Move to Screen Bush File in 90's Is
Reported
By Ralph Blumenthal
The New York Times
Thursday 12 February 2004
HOUSTON, Feb. 11 — A retired
lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard complained to a
member of the Texas Senate in 1998 that aides to Gov. George W. Bush
improperly screened Mr. Bush's National Guard files in a search for
information that could embarrass the governor in future elections.
The retired officer, Bill Burkett,
said in the letter to Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, a Democrat from
Austin, that Dan Bartlett, then a senior aide to Governor Bush and
now White House communications director, and Gen. Daniel James, then
the head of the Texas National Guard, reviewed the file to
"make sure nothing will embarrass the governor during his
re-election campaign."
A copy of the letter was provided
to The New York Times by a lawyer for Mr. Burkett to support
statements he makes in a book to be published this month, which Mr.
Burkett repeated in interviews this week, that Mr. Bush's aides
ordered Guard officials to remove damaging information from Mr.
Bush's military personnel files.
Mr. Bartlett denied on Wednesday
that any records were altered. General James, since named head of
the Air National Guard by President Bush, also denied Mr. Burkett's
account. But Mr. Bartlett and another former official in Mr. Bush's
administration in Texas, Joe Allbaugh, acknowledged speaking to
National Guard officials about the files as Mr. Bush was preparing
to seek re-election as governor.
Both said their goal was to ensure
that the records would be helpful to journalists who inquired about
Mr. Bush's military experience.
Questions about Mr. Bush's service
in the National Guard have arisen in every campaign he has run since
his 1994 race for governor. His 2004 re-election campaign is no
different, as Democrats have pointed to apparent gaps in his service
record with the National Guard.
On Tuesday, the White House
released 18 months of payroll records that it says demonstrate that
Mr. Bush fully completed his service. And on Wednesday, the White
House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the administration was
awaiting more records and promised to make public any previously
undisclosed information from the file.
Mr. McClellan and other
administration officials criticized the Democrats for their attacks
on Mr. Bush's service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War.
"What you are seeing is gutter politics," Mr. McClellan
said. "The American people deserve better. There are some who
are not interested in their facts. They are simply trolling for
trash."
Mr. Burkett's letter to Senator
Barrientos was part of a running battle that he waged with the
National Guard after retiring in January 1998. In it, Mr. Burkett
complained of "severe retaliation" from General James for
what he said was reporting "illegal acts" within the
National Guard. He also complained about the government's failure to
pay for his medical care after suffering from a tropical disease
after a military assignment to Panama in 1997. Before finally
winning medical benefits in July 1998, he said, he suffered a
nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for depression.
A spokesman for Senator Barrientos,
Ray Perez, said on Wednesday that "Mr. Burkett did correspond
with this office." Senator Barrientos said he was trying to
find the six-year-old records of contacts with Mr. Burkett. Another
Texas legislator contacted at the time by Mr. Burkett,
Representative Bob Hunter, Republican of Abilene, said Mr. Burkett
had appeared before his committee overseeing military affairs and
had complained of mishandling of his medical claims but did not
mention Mr. Bush's files. He called Mr. Burkett
"disgruntled."
In telephone interviews this week
from his home near Abilene, Mr. Burkett, 55, a systems analyst with
27 years in the National Guard including service as deputy
commandant of the New Mexico Military Academy, said he happened to
be in General James' office at Camp Mabry in Austin in mid-1997 and
overheard Mr. Allbaugh on a speakerphone telling General James that
Mr. Bartlett and Karen P. Hughes, another aide to Governor Bush,
would be coming to the Guard offices to review Mr. Bush's military
files.
Ms. Hughes, who left the White
House in 2002, did not return a call.
Mr. James said though a spokesman
that "that discussion never happened" and that he would
"never condone falsification of any record." Mr. Allbaugh
called the account "pure hogwash," but said he talked to
General James about making Mr. Bush's records available to
reporters.
"We spoke about a lot of
things," Mr. Allbaugh said. "I'm sure we had a
conversation with General James where all the records were kept
because it was an issue in 1994 and 1998 and would be in 2000. We
wanted to make sure we could refer people of your profession where
to go."
Mr. Burkett further said that about
10 days later he and another officer walked into the Camp Mabry
military museum and saw the head of the museum, Gen. John Scribner,
going through Mr. Bush's personnel records. Mr. Burkett said he saw
a trash basket with discarded papers bearing Mr. Bush's name. Mr.
Burkett said the papers appeared to be "retirement point
certificates, pay documents, that sort of thing."
General Scribner dismissed the
account. "It never happened as far as I know," he said.
"Why would I be going into records?"
Mr. Burkett is quoted at length in
a book to come out by the end of the month, "Bush's War for
Re-election" by James Moore, a former Texas television reporter
and co-author of "Bush's Brain."
The other Guard officer who Mr.
Burkett says was with him the day he saw General Scribner going
though the records, George Conn, declined in an e-mail message to
comment on Mr. Burkett's statements. But Mr. Conn, a former chief
warrant officer for the Texas Guard and now a civilian on duty with
American forces in Europe, said: "I know LTC Bill Burkett and
served with him several years ago in the Texas Army National Guard.
I believe him to be honest and forthright. He `calls things like he
sees them.' "
A retired officer, Lt. Col. Dennis
Adams, said Mr. Burkett told him of the incidents shortly after they
happened. "We talked about them several different times,"
said Mr. Adams, who spent 15 years in the Texas Guard and 12 years
on active duty in the Army. He now works for the Texas Department of
Public Safety as a security officer guarding the state Capitol.
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