LA Times Sep 15,2004...

Ex-Guard Typist Recalls Memos Criticizing Bush

But the commander's secretary says she thinks the ones that
surfaced last week are fakes.

By James Rainey, Times Staff Writer

George W. Bush's commanding officer in the Texas Air National
Guard wrote memos more than 30 years ago objecting to efforts
to gloss over the young lieutenant's shortcomings and failure
to take a flight physical, the officer's former secretary said
Tuesday night.

But Marian Carr Knox of Houston said she thought four memos
unveiled by CBS News last week were forgeries — not copies
of the ones she typed at the time.

Knox, 86, worked for 23 years at Ellington Air Force Base in
Houston and served as a typist for Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian,
then Bush's squadron commander, and several other officers.

In a brief interview Tuesday, she confirmed that Killian had
concerns about Bush's failure to take his physical examination
in 1972, which prevented him from flying, and about efforts by
higher-ups to protect the future president from the fallout.

Knox told several newspapers that Killian kept the personal
files on Bush, and on other topics, in a desk drawer as a way
of "covering his back" in anticipation of later questions about
his actions. She retired in 1979, before Killian's death, and
said she did not know what became of the files.

Knox said that the four memos first shown last week on CBS
News did not look authentic. After speaking briefly to The
Times, Knox said she was tired of talking about the subject
and turned the phone over to her son, Patrick M. Carr.

Carr said he had heard his mother describe for other reporters
how some of the terminology in the memos, including the use
of "billets" and a reference to the "administrative officer"
were not in common usage in the 147th Fighter Interceptor
Group, for which she worked. She said those terms sounded
more like the ones used by the Army National Guard, her
son said.

The four memos in question, revealed by CBS Sept. 8,
purportedly were written by Killian between May 1972 and
August 1973, during a time when Bush was absent from his
regular Guard duty. The network called the source of the
documents "unimpeachable," but declined to say who it was.

The first memo ordered Bush to take a physical in order to
maintain his flying status. The next discussed how he could
"get out of coming to drill" so he could go to Alabama to
work on a political campaign. The third and fourth memos,
respectively, said Bush had been "suspended from flight
status" and that Killian was resisting pressure from a former
Guard officer to "sugar-coat" Bush's yearly evaluation.

Killian died in 1984, and his views of Bush have been hotly
debated by those around him, with Knox joining another
former Guard officer who said objections to Bush's service
sounded like those the squadron commander would have made.

Killian's son and widow, however, have said adamantly that
they do not believe he kept such "personal" records on Bush
or other employees and that the officer held his young
pilot in high esteem.

Gary D. Killian, 51, of Houston said that Knox was a "dear
old lady" but that she was not in the best position to know
or recall his father's feelings of 30 years ago.

"I had more time to talk to my father and know what he
thought about those things than Ms. Carr, bless her heart,"
Killian said Tuesday.

"First of all, she was the secretary not just to my dad
but to many officers, and her primary job was to do typing
for the group commander," Killian said.

"All the documents from Bush's record have been released
and these don't exist. That's because they never happened."