Bill Burkett

{{short description|American National Guard officer}}

Bill Loyd Burkett (November 16, 1949 – February 27, 2024) was the CBS source in the Killian documents affair of 2004. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel from the Texas Army National Guard.

He claimed that in 1997, while outside the governor's office in Austin, he overheard a conversation about "wanting to bury George W. Bush's Vietnam service record". This has been disputed.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24635-2004Sep15.html "CBS Guard Documents Traced to Tex. Kinko's"] by Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, September 16, 2004.

Burkett had received publicity in 2000, after making and then retracting a claim that he had been transferred to Panama for refusing "to falsify personnel records of Governor Bush",Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 53. and in February 2004, when he claimed to have knowledge of "scrubbing" of Bush's TexANG records.{{cite web|url=http://onlinejournal.com/bush/031903Burkett/031903burkett.html |title=What do you say? |author=Bill Burkett |date=2003-03-19 |publisher=Online Journal |accessdate=2006-03-20 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060210152055/http://onlinejournal.com/bush/031903Burkett/031903burkett.html |archivedate=10 February 2006 |url-status=dead }}{{cite news|url=http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/02/13/doubts_raised_on_bush_accuser?mode=PF|author=Michael Rezendesz|title=Doubts raised about Bush's accuser|work=Boston Globe online|date=2004-02-13|accessdate=2005-12-20}} According to the review panel, investigations by major news outlets at the time, including CBS, "revealed inconsistencies... which led to questions regarding his credibility and whether his claims could be proven".Thornburgh-Boccardi report, p. 51.

Burkett's claims about the origins of the documents changed several times since. He admitted to lying to CBS about the origin of the memos when he said he got them from fellow guardsman George Conn,[https://web.archive.org/web/20040923032234/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/20/eveningnews/main644664.shtml CBS Evening News, September 20, 2004] then claiming that he received the Killian documents from a woman calling herself "Lucy Ramirez" who has never been identified. The documents, purported to have been typed in the early 1970s, were likely produced many years later with a computer using Microsoft Word on default settings.[https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/campaign/20CND-GUAR.html?hp "CBS Says It Can't Vouch for Bush Documents"] The New York Times September 20, 2004 Burkett said he burned the originals after faxing copies of the documents to CBS.[https://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-21-cover-guard_x.htm "CBS backs off Guard story"], USA Today, September 21, 2004

When asked about Burkett's role in the controversy, David Van Os, Burkett's lawyer, responded with the hypothesis that someone may have reconstructed documents that they believed existed in 1972 or 1973.{{cite news| url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E6DF1330F931A2575AC0A9629C8B63&ref=danrather | work=The New York Times | first1=Ralph | last1=Blumenthal | first2=Jim | last2=Rutenberg | title=THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: MILITARY SERVICE; An Ex-Officer Now Believes Guard Memo Isn't Genuine | date=2004-09-12}}

On February 27, 2024, Burkett died in Belle Plain, Texas.{{cite web | title=Official Obituary of Bill Loyd Burkett | access-date=March 10, 2025 | url=https://www.parkerjacobsfuneralhome.com/obituary/Bill-Burkett | work=parkerjacobsfuneralhome.com }}