The X Files Of Lt. Bush

By Amanda Ripley

Journalists and politicos have been trying off and on for a decade now to suss out exactly what George W. Bush did in the National Guard more than 30 years ago. The basic facts are not very mysterious: Bush got a coveted homeland gig in the Guard, just as many other well-connected college graduates did, while hundreds of thousands of other young men got drafted and sent to Vietnam. Ever since Bush ran for Texas Governor in 1994, details of the subplot have dribbled out, suggesting that he was a slacker in his later days as a pilot in the Guard and may not have fulfilled his obligations to the military. Bush has prolonged the intrigue by never fully answering questions about his service. His representatives repeat, like a mantra, that Bush was honorably discharged from the service, so why keep asking us about these pesky details? With critics of Democratic challenger John Kerry raising unsubstantiated claims that he exaggerated his heroism as a swift-boat commander in Vietnam, the matter of Bush's own service is back in the spotlight.

Various search dogs, partisan and not, barked madly up and down the hills of people's memories last week, sometimes scenting truth and other times falling off the cliff entirely. CBS released several damning new memos, which may or may not be authentic (more on that later), that sent forensic experts researching the history of the type font Times New Roman and bloggers dusting off their old IBM typewriters. Welcome to the final stage of a tight race. Now let's pause for a few reality checks.

On the question of whether Bush got preferential treatment as the son of a Texas Congressman and later the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Ben Barnes, a former speaker of the Texas House, has long been on record saying he did. After years of denying he had done anything special for Bush, he reluctantly said in a 1999 deposition that he had pushed to get Bush into the Guard at the request of a friend of the Bush family. Recently, Barnes, who has become a fund raiser for Kerry, has again spoken out about the matter, acknowledging at a Texas rally and on CBS that he had helped Bush. Bush has always denied that he or his family asked for any favors.

After Bush joined the Guard in Texas in 1968, he received positive evaluations. But records clearly show that his performance dropped off suddenly in 1972. After he transferred to an Alabama unit so he could work on the Senate campaign of a family friend, Bush began missing regular Guard duty. Only one member of Bush's unit has come forward to say he saw Bush reporting for duty in Alabama, but his recollection places Bush in the state before Bush was officially assigned there. A new TV commercial produced by the Democratic-allied group Texans for Truth features a member of Bush's Alabama unit vowing that he never saw Bush there. A gap in service was not unprecedented, though; members of the Dallas Cowboys served in the Guard and routinely disappeared during the football season.

In a report last week, the Boston Globe zeroed in on a document showing that before Bush moved to Cambridge, Mass., in 1973 to attend Harvard Business School, he pledged to register with a local unit. In 1999 his spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush had indeed done so. Bartlett told TIME last week he had misspoken. Bush never registered locally. But he did not have to, Bartlett now claims, because the military's central registry in Denver knew his whereabouts. It remains unclear, however, what exactly the registration rules were at the time.

The biggest blot on Bush's record may be his failure to take his required annual physical in 1972. As a result, he was suspended from flying--an embarrassment for serious pilots. In years past, the Bush campaign claimed he missed the physical because his personal physician was in Houston. Now the White House says Bush did not need to take the physical, since he did not intend to fly during his stint in Alabama. New egregious claims about Bush's service are made in four memos released by CBS last Wednesday dating from 1972 and 1973. The network has not revealed how it obtained the documents but says they are from the personal files of Lieut. Colonel Jerry Killian, Bush's squadron commander in Texas, now deceased. If authentic, they demonstrate more favoritism toward Bush than previously indicated. In one document, Killian states that he and his superior, Major General Bobby Hodges, were pressured by Walter Staudt, the Texas National Guard commander, to "sugar coat" an evaluation of Bush. Hodges, who initially thought the memos were handwritten and authentic, now says he thinks they are fake. He told TIME last week, "There was no political pressure that I can remember." And Staudt's military records show that he had left the Guard by the time the memo was written, according to the Dallas Morning News. A TIME reporter called and visited Staudt's home but got no response. Killian's son Gary, who served in the Guard alongside his father from 1971 to 1979, says he believes the documents are fake, in part because he remembers that his father admired Bush.

So far, forensic and typewriter experts consulted by TIME and other major media organizations have not reached a consensus on the authenticity of the memos. Some insist it would have been nearly impossible for a 1970s-era typewriter to produce the memos because of the letter spacing in the documents and the use of a raised and compact th symbol. But Bill Glennon, a technology consultant in New York City who worked for IBM repairing typewriters from 1973 to 1985, says those experts "are full of crap. They just don't know." Glennon says there were IBM machines capable of producing the spacing, and a customized key--the likes of which he says were not unusual--could have created the superscript th.

Another memo released by CBS, if real, indicates that when Bush missed his physical, he was disobeying a direct order from Killian to get one. But Hodges, who is now retired, says missing the physical was "no big deal." CBS broadcast a special segment wholeheartedly defending its report two days after it aired.

Will any of this matter come Election Day? The truth is, while Kerry may have taken a hit in the polls as a result of the largely bogus criticism of his war record, Bush, as the incumbent, is not as vulnerable--even if the accusations are more credible. Americans have spent four years watching Bush as President. Kerry is the unknown, and as with any stranger at the gate, people are wary. What's more, the breathless debate over typewriter fonts last week shifted the debate away from Bush's questionable record. --Reported by John F. Dickerson and Mark Thompson/Washington, Sean Gregory/New York, Hilary Hylton/Austin and Cathy Booth Thomas/Dallas

With reporting by John F. Dickerson and Mark Thompson/Washington, Sean Gregory/New York, Hilary Hylton/Austin and Cathy Booth Thomas/Dallas