CBS 'Rathergate' Producer Under Pressure from Network
By Jeff Gannon

Talon News (Sept. 17) - Talon News sources inside CBS have indicated that the producer of the '60 Minutes' story that used what appear to be forged documents to charge that President George W. Bush received preferential treatment during his service with the Texas Air National Guard 30 years ago is under pressure from the network. Mary Mapes, a Dallas-based producer, obtained the documents from a source that she and the network refuse to reveal, even though the documents themselves have been widely discredited.

   Doubts about the authenticity of the documents have put the network and its anchor Dan Rather at the center of a controversy that continues to grow. After a series of defensive statements about the documents, the network has finally admitted there might be a problem with them.

   CBS is maintaining that the substance of its story is unchallenged regardless of the provenance of the documents.

   Rather made that point during the Wednesday broadcast of the television news magazine, saying, "Those who have criticized aspects of our story have never criticized the major thrust of our report."

   But Rather did acknowledge that documents might yet prove to be fraudulent.

   "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story," Rather added. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.'"

   Bob Schieffer, CBS's chief Washington correspondent, was quoted in the Washington Post saying, "I think this is very, very serious. He added, "When Dan tells me these documents are not forgeries, I believe him. But somehow we've got to find a way to show people these documents are not forgeries."

   Schieffer was selected to moderate one of this year's presidential debates. Despite White House denials that the CBS veteran might be replaced in the wake of a scandal, some have suggested making the change to ensure fairness.

   CBS News President Andrew Heyward issued a tepid statement Wednesday in defense of their investigative work.

   He said, "I feel that we did a tremendous amount of reporting before the story went on the air or we wouldn't have put it on the air."

   He did leave open the possibility that the documents might be forgeries, saying, "There's such a ferocious debate about these documents...we want to get to the bottom of these unresolved issues."

   Rather took a shot at CBS's "journalistic competitors," when he suggested, "Instead of asking President Bush and his staff questions about what is true and not true about the president's military service, they ask me questions: 'How do you know this and that about the documents?'"

   But rival news services have kept the focus on the documents, leaving the network isolated in its belief in the authenticity of them. CBS's stonewalling has only exacerbated the network's problems and demoralized some of its employees.

   Some CBS employees are amused at Rather's predicament.

   One told Talon News, "Sooner of later something like this was going to happen. When you see how hard they've been working this National Guard story, you know they weren't going to come up empty-handed one way or another."

   But because Rather is CBS's franchise player with a contract that extends through 2006, fallout from any scandal is likely to fall on someone else at the network. An insider tells Talon News that Mapes is the most likely candidate. She has been working on this story for five years and obtained the documents that are now in dispute.

   While the network has refused to reveal its source, the documents appear to have been faxed to CBS from a Kinko's in Abilene, TX. Abilene is located in Taylor County, where Rather made a speech at the fundraiser previously mentioned.

   That location points to retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett as the source of the documents. His Baird, Texas ranch is about 21 miles from the copy shop at which the fax transmission took place. Burkett, a bitter critic of Bush makes the same charges that have been parroted by CBS and the DNC.

   In an August 25, 2004 posting to www.onlinejournal.com,  Burkett wrote, "I know from your files that we have now reassembled, the fact that you did not fulfill your oath."

   Burkett isn't specific in what he meant by "reassembled," but the only files that have surfaced are the ones at the center of the controversy about forgeries.

   In the years that CBS producer Mary Mapes has been pursuing this story, she never contacted Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's secretary, Marian Carr Knox, until after her existence was revealed by the Drudge Report. On 60 Minutes on Wednesday, Knox said that the documents were forgeries, but the content was accurate.

   Mapes interviewed Killian's widow Marjorie Connell and his son Gary. Both expressed doubt to the CBS producer that the documents were real. Neither of them have appeared on the network nor even been mentioned in CBS's reporting.

   CBS' own experts have moved away from the authenticity of the documents. One of the experts consulted was Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina. She told ABC News that she sent Mapes an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.

   She said, "I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story."

   If Rather was informed of the doubts, he ignored them, plunging his network into a quagmire. The veteran anchor forged ahead because, as he stated on Wednesday's broadcast, that the charges are so charges are so serious, the evidence of little importance.

   His confidence in Mapes may have led him to go with the story, despite the red flags. After all, it was Mapes who brought CBS the Abu Ghraib photos of prisoner abuse and who risked jail by refusing to turn over videotapes of Rather's interview with a man charged in the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, Texas.

   But Mapes' father sees a political agenda behind his daughter's work. Don Mapes, 76, was a recent guest on a radio talk show hosted by John Carlson on KVI in Seattle.

   He said, "I'm really ashamed of what my daughter has become. She's a typical liberal. She went into journalism with an ax to grind, and that was to promote radical feminism."

   He confessed to being disappointed in his daughter's role in the controversy. He said, "When I heard about 60 Minutes, I suspected she would be the producer of the show."

   In an interview with Talon News, Don Mapes said his suspicion was because that he believed, "Dan Rather and she have been working on this ever since Bush was elected."

   In commenting on the Wednesday's 60 Minutes show, he said, "It was a farce, it was fraud. I'm sorry as a father that my daughter was the producer of it."

   His fatherly instinct showed through when he said, "To give her the benefit of the doubt, I believe she has been had."

   But he also chastised his daughter for being intellectually dishonest.

   He said, "She ought to look closer at George Soros or Michael Moore."

   Mary Mapes declined several opportunities to comment for this article.

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