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.

He claimed that in 1997, while outside the governor's office in Austin, he overheard a conversation about "wanting to bury George W. Bush's Vietnam service record." This has been disputed. [ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24635-2004Sep15.html] Washington Post, September 15, 2004]

Burkett had received publicity in 2000, after making and then retracting a claim that he had been transferred to Panama for refusing "to falsify personnel records of Governor Bush", [Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 53.] and in February of 2004, when he claimed to have knowledge of "scrubbing" of Bush's TexANG records [cite web|url=http://onlinejournal.com/bush/031903Burkett/031903burkett.html|title=What do you say?|author=Bill Burkett|date=2003-03-19|publisher=Online Journal|accessdate=2006-03-20] [cite news|url=http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/02/13/doubts_raised_on_bush_accuser?mode=PF|author=Michael Rezendesz|title=Doubts raised about Bush's accuser|work=Boston Globe online|date=2004-02-13|accessdate=2005-12-20] According to the review panel, investigations by major news outlets at the time, including CBS, "revealed inconsistencies... which led to questions regarding his credibility and whether his claims could be proven." [Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 51.]

Burkett's claims about the origins of the documents have since changed several times. He admitted to lying to CBS about the origin of the memos when he said he got them from fellow guardsman George Conn, [ [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/20/eveningnews/main644664.shtml] CBS Evening News, September 20, 2004] then claiming that he received the Killian documents from a woman calling herself "Lucy Ramirez." To date, she has not been identified. The documents, purported to have been typed in the early seventies, are widely reported to have almost certainly been produced from a computer using Microsoft Word on default settings. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/campaign/20CND-GUAR.html?hp "CBS Says It Can't Vouch for Bush Documents"] "New York Times" September 20, 2004] However, it may be impossible to prove their validity one way or the other since Burkett now claims that he burned the originals after faxing copies of the documents to CBS. [ [http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-21-cover-guard_x.htm CBS backs off Guard story] USA Today, September 21, 2004]

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