Burkett as the source does not make sense.

[mourningdove92]

These are memos from Killian's personal file. How would Burkett get those? When Killian retired, he would not have left his personal memos to file behind.

[Lex]

1. Didn't Burkett say he saw a lot of stuff in the trashcan back then?

Did he fish some documents out of the trashcan?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. Read this and tell me what you think....

...Mr. Burkett declined to return telephone calls to his home near Abilene, Tex. His lawyer, David Van Os, on Tuesday repeatedly refused to say in a telephone interview whether the officer had played a part in supplying the disputed documents to CBS. Mr. Van Os said "the real story is and should be, where was George Bush?" and that Mr. Burkett "is not the proper object of attention."

Mr. Van Os called Mr. Burkett "a man of impeccable honesty who would not permit himself to be a party to anything fake, fraudulent or phony." He also said, in response to questions, and stressing that he was speaking only hypothetically, "If Bill Burkett were to later discover that something he was a party to were fake or phony, as a man of honor who lives by a code of honor of the military, he would not permit the falsity to continue." But, the lawyer hastened to add, "This is not intended to be any kind of specific statement."

Asked what role Mr. Burkett had in raising questions about Mr. Bush's military service, Mr. Van Os said: "If, hypothetically, Bill Burkett or anyone else, any other individual, had prepared or had typed on a word processor as some of the journalists are presuming, without much evidence, if someone in the year 2004 had prepared on a word processor replicas of documents that they believed had existed in 1972 or 1973 - which Bill Burkett has absolutely not done'' - then, he continued, "what difference would it make?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/politics/campaign/15guard.html?pagewanted=print&position=

[SayitAintSo]

8. To be honest ... I'm a little confused here....

It says Burkett unequivolcally stands by the content, did NOT produce them, yet they say it desn't matter: "what difference would it make?" ?

Were accurate fakes floated knowing they would draw the necessary fire to get the WHOLE story out ? Is it a Trojen horse of sorts ?

The only thing that does not compute is this:

"If Bill Burkett were to later discover that something he was a party to were fake or phony, as a man of honor who lives by a code of honor of the military, he would not permit the falsity to continue."

I can't reconcile the fake Trojen Horse theory... Help

[tjdee]

3. Killian's CYA files were in a locked drawer in his desk, right?

I'm just playing around here, but it's possible that they were still onsite at at the time of the scrubbing (eh, its a stretch though, obviously if you retire you take your stuff).

I don't know how much sense Burkett makes, but I do admit that joining the TANG story and the record scrubbing would be a blow to Bush's credibility that I'd like to witness.

[wurzel]

4. Burkett may have reconstructed them from memory.

And kept them waiting for this moment.

[mourningdove92]

5. That would not be a good thing. Reconstructing from

memory would not be very credible. CBS believes in the person who provided the docs. An impeccable source, Rather said. I just cannot see Burkett filling that bill.

[Must_B_Free]

6. I agree -

Killian could have been inspired to look for more docs by witnessing the scrubbing though.

[A_Possum]

7. I'm pretty interested in this Eva Killian

who lives 3 miles away from the Kinko's.

Now, if Killian took his personal files home when he retired (I assume he retired before he died?) then they'd be part of his personal effects, not part of any Guard files.

You would assume his widow would have them. But who is Eva and is she/how is she related to him?

[mourningdove92]

10. I'm with you on this.

If she is related to Killian, and has the originals, its all over.

[tridim]

9. Burkett got them after they were stolen by the BFEE

from Killian's files. Just throwing out some more possibilities.

[KC21304]

11. Does anyone here have experience with military files ?

If Killian died in 84, would his files still be there in 97 ? Or would documents pertaining to Bush be transfered to Bush's files ?

[A_Possum]

12. Mrs Knox said...

the terms used in the memos were "Army" usage, not Guard usage, and that was one reason she thought they were faked.

This would contradict any suspicion that Burkett reproduced them using the wrong terminology. He was career Guard, and was never in the Army. In one of the stories about him, he said he joined the guard to avoid the draft, because he didn't believe in what we were doing in Vietnam.