Confronted with growing evidence that he aired forged Texas Air National Guard documents on 60 Minutes, Dan Rather on Wednesday evening declined to defend the authenticity of four documents allegedly authored by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, George W. Bush's former commander.  Instead, Rather interviewed Marion Carr Knox, Killian's secretary, who stated the documents are forgeries:

Rather and CBS News maintained that the thrust of the original 60 Minutes story was true, even if the documents were forgeries, because what was said in the documents was true:

Rather maintained that the thrust of last week's 60 Minutes story was correct:

Ms. Knox offered a theory to explain the origin of the forged documents:

Even as Ms. Knox discredited the Killian documents on 60 Minutes, CBS News continued its vigorous defense of the documents in its September 15 Statement. (CBS calls this "reporting all aspects of the story.")  But CBS has dug itself into a deep, deep hole over the last week, and Rather's credibility is on the line.

A review of the reporting that has been done in the last week shows that all of these statements are false.

According to the CBS Statement, the source for the documents "had access to the documents he provided and an opportunity to obtain copies of them."  Newsweek reported in its September 20 issue that the source for the Killian memos was Bill Burkett, who Newsweek described as a "disgruntled former Guard officer." Burkett claims he was at National Guard Headquarters in Austin when then-Governor Bush ordered key documents to be destroyed. If Newsweek is to believed, it appears Burkett is the "unimpeachable source" upon whom well-respected, veteran journalist Mary Mapes relied.

CBS states it consulted four independent examiners prior to the broadcast of the story on September 8.  According to CNN, three of the four say they did not authenticate the documents, and CBS is openly attacking two of them, Emily Will and Linda James.

Emily Will said she had "serious questions" about the two documents she examined, but did not reach a definite conclusion as to their authenticity. She told the Washington Post that she called the producer September 7 and "repeated all of my objections as strongly as I could."  She said, "I didn't feel that they [CBS] wanted to investigate it very deeply."

Linda James stated, "I didn't feel I could give an opinion, and I certainly would not authenticate," because of the poor quality of the documents.  "I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it understood that I did."

CBS News has since accused Ms. Will and Ms. James of "misrepresenting" their conversations and communications with CBS News. CBS now claims that Ms. Will and Ms. James "played a peripheral role in the authentication process and deferred to Mr. Matley, who examined all four of the documents used."

According to CBS News, Marcel Matley is one of two examiners who "attested and continue to attest to their belief in the documents' authenticity."  CBS News has posted a letter from Mr. Matley on its website.

But according to the Los Angeles Times, Matley vouched for the authenticity of just one signature, and expressed no opinion regarding the typography of the memos.  According to CNN, Matley said, "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.  I could not authenticate the documents themselves. But at the same time, there was nothing to tell me that they were not authentic."

That leaves one "independent examiner," James J. Pierce, whose September 14 letter states he believes "the documents in question are authentic."

Therefore, CBS's statement that the documents' authenticity was vouched for by independent experts is false.  Its statement that the experts who examined the documents concluded they were authentic is false.  And finally, CBS's statement that Marcel Matley believes the documents are real is false.

But it is not just Rather's experts who have abandoned him.  Ms. Knox has now confirmed that she did not type the documents. And Major General Bobby Hodges, one of Rather's primary sources (his "trump card") believes the documents are forgeries, now that he has seen them.  Numerous other defects in the documents have been reported elsewhere.

Faced with a nearly complete evaporation of his sources, Rather is looking for new sources to substantiate his story, a week after it first aired on 60 Minutes.  For example, Bill Glennon noted on CBS Evening News on September 13, 2004, that the IBM model D Executive or C Executive was capable of proportional type spacing, and could do superscript printing if you ordered a special key for it.  And Richard Katz noted a typist using Microsoft Word would have to "go out of [his] way" to produce the normal 'th' on the May 4, 1972 document.  Also, it is fairly clear that Rather contacted Ms. Knox after the airing of the original 60 Minutes story on September 8.  

If the Killian documents are just a portion of the original sourcing for the story, as Rather claims, then why is CBS so vigorously defending their authenticity?

There is only one reason.  As Bob Schieffer said, Dan Rather "is very confident of his sources.  He says he is absolutely convinced these documents are real."  God save CBS News.

Andrew Alexander is Co-Editor of IntellectualConservative.

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