designated an officer by virtue of seniority.The rank was first...

George Conn, another former member of the TexANG.

Mapes informed Rather of the progress of the story, which was being targeted to air on September 8 along with footage of an interview with former Lieutenant Governor of Texas

Lieutenant Governor of Texas

The Lieutenant Governor of Texas is the second-highest executive office in the government of Texas, a state in the U.S. It is the second most powerful post in Texas government because its occupant controls the work of the Texas Senate and controls the budgeting process as a leader of the...

Ben Barnes, who would publicly state for the first time his opinion that Bush received preferential treatment to get into the National Guard. Mapes had also been in contact with the Kerry campaign several times between late August and September 6, when she spoke with senior Kerry advisor Joe Lockhart

Joe Lockhart

Joseph Lockhart is a spokesman and communications consultant, best known for being the White House Press Secretary from October 5, 1998 to September 29, 2000, during the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton...

regarding the progressing story. Lockhart subsequently stated he was "wary" of contact with Mapes at this stage, because if the story were true, his involvement might undermine its credibility, and if it were false, "he did not want to be associated with it." Lockhart called Burkett on September 6 at the number provided by Mapes, and both men stated they discussed Burkett's view of Kerry's Presidential campaign strategy, not the existence of the documents or the related story.

Content of the memos

The documents allegedly showed that Bush disobeyed orders while in the Guard, and had undue influence exerted on his behalf to improve his record, and included the following:

An order directing Bush to submit to a physical examination.
A note that Killian had grounded Bush from flying due to "failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards," and for failure to submit to the physical examination as ordered. Killian also requested that a flight inquiry board be convened, as required by regulations, to examine the reasons for Bush's loss of flight status.
A note of a telephone conversation with Bush in which Bush sought to be excused from "drill." The note records that Bush said he did not have the time to attend to his National Guard duties because he had a campaign to do (the Senate campaign of Winton M. Blount
Winton M. Blount
Winton Malcolm "Red" Blount, Jr. was the United States Postmaster General from 1969-1972. He is also known as the founder and former Chief Executive Officer of the large construction company Blount International....

in Alabama).
A note (labeled "CYA" for "cover your ass
Cover your ass
Cover Your Ass or Cover Your Own Ass describes professional and organizational practices that serve to protect oneself from legal and administrative penalties, criticism, or other punitive measures.-Common practices:...

") claiming that Killian was being pressured from above to give Bush better marks in his yearly evaluation than he had earned. The note attributed to Killian says that he was being asked to "sugarcoat" Bush's performance. "I'm having trouble running interference [for Bush] and doing my job."

USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

also received copies of the four documents used by CBS, reporting this and publishing them the morning after the CBS segment, along with two additional memos. Burkett was assured by USA Today that they would keep the source confidential.

CBS investigations prior to airing the segment

Mapes and her colleagues began interviewing people who might be able to corroborate the information in the documents, while also retaining four forensic document experts

Questioned document examination

Questioned document examination is the forensic science discipline pertaining to documents that are in dispute in a court of law...

, Marcel J. Matley, James J. Pierce, Emily Will, and Linda James, to determine the validity of the memos.

On September 5, CBS interviewed Killian's friend Robert Strong, who ran the Texas Air National Guard administrative office. Among other issues covered in his interview with Rather and Mapes, Strong was asked if he thought the documents were genuine. Strong stated, "they are compatible with the way business was done at the time. They are compatible with the man that I remember Jerry Killian being." Strong had first seen the documents twenty minutes earlier and also said he had no personal knowledge of their content; he later claimed he had been told to assume the content of the documents was accurate.

On September 6, CBS interviewed General Robert "Bobby" Hodges, a former officer at the Texas Air National Guard and Killian's immediate superior at the time. Hodges declined CBS' request for an on-camera interview, and Mapes read the documents to him over the telephone. According to Mapes, Hodges agreed with CBS's assessment that the documents were real, and CBS reported that Hodges stated that these were "the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time." However, according to Hodges, when Mapes read portions of the memos to him he simply stated, "well if he wrote them, that's what he felt," and he claims he never confirmed the validity of the content of the documents. General Hodges later asserted to the investigatory panel that he told Mapes that Killian had never, to his knowledge, ordered anyone to take a physical and that he had never been pressured regarding Lieutenant Bush, as the documents alleged. Hodges also claims that when CBS interviewed him, he thought the memos were handwritten, not typed, and following the September 8 broadcast, when Hodges had seen the documents and heard of claims of forgery by Killian's wife and son, he was "convinced they were not authentic" and told Rather and Mapes on September 10.

Response of the document examiners

Prior to airing, all four of the examiners responded to Mapes' request for document analysis, though only two to Mapes directly:

Emily Will noted discrepancies in the signatures on the memos, and had questions about the letterhead, the proportional spacing of the font, the superscripted "th" and the improper formatting of the date. Will requested other documents to use for comparison.
Linda James was "unable to reach a conclusion about the signature" and noted that the superscripted "th" was not in common use at the time the memos were allegedly written; she later recalled telling CBS, "the two memos she looked at 'had problems,'"
James Pierce concluded that both of the documents were written by the same person and that the signature matched Killian's from the official Bush records. Only one of the two documents provided to Pierce had a signature. James Pierce wrote, "the balance of the Jerry B. Killian signatures appearing on the photocopied questioned documents are consistent and in basic agreement," and stated that based on what he knew, "the documents in question are authentic." However, Pierce also told Mapes he could not be sure if the documents had been altered because he was reviewing copies, not original documents.
Marcel Matley's review was initially limited to Killian's signature on one of the Burkett documents, which he compared to signatures from the official Bush records. Matley "seemed fairly confident" that the signature was Killian's. On September 6, Matley was interviewed by Rather and Mapes and was provided with the other four documents obtained from CBS (he would prove to be the only reviewer to see these documents prior to the segment). Matley told Rather "he could not authenticate the documents due to the fact that they were poor quality copies." In the interview, Matley told Rather that with respect to the signatures, they were relying on "poor material" and that there were inconsistencies in the signatures, but also replied "Yes," when asked if it would be safe to say the documents were written by the person who signed them.
Both Emily Will and Linda James suggested to Mapes that CBS contact typewriter expert Peter Tytell. Associate producer Yvonne Miller left him a voicemail on September 7; he returned the call at 11 am on September 8 but was told they "did not need him anymore."

September 8 segment and initial reactions

The segment, entitled "For The Record," aired on 60 Minutes Wednesday on September 8. After introducing the documents, Rather said, in reference to Matley, "We consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic."

The segment introduced Lieutenant Robert Strong's interview, describing him as a "friend of Killian" (without noting he had not worked in the same location and without mentioning he had left the TexANG prior to the dates on the memos). The segment used the sound bite of Strong saying the documents were compatible with how business was done but did not include a disclaimer that Strong was told to assume the documents were authentic.

In Rather's narration about one of the memos, he referred to pressure being applied on Bush's behalf by General Buck Staudt, and described Staudt as "the man in charge of the Texas National Guard." Staudt had retired from the guard a year and a half prior to the dates of the memos.

Interview clips with Ben Barnes, former Speaker of the Texas House, created the impression "that there was no question but that President Bush had received Barnes' help to get into the TexANG," because Barnes had made a telephone call on Bush's behalf, when Barnes himself had acknowledged that there was no proof his call was the reason, and that "sometimes a call to General Rose did not work." Barnes' disclaimer was not included in the Segment.

Internet skepticism spreads

Within hours of the segment, the authenticity of the documents was questioned by posters on Free Republic

Free Republic

Free Republic is a moderated Internet forum for activists, and chat site for self-described conservatives, primarily within the United States. It presents articles and comments posted pseudonymously by registered members, known as "Freepers", using screen names...

, a conservative Internet forum, and discussion quickly spread to various weblogs

Blog

in the blogosphere

Blogosphere

The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...

, principally Little Green Footballs

Little Green Footballs

Little Green Footballs is an American political blog run by web designer Charles Johnson.Media observers in the United States long described the site as "right wing", but since 2007, the site's emphasis has changed, such that "LGF has become better known for the various fights it picks with many...

and Power Line

Power Line

Power Line is an American political blog, providing news and commentary from a conservative point-of-view. It was originally written by three lawyers who attended Dartmouth College together: John H. Hinderaker, Scott W. Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff...

. The initial analysis appeared in posts by "Buckhead," a username of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta attorney who had worked for conservative groups such as the Federalist Society

Federalist Society

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called simply the Federalist Society, is an organization of conservatives seeking reform of the current American legal system in accordance with a textualist and/or originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution...

and the Southeastern Legal Foundation and who had helped draft the petition to the Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

Supreme Court for the disbarment

Disbarment

Disbarment is the removal of a lawyer from a bar association or the practice of law, thus revoking his or her law license or admission to practice law...

of President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

. MacDougald questioned the validity of the documents on the basis of their typography, writing that the memos were "in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino

Palatino

Palatino is the name of a large typeface family that began as an old style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf initially released in 1948 by the Linotype foundry.In 1999, Zapf revised Palatino for Linotype and Microsoft, called Palatino Linotype...

or Times New Roman," and alleging that this was an anachronism

Anachronism

: "I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively."

By the following day, questions about the authenticity of the documents were being publicized by the Drudge Report
Drudge Report
The Drudge Report is a news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Joseph Curl and Charles Hurt, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many...

, which linked to the analysis at the Powerline blog in the mid-afternoon, and the story was covered on the website of the magazine The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...

and broke into mass media outlets, including the Associated Press

Associated Press

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

and the major television news networks. It also was receiving serious attention from conservative writers such as National Review Online's Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty is a conservative blogger and regular contributor to National Review Online and National Review. In addition to writing columns for National Review, Geraghty also blogs for National Review Online and is a former reporter for States News Service.During the 2004 US Presidential election,...

. By the afternoon of September 9, Charles Foster Johnson

Charles Foster Johnson

Charles Foster Johnson is an American blogger, software developer, and former jazz guitarist.He has played on 29 albums.-Biography:...

of Little Green Footballs had posted his attempt to recreate one of the documents using Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...

with the default settings. The September 9 edition of ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

's Nightline made mention of the controversy, along with an article on the ABC News

ABC News

ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

website. Although the CBS story is front-page news in the New York Times and Washington Post on September 9, and on two-thirds of a full page within USA Todays news section (which notes the newspaper has also obtained copies of the documents), "There is no discussion in the major news media about whether the memos are authentic." CBS published the reaction of Killian's son, Gary, to the documents, reporting that Gary Killian questioned one of the memos but stated that others "appeared legitimate" and characterized the collection as "a mixture of truth and fiction". In an interview with Fox News, Gary Killian expressed doubts about the documents' authenticity on the basis of his father's positive view of Bush.

CBS's response and widening media coverage

At 5PM on Thursday, September 9, CBS News released a statement saying the memos were "thoroughly investigated by independent experts, and we are convinced of their authenticity", and stating, "this report was not based solely on recovered documents, but rather on a preponderance of evidence, including documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources," In an interview, CBS News spokesperson Kelli Edwards said, "CBS verified the authenticity of the documents by talking to individuals who had seen the documents at the time they were written." The statement was replaced later that day with one that omitted this claim.

The first newspaper articles questioning the documents appeared on September 10 in The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

, The New York Times and in USA Today via the Associated Press

Associated Press

. The Associated Press reported, "Document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines...said she was 'virtually certain' [the documents] 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."

Also on September 10, the Dallas Morning News reported "that the officer named in one memo as exerting pressure to "sugarcoat" Bush's military record was discharged a year and a half before the memo was written. The paper cited a military record showing that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972, while the memo cited by CBS as showing that Staudt was interfering with evaluations of Bush was dated August 18, 1973."

In response to the media attention, a CBS memo said the documents were "backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content" and insisted that no internal investigation would take place. On the CBS Evening News, on September 10, Rather defended the story and noted that its critics included "partisan political operatives."

In the broadcast, Rather stated Marcel Matley "analyzed the documents for CBS News. He believes they are real," and broadcast additional excerpts from Matley's September 6 interview showing Matley's agreement that the signatures appeared to be from the same source. Rather did not report that Matley had referred to them as "poor material", that he had only opined about the signatures, or that he had specifically not authenticated the documents.
Rather presented footage of the Strong interview, introducing it by stating Robert Strong "is standing by his judgment that the documents are real," despite Strong's lack of standing to authenticate them and his brief exposure to the documents.
Rather concluded by stating, "If any definitive evidence to the contrary of our story is found, we will report it. So far, there is none."

In an appearance on CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

that day, Rather asserted "I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn't have gone to air if they would not have been."

However, within CBS, Josh Howard spoke at length on the telephone with typewriter expert Peter Tytell. Howard later told the Panel that the discussion was, "an 'unsettling event' that shook his belief in the authenticity of the documents." Producer Mapes dismissed Tytell's concerns.

A former Vice President of CBS News, Jonathan Klein, dismissed the allegations of bloggers, suggesting that the "checks and balances" of a professional news organization were superior to individuals sitting at their home computers "in their pajamas." In response, some conservative bloggers started to refer to themselves as Pajamahadeen

Pajamahadeen

Pajamahadeen or Pajamahideen is a portmanteau of pajamas and Mujahideen meaning "bloggers who challenge and fact-check traditional media" The word refers to news bloggers, suggesting their goals as overthrowing the news establishment...

CBS' defense, apology

As media coverage widened and intensified, CBS at first attempted to produce additional evidence to support its claims. On September 11, a CBS News Segment stated that document expert Phillip Bouffard thought the documents "could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer Typewriter, available at the time." (The Selectric Composer was introduced in 1966 for typesetting

Typesetting

Typesetting is the composition of text by means of types.Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font and storing it in some manner...

and generation of camera-ready copy; according to IBM archives describing this specialised equipment "To produce copy which can be reproduced with 'justified', or straight left-and right-hand margins, the operator types the copy once and the composer computes the number of spaces needed to justify the line. As the operator types the copy a second time, the spaces are added automatically.") Bouffard's comments were also cited by the Boston Globe, in an article entitled, "Authenticity backed on Bush documents." However the Globe soon printed a retraction regarding the title. CBS noted that although General Hodges was now stating he thought the documents were inauthentic, "we believed General Hodges the first time we spoke with him." CBS reiterated: "we believe the documents to be genuine."

By September 13, CBS' position had shifted slightly, as Rather acknowledged "some of these questions come from people who are not active political partisans," and stated that CBS "talked to handwriting and document analysts and other experts who strongly insist the documents could have been created in the 70s,"(emphasis added) The analysts and experts cited by Rather did not include the original four experts consulted by CBS. Rather instead presented the views of Bill Glennon and Richard Katz. Glennon, a former typewriter repairman with no specific credentials in typesetting beyond that job, was found by CBS after posting several defenses of the memos on blogs including Daily Kos

Daily Kos

Daily Kos is an American political blog that publishes news and opinions from a progressive point of view. It functions as a discussion forum and group blog for a variety of netroots activists, whose efforts are primarily directed toward influencing and strengthening the Democratic Party...

and Kevin Drum

Kevin Drum

Kevin Drum is an American political blogger and columnist. He was born in Long Beach, California and now lives in Irvine, California.-Education:...

's blog hosted at Washington Monthly. However, in the actual broadcast, neither interviewee asserted that the memos were genuine.

As a result, some CBS critics begin to accuse CBS of expert shopping

Expert shopping

Expert shopping is the practice of finding an expert on a given subject whose professional opinion is skewed toward the answer that the searching party already prefers...

60 Minutes Wednesday, one week later

The original document examiners, however, continued to be part of the story. By September 15, Emily Will was publicly stating that she had told CBS that she had doubts about both the production of the memos and the handwriting prior to the segment, and in interviews, Linda James stated that the memos were of "very poor quality" and that she did not authenticate them, telling ABC News, "I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it understood that I did."

In response, 60 Minutes Wednesday released a statement suggesting that Will and James had "misrepresented" their role in the authentication of the documents and had played only a small part in the process. CBS News concurrently amended their previous claim that Matley had authenticated the documents, saying instead he had only authenticated the signatures. On CNN, Matley stated he had only verified that the signatures were "from the same source," not that they were authentically Killian's: "When I saw the documents, I could not verify the documents were authentic or inauthentic. I could only verify that the signatures came from the same source," Matley said. "I could not authenticate the documents themselves. But at the same time, there was nothing to tell me that they were not authentic."

CBS interviewed Marian Carr Knox, a secretary at Ellington Air Force Base from 1956–1979 and Killian's assistant on the dates of the memos. Although Knox felt the memos reflected the truth about Bush's alleged service failures, she also stated she did not type the memos, they were not written by Killian, and that she had no firsthand knowledge of Bush's time in the Guard. Knox said, "The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones," she said. "I probably typed the information and somebody picked up the information some way or another." The New York Times headline, including the phrase "Fake but Accurate," became a widely-used derisive comment from right-leaning critics of CBS.

At this time, Dan Rather first acknowledged there were problems in establishing the validity of the documents used in the report, stating: "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story."

CBS also hired a private investigator to look into the matter after the story aired and the controversy began.

Copies of the documents were first released to the public by the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

. Press Secretary Scott McClellan

Scott McClellan

Scott McClellan is a former White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush, and author of a controversial No. 1 New York Times bestseller about the Bush Administration titled What Happened. He replaced Ari Fleischer as press secretary in July 2003 and served until May 10, 2006...

stated that the memos had been provided to them by CBS in the days prior to the report and that, "We had every reason to believe that they were authentic at that time."

The Washington Post reported that at least one of the documents obtained by CBS had a fax header indicating it had been faxed from a Kinko's copy center in Abilene, Texas, leading some to trace the documents back to Burkett.

CBS states that use of the documents was a mistake

As a growing number of independent document examiners and competing news outlets reported their findings about the documents, CBS News stopped defending the documents and began to report on the problems with their story. On September 20 they reported that their source, Bill Burkett, "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source." While the network did not state that the memos were forgeries, CBS News President Andrew Heyward

Andrew Heyward

said,

"Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."

Dan Rather stated, "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."

In an interview with Dan Rather, Burkett admitted that he misled CBS about the source of the documents, and then claimed that the documents came to him from "Lucy Ramirez

Lucy Ramirez

Lucy Ramirez is the name Bill Burkett gave at one point as his source for the Killian documents, which purported to relate to George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, and which were used in CBS News coverage of the George W. Bush military service controversy...

", whom CBS was unable to contact or identify as an actual person. Burkett said he then made copies at the local Kinko's and burned the original documents.

On September 21, CBS News addressed the contact with the Kerry campaign in its statement:
"It is obviously against CBS News standards and those of every other reputable news organization to be associated with any political agenda." The next day the network announced it was forming an independent review panel to perform an internal investigation.

Review panel established

Soon after, CBS established a review panel "to help determine what errors occurred in the preparation of the report and what actions need to be taken." Dick Thornburgh

Dick Thornburgh

Richard Lewis "Dick" Thornburgh is an American lawyer and Republican politician who served as the 41st Governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987, and then as the U.S...

, a Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

former governor of Pennsylvania and United States Attorney General

United States Attorney General

The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...

under George H.W. Bush, and Louis Boccardi

Louis Boccardi

Louis D. Boccardi was President and Chief Executive Officer of The Associated Press , the world’s largest news organization, from 1985 until his retirement in 2003...

, retired president and chief executive officer and former executive editor of the Associated Press

Associated Press

, made up the two-person review board. CBS also hired a private investigator

Private investigator

A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...

, a former FBI agent named Erik T. Rigler, to gather further information about the story.

Findings

On January 5, 2005, the Report of the Independent Review Panel on the September 8, 2004, 60 Minutes Wednesday Segment "For the Record" Concerning President Bush's Air National Guard Service was released. The purpose of the panel was to examine the process by which the September 8 Segment was prepared and broadcast, to examine the circumstances surrounding the subsequent public statements and news reports by CBS News defending the segment, and to make any recommendations it deemed appropriate. Among the Panel's conclusions were the following:

The most serious defects in the reporting and production of the September 8 Segment were:

The failure to obtain clear authentication of any of the Killian documents from any document examiner;
The false statement in the September 8 Segment that an expert had authenticated the Killian documents when all he had done was authenticate one signature from one document used in the Segment;
The failure of 60 Minutes Wednesday management to scrutinize the publicly available, and at times controversial, background of the source of the documents, retired Texas Army National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett;
The failure to find and interview the individual who was understood at the outset to be Lieutenant Colonel Burkett’s source of the Killian documents, and thus to establish the chain of custody;
The failure to establish a basis for the statement in the Segment that the documents "were taken from Colonel Killian’s personal files";
The failure to develop adequate corroboration to support the statements in the Killian documents and to carefully compare the Killian documents to official TexANG records, which would have identified, at a minimum, notable inconsistencies in content and format;
The failure to interview a range of former National Guardsmen who served with Lieutenant Colonel Killian and who had different perspectives about the documents;
The misleading impression conveyed in the Segment that Lieutenant Strong had authenticated the content of the documents when he did not have the personal knowledge to do so;
The failure to have a vetting process capable of dealing effectively with the production speed, significance and sensitivity of the Segment; and
The telephone call prior to the Segment’s airing by the producer of the Segment to a senior campaign official of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry — a clear conflict of interest — that created the appearance of a political bias.

Once questions were raised about the September 8 Segment, the reporting thereafter was mishandled and compounded the damage done. Among the more egregious shortcomings during the Aftermath were:

The strident defense of the September 8 Segment by CBS News without adequately probing whether any of the questions raised had merit;
Allowing many of the same individuals who produced and vetted the by-then controversial September 8 Segment to also produce the follow-up news reports defending the Segment;
The inaccurate press statements issued by CBS News after the broadcast of the Segment that the source of the documents was “unimpeachable” and that experts had vouched for their authenticity;
The misleading stories defending the Segment that aired on the CBS Evening News after September 8 despite strong and multiple indications of serious flaws;
The efforts by 60 Minutes Wednesday to find additional document examiners who would vouch for the authenticity of the documents instead of identifying the best examiners available regardless of whether they would support this position; and
Preparing news stories that sought to support the Segment, instead of providing accurate and balanced coverage of a raging controversy.

Panel's view of the documents

The Panel did not undertake a thorough examination of the authenticity of the Killian documents, but consulted Peter Tytell, a New York City-based forensic document examiner and typewriter and typography expert. Tytell had been contacted by 60 Minutes producers prior to the broadcast, and had informed associate producer Yvonne Miller and executive producer Josh Howard on September 10 that he believed the documents were forgeries. The Panel report stated, "The Panel met with Peter Tytell, and found his analysis sound in terms of why he thought the documents were not authentic...The Panel reaches no conclusion as to whether Tytell was correct in all respects."

Aftermath

The controversy had long-reaching personal, political and legal consequences. In a 2010 issue of TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

, Rather's report was ranked #3 on a list of TV's ten biggest "blunders".

CBS personnel and programming changes

CBS terminated Mary Mapes and demanded the resignations of 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard and Howard's top deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy, as well as Senior Vice President Betsy West, who had been in charge of all prime time newscasts. Murphy and West resigned on February 25, 2005, and after settling a legal dispute regarding his level of responsibility for the segment, Josh Howard resigned on March 25, 2005.

Dan Rather also resigned as anchorman in 2005. It is unclear whether or not Rather's retirement was directly caused by this incident, although many believe that he had to step down a year earlier than planned. Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, stated "Dan Rather has already apologized for the segment and taken responsibility for his part in the broadcast. He voluntarily moved to set a date to step down from the 'CBS Evening News' in March of 2005." He added, "We believe any further action would not be appropriate."

CBS was originally planning to show a '60 Minutes' report critical of the Bush administration justification for going to war in Iraq. This segment was replaced with the Killian documents segment. CBS further postponed airing the Iraq segment until after the election due to the controversy over the Killian documents. "We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election," CBS spokesman Kelli Edwards said in a statement.

After the Killian documents controversy, the show was renamed 60 Minutes Wednesday to differentiate it from the original 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....

Sunday edition, and reverted to its original title on July 8, 2005, when it was moved to the 8 p.m. Friday timeslot. It was cancelled in 2005 due to low ratings.

Mapes and Rather's view of the documents

On November 9, 2005, Mary Mapes gave an interview to ABC News correspondent Brian Ross. Mapes stated that the documents have never been proved to be forgeries. Ross expressed the view that the responsibility is on the reporter to verify their authenticity. Mapes responded with, "I don't think that's the standard." This stands in contrast to the statement of the president of CBS News that proof of authenticity is "the only acceptable journalistic standard." Also in November 2005, Mapes told readers of the Washington Post, "I personally believe the documents are not false," and "I was fired for airing a story that could not definitively be proved false but made CBS's public relations department cringe." As of September 2007, Mapes continues to defend the authenticity of the documents: "the far right blogosphere bully boys...screamed objections that ultimately proved to have no basis in fact."

On November 7, 2006, Rather defended the report in a radio interview, and rejected the CBS

CBS

investigation's findings. In response, CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco told the Associated Press

Associated Press

, "CBS News stands by the report the independent panel issued on this matter and to this day, no one has been able to authenticate the documents in question."

Dan Rather continues to stand by the story, and in subsequent interviews has articulated that he believes that the documents have never conclusively been proven to be forgeries — and that even if the documents are false, that the underlying story is true.

Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS/Viacom

On September 19, 2007, Dan Rather

Dan Rather

filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS

CBS

and its former corporate parent, Viacom

Viacom

Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...

, claiming they had made him a "scapegoat

Scapegoat

Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...

" over the controversy caused by the 2004 "60 Minutes Wednesday" report that featured the Killian documents. The suit names as defendants: CBS

CBS

and its CEO, Leslie Moonves

Leslie Moonves

Leslie Moonves is President and Chief Executive Officer of CBS Corporation.Moonves served as co-president and co-chief operating officer of Viacom, Inc., the predecessor to CBS Corporation, from 2004 until the company split on December 31, 2005...

; Viacom

Viacom

Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...

, Sumner Redstone

Sumner Redstone

Sumner Murray Redstone is an American media magnate. He is the majority owner and Chairman of the Board of the National Amusements theater chain...

, chairman of both Viacom and CBS Corporation; and Andrew Heyward

Andrew Heyward

, the former president of CBS News

CBS News

CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...

.

In January, 2008, the legal teams for Dan Rather and CBS reached an agreement to produce for Rather's attorneys "virtually all of the materials" related to the case, including the findings of Erik T. Rigler's report to CBS about the documents and the story.

On September 29, 2009 New York State Appeals Court dismissed Dan Rather's lawsuit and stated that the lower court should have honored CBS's request to throw out the entire lawsuit instead of just throwing out parts.

Authentication issues

No generally recognized document experts have positively authenticated the memos. Since CBS used only faxed and photocopied duplicates, authentication to professional standards is impossible, regardless of the provenance of the originals.

Document experts have challenged the authenticity of the documents as photocopies of valid originals on a variety of grounds ranging from anachronisms of their typography, their quick reproducibility using modern technology, and to errors in their content and style.

The CBS independent panel report did not specifically take up the question of whether the documents were forgeries, but retained a document expert, Peter Tytell, who concluded the documents used by CBS were most likely produced using modern technology.

Tytell concluded ... that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle [and that] the Killian documents were not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.

Dr. David Hailey, director of the Interactive Media Research Labs in the English Department of Utah State University

Utah State University

Utah State University is a public university located in Logan, Utah. It is a land-grant and space-grant institution and is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities....

has argued that the Killian documents were not in Times New Roman, and were produced on an unspecified typewriter, though he does not assert their authenticity.

Accusations of bias

Some critics of CBS and Dan Rather argued that by proceeding with the story when the documents had not been authenticated, CBS was exhibiting liberal bias and attempting to influence the outcome of the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election. Freelance journalist Michael Smith had emailed Mapes, asking, "What if there was a person who might have some information that could possibly change the momentum of an election but we needed to get an ASAP book deal to help get us the information?" Mapes replied, "that looks good, hypothetically
speaking of course." The Thornburgh-Boccardi report found that Mapes' contact with Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart was "highly inappropriate", and that it "crossed the line as, at a minimum, it gave the appearance of a political bias and could have been perceived as a news organizations' assisting a campaign as opposed to reporting on a story," however, the Panel did not "find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted or aired the Segment of having a political bias." In a later interview with The Washington Post

The Washington Post

, when asked about the issue of political bias, review panel member Louis Boccardi said "bias is a hard thing to prove."
The panel concluded that the problems occurred "primarily because of a rush to air that overwhelmed the proper application of the CBS News Standards".

Some Democratic critics of Bush suggested that the memos were produced by the Bush campaign to discredit the media's reporting on Bush's National Guard service. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee

Democratic National Committee

The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...

, Terry McAuliffe

Terry McAuliffe

Terence Richard "Terry" McAuliffe is a longtime leader and political advisor for the United States Democratic Party. He served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005. He served as Co-Chairman of President William Jefferson Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and also...

, suggested that the memos might have originated with long-time Bush strategist Karl Rove

Karl Rove

Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...

. McAuliffe told reporters on September 10, "I can tell you that nobody at the Democratic National Committee or groups associated with us were involved in any way with these documents," he said. "I'm just saying that I would ask Karl Rove the same question." McAuliffe later pointed out that Rove and another Republican operative, Ralph E. Reed, Jr.

Ralph E. Reed, Jr.

Ralph Eugene Reed, Jr., is a conservative American political activist, best known as the first executive director of the Christian Coalition during the early 1990s. He sought the Republican nomination for the office of Lieutenant Governor of Georgia but lost the primary election on July 18, 2006,...

, had "a known history of dirty tricks," and he asked whether Republican National Committee

Republican National Committee

The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...

chairman Ed Gillespie

Ed Gillespie

Edward W. Gillespie is an American Republican political strategist and former Counselor to the President in the George W. Bush White House. Gillespie, along with Jack Quinn, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore, founded Quinn Gillespie & Associates, a bipartisan lobbying firm...

would rule out any involvement by GOP consultant Roger Stone

Roger Stone

Roger J. Stone, Jr. is an American political consultant and lobbyist who specializes in opposition research for the Republican National Committee in the United States....

. At a community forum in Utica, New York

Utica, New York

Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census....

in 2005, U.S. Representative

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

Maurice Hinchey

Maurice Dunlea Hinchey , is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. He is a member of the Democratic Party...

(D-NY) pointed out that the controversy served Rove's objectives: "Once they did that, then it undermined everything else about Bush's draft dodging. ... That had the effect of taking the whole issue away." After being criticized, Hinchey responded, "I didn't allege I had any facts. I said this is what I believe and take it for what it's worth."

Rove and Stone have denied any involvement. In a 2008 interview in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, Stone said "It was nuts to think I had anything to do with those documents...[t]hose papers were potentially devastating to George Bush. You couldn’t put them out there assuming that they would be discredited. You couldn’t have assumed that this would redound to Bush’s benefit. I believe in bank shots, but that one was too big a risk."

Killian documents PDF files

These are the Killian documents supplied to CBS Reports by Bill Burkett:

Memorandum, May 4, 1972 (CBS News)
Memo to File, May 19, 1972 (CBS News)
Memorandum For Record, August 1, 1972 (CBS News)
Memo to File, August 18, 1973 (CBS News)
USA Today Killian documents (USA Today, six memos in one.pdf file)

Bush documents from the TexANG archives

Page 31 is a 3 November 1970 memo from the office of Lt Col Killian on promotion of Lt Bush:

Bush enlistment documents (USA Today)

60 Minutes II, September 8 transcript

Transcript of CBS segment

Statements of the CBS document examiners

Document analysis

A Pentagon memo next to one of CBS's Killian memos — The Washington Post, September 14, 2004
The Paper Trail: A Comparison of Documents The Washington Post, September 18, 2004
Graphic comparison of all the CBS memos with officially released Killian memos The Washington Post, September 19, 2004
"Blog-gate" Columbia Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....
"CJR Fallacies", response by Joseph Newcomer
"Are the Bush Documents Fake?", analysis by Richard Polt

Overview Timeline at USA Today

"Scoops and skepticism: How the story unfolded" — timeline from USA Today — September 21, 2004

Background and timeline

Content of the memos

CBS investigations prior to airing the segment

Response of the document examiners

September 8 segment and initial reactions

Internet skepticism spreads

CBS's response and widening media coverage

CBS' defense, apology

60 Minutes Wednesday, one week later

CBS states that use of the documents was a mistake

Review panel established

Findings

Panel's view of the documents

Aftermath

CBS personnel and programming changes

Mapes and Rather's view of the documents

Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS/Viacom

Authentication issues

Accusations of bias

Killian documents PDF files

Bush documents from the TexANG archives

60 Minutes II, September 8 transcript

Statements of the CBS document examiners

Document analysis

Overview Timeline at USA Today

Further reading