Former secretary says she didn't type memos

[Snellius]

HOUSTON – The former secretary for the Texas Air National Guard colonel who supposedly authored memos critical of President Bush’s Guard service said Tuesday that the documents are fake, but that they reflect real documents that once existed.
...
“These are not real,” she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. “They’re not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him.”

Mrs. Knox, 86, who spoke with precise recollection about dates, people and events, said she is not a supporter of Mr. Bush, who she deemed “unfit for office” and “selected, not elected.”

“I remember very vividly when Bush was there and all the yak-yak that was going on about it,” she said.
...
She said she did not recall typing the memos reported by CBS News, though she said they accurately reflect the viewpoints of Lt. Col. Killian and documents that would have been in the personal file. Also, she could not say whether the CBS documents corresponded memo for memo with that file.

“The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones,” she said.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/091504dnpolnatguard.1185eb4ae.html

[neuvocat]

1. Why is she the only one who seems to remember Bush being there?

Oh well, I guess she gets the 50,000 dollar reward.

[benddem]

3. no the reward

is for someone who remembered him in Alabama...isn't it?

[lojasmo]

5. I'm sure the "yak yak"

was all the push for coverup of his failure to take his physical and such.

[jdj]

31. Maybe he cheated on her

with his other secretary.

or his wife.

[qanda]

7. There's no dispute about him being in Texas

The dispute is him not being in Alabama.

[Stephanie]

because this is Texas

There's no dispute that he was in Texas. It's Alabama where he never showed up.

[TexasLady]

62. Exactly,.. my own father remembers

riding in a plane with * in the early seventies when he was in the Natl Guard. BUT that was in Texas. He said to me that he was a real likable guy(hmmm...guess he was a lot of fun in those days!) My father played a lot of poker on the base in those days, and Im sure Bush was no exception to the festivities...

Then again, dad is a repuke..

[sniffa]

2. ha! the headLine is misLeading

i thought this wouLd be more forgery

[flowomo]

13. Exactly!

This is a wonderful piece of supporting evidence concerning the basic claims in the "60 Minutes" piece.

[leftchick]

44. I agree....

SECRETARY SUPPORTS CLAIMS MADE IN DISPUTED MEMOS.... would be much more appropriate. You know if this were about a Democrat that would be the headline.

[truthisfreedom]

4. wow, this is really interesting though. she's debunking the memos but

not the message! we don't need the memos anymore.

[Snellius]

6. Note how DMN makes the story about CBS and the forgery

rather than about Bush and the overall validity of the story in general.

[bobbyboucher]

8. Very curious.

This is all very curious. I have a feeling it ain't over yet.

[whistle]

9. Did she identify the typewriter she used?

[alarcojon]

19. Yes

"She identified those machines as a mechanical Olympia, which was replaced by an IBM Selectric in the early 1970s."

[karlrschneider]

10. Well, I hate to sound bad, but my mom is also 86 and she thinks people

come into her house while she's sleeping and rearrange her furniture.
:-(

[cybildisobedience]

18. my mom is 86

and she thinks people steal her oregano.

[WLKjr]

23. Well my mom is 47

and forgot this morning why she had a huge black bruise on her foot. I had to remind her she got it the other day from dropping a box of frozen beef patties on it.


and my grandma is 66, and called my house in a frantic voice swearing someone was in her house, so I go over and no one is there. She said it was an old woman in a rocking chair who started cleaning her house for her and bugs were all over the place....


damn I hope when I get old this crap doesn't happen to me :(

[shanti]

26. blame it on the beef

:evilgrin:

[WLKjr]

27. I had to

cuz I didnt want her to know that I stepped on her toe :D

j/k, I actually saw her drop the box (at the corner) onto her foot and she screamed out in pain right next to the chair I was sitting in and I told her "Ouch, that looks like it hurt a little bit. You might want to get some ICE on that :D!

and she got mad at me for laughing about it.....I love my mom when she get's mad at me.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

49. Got some bad news for you, junior...

...it happens to all of us.

[WLKjr]

55. dammit

is this one of those 'your screwed either way' situations? :D

[henslee]

29. that is so funny.

[jdj]

30. yes, sadly, she sounds like a sport , but I don't think the fact

that an 86 year old doesn't remember doing something is enough to disprove anything.

I'm 36, and I don't remember what I typed 10 years ago.

[whistle]

11. Kindly print the whole article, I really don't want to register with...

...the Dallas News

[SalParadise]

12. login I created - use this

login: [e-mail]

password: invisible

[MeinaShaw]

40. Thanks, it worked

Thanks for the PW and UN. That sure made life easier.

[Snellius]

14. That violates copyright laws and DU rules for LBN

This is already stretching the mods' yardstick. But I don't think you need to register. I don't here. Try this:

http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/bi/gold_print.cgi

[area51]

16. "bug me not" website

If folks don't want to give out personal information to a website, they can go to http://bugmenot.com & they'll give you a login name & password to use.

[JoFerret]

15. Thank you Mrs Knox

Another witness. (IF the docs are forged then Rove did it to discredit the truth.)

[Keirsey]

54. Rove connection

I posted about this earlier, but no one replied, and it faded into oblivion.


http://web.archive.org/web/20010606002539/http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/Hicks052301/hicks052301.html

[Ducks In A Row]

17. maybe she was out sick that day

someone else typed them, or maybe killian typed it because of the pressure to give bush a pass.

[ochazuke]

25. Don't they seem poorly typed?

I mean, like the inconsistent use of superscript. They don't look like they were typed by a professional typist.

[0007]

46. Mrs. Killian said her husband didn't type -

[Media_Lies_Daily]

53. Right. And his son said he would NEVER keep "CYA" memos...

Just proves what they DIDN'T know about Killian.

[damntexdem]

20. Did the GOP plant the memos?

Will the memos, by been shown clearly bogus, completely kill AWOL as an issue?

[Career Prole]

24. Not with real veterans it won't.

Knowing what we know now has really pissed me off. I'm absolutely disgusted with that cowardly, posturing chickenshit. I heard he told the audience today that he was "proud to be a veteran too".
If I'd been there I would've been sorely tempted to slap some of the smug off him.
:grr:

[Spiffarino]

32. You again?

:puke:

[Bridget Burke]

47. AWOL has been an issue for years.

It won't go away, sorry.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

52. Red herring. Thanks for playing.

[Zorra]

21. CBS may actually have the originals of the memos. They are sticking

to their story tooth and nail, and if they do have the originals it is going to destroy Bu$h forever.

[Ravy]

28. Wouldn't that be sweet! Let their competitors jump on the bandwagon...

then flatten the tires.

[leesa]

22. So she says they are real.

What's the issue? Did this woman never take a day off?? That's the sadder fact.

[Carolab]

33. Her initials

If she typed it, her initials would be in lower case next to his in upper case. Standard secretarial transcription procedure. I.e., K/k

[CHIMO]

34. Beat Me To It

The typist used to put their initials on the document. Maybe that is why she is making the statement. However, if one were to protect their source, then they may have removed this info and any other recipients of the document.
It would be a good question to ask this person as to how she could be so sure that she didn't type the memo.

[demoman123]

35. Why forge documents if there were genuine originals?

What reason would there be to forge documents if there were genuine originals? Were the originals lost or destroyed and reconstructed from memory? I'm looking for a theory. Any thoughts on this?

[alarcojon]

36. See replies 40 and 46 here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=811853

Sounds interesting to me!

[demoman123]

37. Thanks for the links. That is an interesting possibility.

If that is what happened, it's too bad he didn't have a Minox. Then all this controversy could have been avoided!

[shawn703]

45. Bur why would they OCR it?

I thought the scanners usually scanned into an image format like TIFF or PDF which would have made it appear the same as the original. I'm not familiar with an option in Word that allows you to scan directly to the program. Wouldn't there be an original image on the laptop somewhere if this was done?

[BQueen]

38. Theory on a couple of fronts

Oh, article now titled: "Former Guard aide: Bush memos fake, but content accurate"

First, as to why "forge" (your term), or "recreate" (my term) documents when genuine originals existed? What if you had been ordered to destroy the originals?

a couple of interesting grafs from this article:
***Mrs. Knox, who left the Guard before Lt. Col. Killian died, said she was not sure of the disposition of his personal files when he died while still serving at Ellington. But, she said, it would have been logical that a master sergeant who worked in the squadron headquarters would have destroyed any such nonofficial documents after Lt. Col. Killian’’s death.
That man, reached Tuesday, declined to comment. ““I don’’t know anything about the matter,”” he said.
She also said the memos may have been constructed from memory by someone who had seen Lt. Col. Killian’’s private file but were not transcriptions because the language and terminology did not match what he would have used.***

Earlier Knox noted that Killian DID keep a CYA file (contradicting son and wife's accounts of his office/military practices). I wonder what an ethical person, ordered to "destroy originals and all duplicates" of docs that could bring down a major jackass might think of to get around that order -- make copies that aren't exact duplicates maybe, perhaps typed clumsily? Killian died in 1984, when Poppy was VP. They try to paint Burkett as part of the 'forgery' due to Army jargon, but I don't know where he was then...

Or, I haven't completely disgarded the possibility of a Rovian plant to distract the media/public from the fact that the Boston Globe docs have Shrub dead to rights...they can discredit Burkett by using the Army jargon and paint her as a ditzy old broad.

BTW, I've known plenty of teachers and secretaries in their mid-80s who remember stuff fifty years ago like it was yesterday (yesterday sometimes does get fuzzy). I imagine all those years of attention to detail help in keeping the mind active in later life (which tends to stave off senility).

as for the initials thing noted by other typists here - I don't know if that is as strict a custom for military documents as it is for general office -- anyone with military office experience know? The last time I saw it come up on a thread, the only military clerk-type person couldn't remember.

[demoman123]

42. This front looks plausible:

"...the memos may have been constructed from memory by someone who had seen Lt. Col. Killian’’s private file but were not transcriptions because the language and terminology did not match what he would have used."

The difference in language blows the scanner theory away. But someone may have been allowed to look at the originals but not allowed to copy them (this happens where I work all the time). That person may then have made notes later, and typed them even more recently, using Army terminology because that's what he was used to.

[MeinaShaw]

39. CBS says she is not a docs expert

From the Story: "As far as we can tell, this individual is not a documents expert," said CBS' Sandy Genelius."

You gotta laugh at this part. CBS says she is not a documents expert. That might be true, but she certainly is these documents expert. She has first hand knowledge of what she typed and did not type.

[LisaL]

41. Even if it was 35 years ago?

The woman is 86 years old, for crying out loud. Furthermore, she claims real documents "once existed". Well, she didn't say she typed real documents, did she? So, who typed them? Obviously, there were other people who would type them.

[CHIMO]

43. Who Said

That she typed them? Perhaps he typed them himself. Maybe he even did it at home.
Just the facts mam. Just the facts.
Is the story true?
CBS may have more cards to play. Rove may not know what is in their hand.

[kutastha]

50. Please elaborate

You state she is an expert on these documents because she has first-hand knowledge of these documents. If she wasn't the one who typed them, how much expert knowledge does she have on them, other then that she didn't type them?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

51. Oh, please. Who are you trying to fool with that happy crap?....

No officer with whom I served would have trusted the typing of a "CYA" document to his or her civilian secretary. The officer would have personally typed the documents and put them in a file that would not have been anywhere near their office.

This is a BS story.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

48. What a load of happy horseshit!

She's 86 freaking years old! And I don't care if she's spry as a damned teenager, there's no way that she specifically remembers NOT writing a particular memo from a distance of thirty-five years.

Who wants to bet me that she's a registered Republican?

[FearofFutility]

57. My local newspaper

has quoted her has saying re:Bush that he is "unfit for office" and he was "selected, not elected".

(I've been enjoying DU for months now and decided it was time to join in on the fun! :) )

[sadiesworld]

58. She sounds like a dem to me!

Welcome to DU, FearofFutility :hi:

[FearofFutility]

59. Thanks!

I'm addicted to DU. It feels like home!

[DoYouEverWonder]

56. Is Marion Carr Knox a real person?

The Dallas Morning News are the only people who have talked to her and yet her story is instantly national news?

I did some searches for her and I'm not coming up with much?

The only thing I found that might be her was a campaign contribution of $500 to Rep Martha Wong, Republican from Texas.


http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:0N1jXJpMQVoJ:204.65.203.2/public/185841.pdf+%22Marian+Knox%22+Texas+Republican&hl=en

[BlueNomad]

60. F...K the memos

... I want to know about the YAP YAP YAPPING stuff.....

[Snellius]

61. Her denial in the NY Times actually suggests the docs may be real

She confirms in the NY Times today that, even if she did not personally type these documents, documents like this did exist. She even explains the problem of airman Bush was much more serious and widely known and that Killian felt he had to keep records to cover his ass. Where are the rest of these documents? How could someone forge documents that were kept "in a private file under lock and key"?

HOUSTON, Sept. 14 - The secretary for the squadron commander purported to be the author of now-disputed memorandums questioning President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard said Tuesday that she never typed the documents and believed that they are fakes.

But she also said they accurately reflect the thoughts of the commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, and other memorandums she typed for him about Mr. Bush. "The information in them is correct," the woman, Marian Carr Knox, now 86, said in an interview at her home here. "But I doubt,'' she said, pausing, "it's not anything that I wrote because there are terms in there that are not used by Guards, the format wasn't the way we did it. It looks like someone may have read the originals and put that together."

"We did discuss Bush's conduct and it was a problem Killian was concerned about," Mrs. Knox said. "I think he was writing the memos so there would be some record that he was aware of what was going on and what he had done." But, she said, words like "billets," which appear in the memorandums, were not standard Guard terms.

Mrs. Knox, who was the secretary for the squadron at Ellington Air Force Base from 1957 to 1979, said she recalled Mr. Bush's case and the criticism of him because his record was so unusual. Mr. Killian had her type memorandums recording the problems, she said, and he kept them in a private file under lock and key. She said she had never voted for Mr. Bush because she disliked his record in office.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/politics/campaign/15guard.html

[wishlist]

63. CBS new article today says that Killian had his own locked backup file

For anyone who hasn't read this new CBS article, it covers most of these issues including a new mention of the secretary claiming Killian had a private locked backup file that she had no access to and she doesn't know what happened to it.

CBS continues to backup their story:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml