Ex-Guard Typist Recalls Memos Criticizing Bush

George W. Bush’s commanding officer in the Texas Air National Guard wrote memos more than 30 years ago objecting to efforts to gloss over the young lieutenant’s shortcomings and failure to take a flight physical, the officer’s former secretary said Tuesday night.

But Marian Carr Knox of Houston said she thought four memos unveiled by CBS News last week were forgeries -- not copies of the ones she typed at the time.

Knox, 86, worked for 23 years at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston and served as a typist for Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, then Bush’s squadron commander, and several other officers.

In a brief interview Tuesday, she confirmed that Killian had concerns about Bush’s failure to take his physical examination in 1972, which prevented him from flying, and about efforts by higher-ups to protect the future president from the fallout.

Knox told several newspapers that Killian kept the personal files on Bush, and on other topics, in a desk drawer as a way of “covering his back” in anticipation of later questions about his actions. She retired in 1979, before Killian’s death, and said she did not know what became of the files.

Knox said that the four memos first shown last week on CBS News did not look authentic. After speaking briefly to The Times, Knox said she was tired of talking about the subject and turned the phone over to her son, Patrick M. Carr.

Carr said he had heard his mother describe for other reporters how some of the terminology in the memos, including the use of “billets” and a reference to the “administrative officer” were not in common usage in the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, for which she worked. She said those terms sounded more like the ones used by the Army National Guard, her son said.

The four memos in question, revealed by CBS Sept. 8, purportedly were written by Killian between May 1972 and August 1973, during a time when Bush was absent from his regular Guard duty. The network called the source of the documents “unimpeachable,” but declined to say who it was.

The first memo ordered Bush to take a physical in order to maintain his flying status. The next discussed how he could “get out of coming to drill” so he could go to Alabama to work on a political campaign. The third and fourth memos, respectively, said Bush had been “suspended from flight status” and that Killian was resisting pressure from a former Guard officer to “sugar-coat” Bush’s yearly evaluation.

Killian died in 1984, and his views of Bush have been hotly debated by those around him, with Knox joining another former Guard officer who said objections to Bush’s service sounded like those the squadron commander would have made.

Killian’s son and widow, however, have said adamantly that they do not believe he kept such “personal” records on Bush or other employees and that the officer held his young pilot in high esteem.

Gary D. Killian, 51, of Houston said that Knox was a “dear old lady” but that she was not in the best position to know or recall his father’s feelings of 30 years ago.

“I had more time to talk to my father and know what he thought about those things than Ms. Carr, bless her heart,” Killian said Tuesday.

“First of all, she was the secretary not just to my dad but to many officers, and her primary job was to do typing for the group commander,” Killian said.

“All the documents from Bush’s record have been released and these don’t exist. That’s because they never happened.”

CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius greeted Knox’s statements with mixed emotions. While suggesting that Knox was wrong about the authenticity of the memos, she was pleased that the one-time secretary corroborated their content.

“While we do not believe that she is a documents expert,” CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said of Knox, “it is exceptionally noteworthy that she supports the content of our story.””While we do not believe that she is a documents expert,” CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said, “it is exceptionally noteworthy that she supports the content of our story.”

White House officials could not be reached for comment, but earlier in the day the Bush administration made its strongest statements yet rebutting the memos. Aides said Bush had recently reviewed the documents and told them that the memos did not reflect the nature of his relationship with Killian.

First Lady Laura Bush had said while campaigning Monday that she felt the documents were fakes.

The debate over the memos has raged for a week in a campaign in which both Bush and Democratic nominee John F. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, have gone to great lengths to bolster their credentials to lead the nation as commander in chief.

Questions about Bush’s service began when his father, George H.W. Bush, ran for president in 1988. Since the younger Bush won the presidency four years ago, his backers have said repeatedly that his honorable discharge is the best evidence that he served admirably. But a six-month gap in his service in 1972 has never been completely explained, and most of the men who served at an Alabama base where Bush was supposed to have reported that year said they did not recall ever seeing him.

The controversy began Sept. 8, when the “CBS Evening News” and the network’s “60 Minutes” magazine aired extensive reports saying Bush was fast-tracked into the Guard over other candidates and then had his path to an honorable discharge cleared, despite the fact that he didn’t fly for his last 18 months in the service.

CBS interviewed former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes, who said that, at the request of a Bush family friend, he had talked the head of the Air National Guard into giving Bush a coveted position, one that would keep him out of combat. Barnes is a Democrat and a top financial contributor to Kerry’s campaign.

To buttress its report, the network displayed four memos it said were written at the time by Bush’s by-the-book unit commander.

A tempest erupted almost immediately over the authenticity of the memos, with some experts saying that the typing and spacing were unlike what would have been produced by typewriters of the era.

Knox based her objections to the memos not on the type but on the content, which she said smacked of the Army, not the Air Force.

Like all aspects of the debate, the views of the principals tend to coincide with their feelings on the election.

Knox identified herself as an opponent of Bush, whom she called unfit for office. Killian’s son, meanwhile, called himself a Republican who would vote for the president as “the best alternative.”

Bush on Tuesday addressed a national conference of thousands of retired and active Guard members in Las Vegas, telling them he was proud of his service.

Kerry is to address the same group Thursday but does not plan to speak about Bush’s Guard service, an advisor said.

Instead, the Democrat plans to thanks the Guard members for their “heroic service” and to “hold the president accountable for what he is doing now, not 30 years ago,” said Joe Lockhart, a senior advisor to the campaign.

CBS’s next move is also unclear. Even as other reporters lined up for interviews with Knox Tuesday, CBS anchor Dan Rather was calling into the elderly woman’s home.