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Missing Military Records
Last update: July 9, 2004 at 12:18 AM
Some Bush military records lost
Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times
July 9, 2004 MISSING0709
HOUSTON -- Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.
It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No backup paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.
The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.
The loss was announced by the Defense Department's Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review in letters to news organizations that for nearly six months have sought Bush's complete service file under the open records law.
There was no mention of the loss, for example, when White House officials released hundreds of pages of the president's military records last February in an effort to stem Democratic charges that he was "AWOL" for a time during his commitment to fly at home in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director who has said the released records confirmed the president's fulfillment of his National Guard commitment, did not return two calls.
The disclosure that the payroll records had been destroyed came in a letter signed by C.Y. Talbott, chief of the Pentagon's Freedom of Information Office. He said in the letter that he could not provide complete payroll records, explaining, "The Defense Finance and Accounting Service [DFAS] has advised of the inadvertent destruction of microfilm containing certain National Guard payroll records." He went on: "In 1996 and 1997, DFAS engaged with limited success in a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. During this process the microfilm payroll records of numerous service members were damaged, including from the first quarter of 1969 [Jan. 1 to March 31] and the third quarter of 1972 [July 1 to Sept. 30]. Bush's payroll records for these two quarters were among the records destroyed. Searches for backup paper copies of the missing records were unsuccessful."
Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for the defense finance agency in Denver, said the destruction occurred as the office was trying to unspool 2,000-foot rolls of fragile microfilm. He said he didn't know how many records were lost or why it hadn't been announced before.
For Bush, the 1969 period when he was training to be a pilot is not in dispute. But in May 1972, he moved to Alabama to work on a political campaign and, he has said, to perform his Guard service there for a year. But other Guard officers have said they had no recollection of ever seeing him there. The most evidence the White House has been able to find are records showing Bush was paid for six days in October and November 1972, without saying where, and the record of a dental exam at a Montgomery, Ala., air base on Jan. 6, 1973.
The lost payroll records stored in Denver might have answered some questions about whether he fulfilled his legal commitment, critics who have written about the subject said in interviews.
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