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CBS admits Bush 'mistake'
20/09/2004 19:30 - (SA)
New York - The CBS television network admitted on Monday it had been mistaken in using documents of which the authenticity could not be verified in a report questioning President George W Bush's Vietnam era military service.
"Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report," CBS News president Andrew Heyward said.
"We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret," he added.
The documents - memos allegedly written by Bush's commanding officer in the Texas national guard in the 1970s - suggested political pressure was being exerted to "sugar coat" the future president's service record.
The 60 Minutes report also charged that Bush's family connections had secured his assignment to the national guard unit - a posting that effectively spared him active duty in Vietnam.
Soon after the report aired, questions were raised over the authenticity of the memos, with numerous experts arguing the typeface could have been produced only by a modern-day word processor, not Vietnam War-era typewriters.
- AFP
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