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Renewed focus on bush time in military { September 9 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/09/MNGKE8LUFG1.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/09/MNGKE8LUFG1.DTL
Renewed focus on Bush time in military
Ex-official says he helped politician's son avoid Vietnam
- Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Washington -- President Bush faced new questions about his Vietnam-era service Wednesday, including whether he used his family's political connections to avoid being sent to Vietnam and failed to complete his service in the air national guard by missing some training assignments.
After weeks of media scrutiny of Democrat John Kerry's record in Vietnam, Bush was broadsided by several challenges to his account of his six-year stint in the air guard in Texas and Alabama, including:
-- A CBS "60 Minutes" interview in which a former Texas speaker of the House said he helped secure a pilot's position for Bush in the Texas Air National Guard to keep him from being drafted.
-- New memos obtained by CBS News suggesting that Bush's squadron commander in Texas was under pressure from his superiors to give Bush a strong performance review, which he refused to do.
-- A Boston Globe investigation that concluded that Bush missed training assignments in Alabama and Massachusetts despite twice signing statements that warned that he could be put on active duty for two years for doing so.
Republicans denounced the latest charges and media accounts as part of an orchestrated smear campaign by Democrats.
White House aides noted that Ben Barnes, the former Texas House speaker accusing Bush of pulling strings to get into the air guard, is a Kerry supporter, is a neighbor of the Massachusetts senator on Nantucket and is raising money for the Democrat's campaign.
"I chalk it up to politics," Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, told CBS News Wednesday. "The bottom line is there is no truth to this."
The clash over Bush's service was fully ignited when Barnes, a former Texas lieutenant governor, said for the first time on "60 Minutes" that the Bush family had sought his help, through a family friend, to secure a spot in the Texas air guard.
At the time, Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, was a congressman representing Houston. Bush had just graduated from Yale University and could have become eligible for the draft.
Barnes said he was approached by Sidney Adger, a wealthy Texas oilman and friend of the senior Bush, who asked on behalf of the Bush family for help in obtaining a pilot's position in the Texas Air National Guard.
"He said basically, would I help young George Bush get into the Air National Guard," Barnes said in the interview with CBS's Dan Rather.
Barnes said he called Brig. Gen. James Rose, the head of the Texas Air National Guard, to discuss Bush's application. He said he used his clout as House speaker to make sure Bush and many other well-connected young men got positions in the guard.
"I was a young, ambitious politician, doing what I thought was acceptable (and) important to make friends. I recommended a lot of people," Barnes said.
Both Bush and his father have denied using the family's influence or political connections to help land a spot in the guard. Adger and Rose are deceased.
The comments were the most extensive Barnes has made about his efforts --
and, as some Republicans pointed out, they somewhat contradicted his earlier public statements.
In 1999, when similar questions were raised about Bush's service when he first ran for president, Barnes issued a sworn statement through his attorney saying that Adger had asked him to help Bush, but said: "Neither Congressman Bush nor any other member of the Bush family asked for Barnes' help."
Barnes said on "60 Minutes" that he decided to tell more after a recent visit to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, where he said he felt remorse at having helped Bush and other politically connected young men avoid service in Vietnam while others had to fight and die.
"I don't think that I had any right to have the power that I had to be able to choose who was going to go to Vietnam and who was not going to go to Vietnam," he said. "That is a power -- in some instances as I looked at those names -- maybe of determining life and death."
The "60 Minutes" report also included newly obtained documents from Bush's Texas squadron leader, Col. Jerry Killian. Although Killian initially gave Bush stellar evaluations -- calling him an "exceptionally fine young officer and pilot" -- later memos suggested that Bush was failing to meet his requirements.
In a May 1972 memo, Killian said he talked to Bush about "options of how Bush can get out of coming to drill from now through November" because of campaign work Bush wanted to do. Killian said he also believed Bush was "talking to someone upstairs" to avoid some assignments.
When he later decided to suspend Bush's flight status -- after Bush failed to take a physical exam and meet other air guard requirements -- Killian suggested he was under pressure to give a favorable review.
"I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job," he wrote.
Late Wednesday night the White House released copies of the new memos to the Associated Press. Although the controversy over Bush's service has gone on for at least a decade, Pentagon officials said they found the memos only after performing an exhaustive search "out of an abundance of caution" in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the AP.
Democrats appeared to be relishing the new scrutiny of Bush's air guard service, which they said was justified after the media spent most of August scrutinizing Kerry's war record after a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ran TV ads accusing the Massachusetts senator of exaggerating his war injuries to earn more medals.
In what appeared to be a Democratic response to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group calling itself "Texans for Truth" released a new TV ad accusing Bush of missing some of his air guard service.
In the 30-second ad, being aired in several small markets in battleground states, retired Lt. Col. Robert Mintz of the Alabama Air National Guard recalls hearing Bush in public talking about serving in the guard's 187th tactical squadron in Montgomery in 1972.
"(I said) Really? That was my unit, and I don't remember seeing you there, " Mintz said in the ad. "So I called friends, you know, 'Did you know George served in our unit? 'Nah, I never saw him there.' It would be impossible to be unseen in a unit that size."
Bush has insisted he did show up at the base, where he was assigned from September to November 1972. At least one member has recalled seeing Bush at the base, but several other members of the unit have told the media they don't remember seeing him during that time.
Military records released by the Pentagon last year revealed that Bush was not paid during the five months he was assigned to the unit, suggesting he was not at the base, although records show he did show up for a dental exam in Alabama in early 1973.
The group, Texans for Truth, was launched a month ago by Glenn Smith, a well-known Texas Democratic strategist who managed Ann Richards' successful gubernatorial race in 1990 as well as Tony Sanchez's failed run for governor in 2002.
The so-called 527 group, named for the portion of the tax code that spawned it, is a spin-off of DriveDemocracy.org, a separate group organized by Smith to counter Republican efforts to pick up congressional seats in Texas through redistricting. The group was funded with contributions from MoveOn.org, a liberal group based in Berkeley, which is sponsored by major Democratic donors and is airing anti-Bush ads across the country.
A Boston Globe investigation, published Wednesday, pointed out that Bush had twice signed documents, in 1968 and again in 1973, in which he acknowledged a "responsibility to locate and be assigned" to a new guard unit when he moved away from Texas -- or risk a possible punishment of facing 24 months of active duty.
The Globe concluded that on at least two occasions -- when he moved to Alabama to help on a Senate campaign in 1972 and later in 1973 when he left for Massachusetts to attend Harvard Business School -- he failed to sign up with the local units.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan disputed the report, saying it was based on flawed analysis by military experts who support Kerry.
"The president met his commitments in Texas. He met his commitments in Alabama. He met his commitments when he returned to Texas in 1973," McClellan said. "If he had not fulfilled his commitments, he would not have been honorably discharged."
Chronicle news services contributed to this report.E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
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