Executives at CBS said Tuesday that they continued to stand by their statements that they believe the documents are authentic, despite the new questions, and concern from others inside the network, and a report on ABC News that two more experts whom CBS News had consulted to authenticate the documents for its report said they had expressed concerns about the documents' authenticity to the network's producers.  When questions about the documents first arose last week, the anchor Dan Rather said at least four experts had helped convince the network of their authenticity.  But the network has continually declined to provide the name of more than one of those experts. That one, Marcel B. Matley, said in interviews that he validated only that the signature on the documents was Colonel Killian's. But, he said, he did not vouch for the documents themselves and could not rule out that the signature had been cut and pasted onto the records.  On Tuesday, two more experts came forward and said they had been consulted by CBS. One, a forensic document examiner from Texas, Linda James, said in a telephone interview with The New York Times that she noticed indications that the two documents she inspected were the product of a word processor and relayed that to the producers.  "I had questioned the superscript on there," she said, referring to the raised letters that appear after the number 111 to indicate the name of the flight squadron, adding she also had some questions about what she believed were some inconsistencies in the documents' signatures. She said she was awaiting more documents and more type samples to draw a stronger conclusion but with time running out she referred the network to another expert, who officials at CBS identified as Mr. Matley.  Ms. James first made her comments Tuesday night on "World News Tonight" on ABC. The newscast also presented a second document expert, Emily Will, who said she raised still more serious concerns about the authenticity of a document she inspected for CBS's producers. Ms. Will said during a telephone interview afterward that she told network producers as late as the night before the report was shown, "I had a lot of questions and I would not support the documents." She said she also warned the network, "if they ran the story on Wednesday they would be asked the same questions I was asking on Tuesday on Thursday, by a whole lot of document examiners."  The women's accounts seemed to undercut CBS network officials' previous denials that producers had questions about the documents' authenticity just one or two days before the report was shown.  Betsy West, a senior vice president of CBS News, said Tuesday that the network continued to stand by its story and that Ms. Will and Ms. James were "peripheral" to its reporting. And, she said, neither woman offered conclusive opinions.  "Emily Will did not implore us to hold the story, she was not adamant in any way," Ms. West said. "She raised concern about the superscript 'th,' which we discussed with the other experts."  Ms. West said Ms. James similarly "raised no objections."  Officials at CBS News said on Tuesday that they would at some point in the day provide the name of a document expert who expressed confidence in the records' authenticity before the report was broadcast. But they did not do so, and Ms. West declined to say why.  CBS has refused to say how it obtained the documents. But one person at CBS, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed a report in Newsweek that Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard officer who has charged that senior aides to then-Governor Bush had ordered Guard officials to remove damaging information from Mr. Bush's military personnel files, had been a source of the report. This person did not know the exact role he played.  Mr. Burkett declined to return telephone calls to his home near Abilene, Tex. His lawyer, David Van Os, on Tuesday repeatedly refused to say in a telephone interview whether the officer had played a part in supplying the disputed documents to CBS. Mr. Van Os said "the real story is and should be, where was George Bush?" and that Mr. Burkett "is not the proper object of attention."  Mr. Van Os called Mr. Burkett "a man of impeccable honesty who would not permit himself to be a party to anything fake, fraudulent or phony." He also said, in response to questions, and stressing that he was speaking only hypothetically, "If Bill Burkett were to later discover that something he was a party to were fake or phony, as a man of honor who lives by a code of honor of the military, he would not permit the falsity to continue." But, the lawyer hastened to add, "This is not intended to be any kind of specific statement."  Asked what role Mr. Burkett had in raising questions about Mr. Bush's military service, Mr. Van Os said: "If, hypothetically, Bill Burkett or anyone else, any other individual, had prepared or had typed on a word processor as some of the journalists are presuming, without much evidence, if someone in the year 2004 had prepared on a word processor replicas of documents that they believed had existed in 1972 or 1973 -- which Bill Burkett has absolutely not done" -- then, he continued, "what difference would it make?"  The Democratic National Committee released an Internet video on Tuesday accusing Mr. Bush of being dishonest about his National Guard service. The Republican National Committee shot back a one-line statement: "The video the Democrats released today is as creative and accurate as the memos they gave CBS."  THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: NATIONAL GUARD Correction: September 17, 2004, Friday An article on Wednesday about disputed memos obtained by CBS News that cast doubt on aspects of President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard truncated a quotation from David Van Os, a lawyer for Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard officer whom Newsweek called a source of the memos. Asked what role Mr. Burkett had in raising questions about Mr. Bush's military service, Mr. Van Os posed a hypothetical chain of events in which someone -- not Mr. Burkett, he said -- reconstructed documents that the preparer believed existed in 1972 or 1973. Mr. Van Os then asked "what difference would even that make" to the "factual reality of where was George W. Bush at the times in question and what was he doing?"  The article also misidentified the position held by Mr. Bush's father in the early 1970's. (That error also occurred on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday in articles about the memos.) The elder Mr. Bush was ambassador to the United Nations from 1971 to January 1973, and chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1973 to 1974. He was no longer a Texas congressman.  Correction: September 18, 2004, Saturday An article on Wednesday about disputed memos obtained by CBS News that cast doubt on aspects of President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard truncated a quotation from David Van Os, a lawyer for Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard officer. Asked what role Mr. Burkett had in raising questions about Mr. Bush's military service, Mr. Van Os posed a hypothetical chain of events in which someone -- not Mr. Burkett, he said -- reconstructed documents that the preparer believed existed in 1972 or 1973. Mr. Van Os then asked "what difference would even that make" to the "factual reality of where was George W. Bush at the times in question and what was he doing?"  A correction in this space yesterday misstated Newsweek's description of Mr. Burkett. The magazine's Sept. 20 issue called him a "principal source for CBS's story," not a source of the memos.  A profile of Mr. Burkett on Thursday referred imprecisely to an account in a Texas newspaper, The Abilene Reporter-News, linking him to the CBS report. The Reporter-News said Newsweek had identified Mr. Burkett as a source for CBS; the newspaper did not independently identify him as a suspected source.  Correction: September 18, 2004, Saturday An article on Wednesday about disputed memos obtained by CBS News that cast doubt on aspects of President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard truncated a quotation from David Van Os, a lawyer for Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard officer. Asked what role Mr. Burkett had in raising questions about Mr. Bush's military service, Mr. Van Os posed a hypothetical chain of events in which someone -- not Mr. Burkett, he said -- reconstructed documents that the preparer believed existed in 1972 or 1973. Mr. Van Os then asked "what difference would even that make" to the "factual reality of where was George W. Bush at the times in question and what was he doing?"  A correction in this space yesterday misstated Newsweek's description of Mr. Burkett. The magazine's Sept. 20 issue called him a "principal source for CBS's story," not a source of the memos.  A profile of Mr. Burkett on Thursday referred imprecisely to an account in a Texas newspaper, The Abilene Reporter-News, linking him to the CBS report. The Reporter-News said Newsweek had identified Mr. Burkett as a source for CBS; the newspaper did not independently identify him as a suspected source.  Maureen Balleza reported from Houston for this article, and Kate Zernike from New York. Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting from Washington and Ralph Blumenthal from Houston.
Marian Carr Knox, secretary for George W Bush's squadron at Texas air base from 1957 to 1979, says she never typed documents in which late Lt Col Jerry B Killian criticizes Bush's conduct and believes they are fakes put together from originals, although she confirms that facts are accurate and that Killian was putting in writing his concerns about what was going on; debate over four memorandums reported by CBS continues (M)