The New York Times
Published on: 09/20/04

Nineteen seventy-two was the year George W. Bush dropped off the radar screen.

He abandoned his once-prized status as a National Guard pilot by failing to appear for a required physical. He sought temporary reassignment from the Texas Air National Guard to an Alabama unit but for six months did not show up for training. He signed on as an official in the losing campaign of a Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, and even there left few impressions other than as an amiable bachelor with a good tennis game and a famous father.

"To say he brought in a bunch of initiatives and bright ideas," said a fellow campaign worker, Devere McLennan, "no he didn't."

This year of inconsequence has grown increasingly consequential for Bush because of persistent, unanswered questions about his National Guard service — why he failed to take his pilot's physical and whether he fulfilled his commitment to the Guard. If anything, those issues became still murkier this past week, with the controversy over the authenticity of four documents disclosed by CBS News and its program "60 Minutes" purporting to shed light on that Guard record.

Still, a wider examination of his life in 1972, based on dozens of interviews and other documents released by the White House over the years, yields a portrait of a young man like many other young men of privilege in that turbulent time — entitled, unanchored and safe from combat, bouncing from a National Guard slot made possible by his family's prominence to a political job arranged through his father.

In a speech on Tuesday to a National Guard convention, Bush said he was "proud to be one of them," and in his autobiography he writes that his service taught him respect for the chain of command. But a review of records shows that not only did he miss months of duty in 1972, he also may have been improperly awarded credit for service, making possible an early honorable discharge so he could turn his attention to his new interest: Harvard Business School.

Bush, nearly 26, went to Alabama in mid-May 1972 to work on the campaign of Winton M. Blount, a construction magnate known as Red who was a friend of Bush's father. The Democratic opponent was Sen. John J. Sparkman, chairman of the Banking Committee, a legendary power in what was still a solidly Democratic South.

Bush, while missing months of the Guard duty that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, was the political director of the Blount campaign, which accused Sparkman — a hawk on the war — and the national Democrats of supporting "amnesty for all draft dodgers" and of showing "more concern for coddling deserters than for patriotic American young men who have lost their lives in Vietnam."

In the last week of the race, the Blount campaign ran a radio advertisement using an edited recording of Sparkman that made him appear to support forced busing of schoolchildren, which he in fact opposed.

***snip some very intersting stuff***

ADDING IT UP

After the election, Bush returned to Houston, moving out of his small rented bungalow in Montgomery. He left the place a mess, with a broken light fixture and piles of debris, according to Mary Smith, whose husband was the bungalow's caretaker. Smith said her husband, who has since died, sent Bush a bill for professional cleaning but never heard back.

By January 1973, Bush had a new job, with an inner-city youth program organized by John L. White, a former professional football player who knew his father. And he continued his erratic relationship with the National Guard, where he had 18 months left of his six-year commitment.

By the summer of 1973, Bush decided to go to Harvard Business School. According to documents released by the White House, he wanted an early discharge from the Guard, but did not have enough service points for 1972 and 1973, since he had missed months of training. Guardsmen were required to earn 48 points each fiscal year, or 4 points for each weekend drill every month.

Although missed drills can be made up, regulations at the time said it had to be done within 30 days and in the same fiscal year. As the time for his early discharge neared, Bush was lacking enough points; according to records for July 1973, he attended drills on 18 days that month.

When questions arose about Bush's guard service, the White House asked a retired Air Force Lt. Col., Albert C. Lloyd Jr., to review his record. In a memorandum released by the White House in February, Lloyd wrote that from May 1973 through May 1974, Bush accumulated 35 training points and 15 points for being guard member "for a total of 56 points." It is not clear how Lloyd came up with 56, instead of 50.

Another military document released by the White House indicates that Bush had earned only 38 points from May 1973 until his discharge that October.

A retired Army colonel, Gerald A. Lechliter, who has prepared an extensive analysis of Bush's National Guard record, described Lloyd's memorandum as "seemingly an attempt to whitewash Bush's record." Lloyd declined comment last week.

Lechliter, who describes himself as a political independent, also said that Bush was not entitled to 20 credits he received from Nov. 13, 1972, until July 19, 1973, because the service was being made up improperly.

Lechliter also said that Bush should not have been paid for these sessions. "That would appear to be a fraud," he said in an interview last week.

However the points added up, on Oct. 1, 1973, Bush was awarded an honorable discharge. By that time he was already at Harvard.

The rest is here at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution