Note:
This is a working draft for comment and is part of
The AWOL Project, a series of online articles examining the military
records of George W. Bush from the perspective of the Federal statutes,
Department of Defense (DoD) regulations, and Air Force policies and procedures
concerning that military service. (Before linking to anything on this site,
please read http://www.glcq.com/me.htm )
Please direct your
comments, correction, and suggestions to awol@glcq.com.
ALBERT LLOYD, THE MEDIA, AND THE 50 POINT BIG LIE
On February 10, 2004, when the White House released George W. Bush’s payroll and points record, they also released a memo from a retired Air National Guard official, Albert Lloyd, claiming that all Bush needed to do was get 50 “points” per year, and that Bush had done so. The media, rather than check the facts, immediately jumped on Lloyd’s claim, and declared that Bush had fulfilled his requirements.
There are a number of problems with the Lloyd memo. First, Lloyd lied about the “50 point” requirement. For George W. Bush, there was no “50 point minimum.” Secondly, Lloyd lied about the number of points Bush received. The document he claimed showed that Bush got 50 points in his last year shows that Bush received only 38 points. And third, not only was Lloyd an unreliable source because he had been handpicked by the Bush campaign to clear Bush’s name, but Lloyd himself was personally involved in providing Bush with favorable treatment when Bush was a member of the Texas Air National Guard.
But with a few notable exceptions, the major media ignored the facts, ignored the obvious conflicts of interest, and reported the lies of Albert Lloyd as fact. Not one single major media outlet looked at the documents that were released by the White House in February within the context of the laws and policies that actually existed in the early 1970’s. Not only has the media presented White House lies as facts, and given a massive amount of coverage to easily disproven lies by a group called “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth”, it went into a feeding frenzy when CBS used documents of now-uncertain provenance to substantiate claims made by witnesses to Bush’s dereliction of duty while a member of the Texas Air National Guard., while ignoring the factual basis of the report itself.
CONTENTS
Bush’s Obligations, and
the “Points System”
Bush’s Obligations Under Air Force Policy
“Points” And Bush’s Obligations As An Air National
Guardsman
Albert Lloyd, And The Origins Of The 50 Point Big
Lie
The Lloyd Memo---The 50 Point Big Lie
The Lloyd Memo—Lies And Misrepresentations Of The Points
Record
Albert Lloyd, The Texas Air National Guard, And The Bush
Campaign
The 50 Point Big Lie, And The Media
During The 2000 Campaign
George Magazine: The First Sighting Of The 50 Point Big
Lie
The Washington Post, And The 50 Point Big Lie
Appendix 1: The “Active Status” Requirement
Appendix 2: Bush’s Obligations Under The Law As A Member Of The Air National Guard
As a member of the Air National Guard, George W. Bush was never required to earn a good year toward retirement. He was required to participate in (or make up) an absolute minimum of 44 of 48 Unit Training Assemblies, and as an F102 pilot was also required to participate in Additional Flight Training Periods.
United States law laid out the basic framework for the policies and procedures of the United States Air Force to which Bush was subject as a member of the Air National Guard (see Appendix 2) The Air Force had literally dozens (if not hundreds) of manuals and books of regulations covering just about every possible situation imaginable. But one book, Air Force Manual (AFM) 35-3, the Air Reserve Forces Personnel Manual, brought together all of the various rules, policies, and procedures in one volume.[1]
AFM 35-3 states Bush’s training requirements as a member of the Air National Guard in Table 3-1.
As a member of “ANGUS” (Air National Guard of the United States) Bush was “authorized and required” to perform 48 “annual INACDUTRA periods” and “not less than 15 days” of “annual ACDUTRA.” “INACDUTRA” was “Inactive Duty Training”, the “drill and instruction” that Bush was required to attend “48 times a year”, and “ACDUTRA” was “Active Duty Training” the “15 days each year” Bush was required to “participate in training at encampments”.
“Points” were awarded for participation in training, with one point award for each period of Inactive Duty Training, and one point awarded for each day of Active Duty Training. It is essential to note that Bush’s requirements were training requirements, and that when he participated in the required training he was awarded points. The requirement was to participate in specified training, not to “earn points” in any possible fashion.
The “points” system was used for two primary purposes: to track participation in mandatory training, and to calculate retirement benefits.
The tracking of training requirement participation was separate and distinct from the calculation of retirement benefits. When Bush first entered the Air National Guard, the “retirement points” system was maintained by hand, on special forms designed for that purpose[2]. But on September 1, 1972 the handwritten records became obsolete, and the retirement points system was computerized, using the data from the payroll system to generate “retirement reports”[3]. Retirement points were tracked, not on a fiscal year basis, but based on a year that began on the anniversary of a member’s enlistment, and was called the “retention/retirement year” (R/R year).
In order to qualify for Federal military retirement
benefits, you needed 20 “good years” toward retirement. The points system was used to determine if a
member of the Air National Guard qualified for a “good year toward retirement,”
with 50 points needed in a given “retention/retirement year” to get credit for
a “good year.” But no one was required,
under Federal law and Air Force policy, to earn a “good year toward
retirement.” Failure to get a “good
year” had no consequences for anyone who was not working toward earning 20
years of service, and the only consequence of the failure to earn a “good year
toward retirement” was having to remain in the Guard for an additional year to
qualify toward retirement.
In 1999, a former Texas Air National Guard official was hired by the Bush campaign to “make sense” of Bush’s military records. What he came up with was the 50 Point Big Lie.
Although Albert Lloyd has been lying about the nature of Bush’s obligations for at least four years, the “50 point” big lie did not gain overwhelming popular acceptance until the release of the Lloyd memo on February 10, 2004.
Lloyd starts out with an indisputable truth: that Guardsmen needed 50 points per year to qualify for a good year toward retirement.(See Appendix 1) Lloyd makes no mention of “training requirements” or anything else that Bush was required to do.
Lloyd then goes on to explain (inaccurately) how Bush qualified for a “satisfactory year for retention/retirement” for each of his last two years. But then Lloyd tells the big lie….
Lloyd tells the world that “satisfactory years for both 72-73 and 73-74…proves that [Bush] completed his military obligation in a satisfactory manner.”
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Federal law required “satisfactory participation” of Bush, and defined that phrase within the terms of Bush’s training requirements. Lloyd deliberately conflates a “retirement” requirement, a “requirement” that Bush was never obligated to meet[4], with the actual requirements established for Guardsmen who had an unfulfilled Military Service Obligation. It was a “big lie”, and the media fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Only by lying about the date of the document he examined could Lloyd make the claim that Bush earned “the 15 points for his guard/reserve membership.”[7]
In fact, the document he examined shows that Bush received only 5 “gratuitous” membership points, for a total of 40 points, and only 38 points toward retirement.
It should be noted that the exact same totals appear on the second page of the AF Form 526, and that Lloyd cannot claim that he did not know what the document actually showed.
(There were also limits of 60 “non-active duty points (i.e. combined “inactive duty” and “gratuitous” points) that could be counted toward a good year for retirement purposes. The “38” in the “total points toward retirement” column appears to reflect a pro-rating of that limit, allowing only 19 of the 21 “non-active duty” points to be credited toward a “good year.”)
There is no better example of the “stenographic” tendency of the news media than the fact that not one single major news organization noted the discrepancy between what Albert Lloyd claimed the documents showed, and what actually appears on the documents themselves. The White House had presented the AF Form 526 as “proof” that Bush had “fulfilled his duty”, and even under the fraudulent criteria established by Albert Lloyd, the documentary evidence that showed that Bush did not “fulfill his duty” was completely ignored.
In his memo, Albert Lloyd presents himself as an unbiased expert on National Guard personnel matters. He wrote:
To read this biographical statement, one would not think that Lloyd had any direct connection with the Texas Air National Guard. But not only was Lloyd involved with TXANG, he was also directly involved with George Bush’s career in TXANG.
Lloyd’s personal involvement in one of the most controversial aspects of Bush’s career should have disqualified him from being considered an “unbiased” source of information regarding Bush’s records. And the media may have treated Lloyd with far more skepticism had they known about his direct involvement in Bush’s military career. But not one single reporter has ever mentioned the fact that Lloyd personally approved Bush’s F102 training. Instead, the media apparently read Lloyd’s self-serving, incomplete biography, and made no effort to determine if he was credible and unbiased.
When the Globe first raised questions about this period earlier this
month, Bartlett, Bush's spokesman, referred a reporter to Albert Lloyd Jr.,
a retired colonel who was the Texas Air Guard's personnel director from
1969 to 1995. Lloyd, who a year ago helped the Bush campaign make sense of the
governor's military records, said Bush's aides were concerned about the gap
in his records back then.
There is no greater indication of the complete failure of the major media to do its job in 2004 than the fact that it relied upon a Bush campaign political operative who was also personally compromised by his direct involvement in Bush’s career as the source of “authoritative” information regarding Bush’s obligations. Lloyd’s political connections, and his position in the Texas Air National Guard, had been a matter of public record since May 2000. The Lloyd memo was filled with obvious inaccuracies that did not reflect what appeared on the documents to which it referred. Yet, the “50 point” big lie has been repeated over and over, and Albert Lloyd was the source of this lie.
With one notable exception, all of the coverage of Bush’s military records from the major media was purely stenographic in nature. “Investigation” by the media consisted of ripping off the work of that exception, and then accepting as truth whatever the Bush campaign claimed with regard to Bush’s military career.
That exception is Walter Robinson of the Boston Globe. Robinson’s initial work on Bush’s military career, as well as numerous follow-ups[8], exhibit a clear understanding of the issues involved, as well as a healthy skepticism toward the ever-changing excuse and explanations provided by the Bush campaign. In fact, although Robinson used Lloyd extensively as a source in his articles from 2000, he makes no mention of the “50 point requirement” in his coverage. (The first mention by Robinson of that requirement is an indirect reference in an article published on February 5, 2004.[9])
There was almost no media followup to Robinson’s groundbreaking work. The same media which criticized Vice President Al Gore, Bush’s opponent in 2000, for minor inaccuracies ignored the flat out lies being promulgated by Bush and his campaign staff on the question of Bush’s military service. And although some have placed responsibility for the media’s failure to followup on the Gore campaign’s desire to focus on current issues, rather than dwell on the past, there is little question that the media held Gore and his campaign to a much higher standard than it did Bush and his campaign.
In fact, the next major piece on Bush’s records did not
appear until October 10, 2000, when George Magazine published one
of the most notoriously inaccurate and bizarre pieces of reporting on the
subject. The authors, Peter Keating[10]
and Karthik Thyagarajan, simply accepted everything they were told by the Bush
campaign without question. They never
bothered to do the most basic research on Bush’s requirements, accepting as
fact statements from Dan Barlett like "You take that exam because you are flying, and he was not
flying. The paperwork uses the phrase 'suspended from flying,' but he had no
intention of flying at that time."
Maintaining flight status (not to mention participating in extensive
flight training and practice) was an absolute requirement for those whose Air
Force Specialty Code was 1125D, that of an F102 pilot. As long as Bush had the “job code” of an
F102 pilot, he was required to maintain the qualifications for that
position---and his commanders did not have the authority to allow Bush to chose
to ignore those requirements.
“Two documents obtained by Georgemag.com indicate that Bush
did make up the time he missed during the summer and autumn of 1972. One is
an April 23, 1973 order for Bush to report to annual active duty training
the following month; the other is an Air National Guard statement of days
served by Bush that is torn and undated but contains entries that
correspond to the first. Taken together, they appear to establish that Bush
reported for duty on nine occasions between November 29, 1972-when he could
have been in Alabama-and May 24, 1973. Bush still wasn't flying, but over
this span, he did earn nine points of National Guard service from days of
active duty and 32 from inactive duty. When added to the 15 so-called
"gratuitous" points that every member of the Guard got per year,
Bush accumulated 56 points, more than the 50 that he needed by the end of
May 1973 to maintain his standing as a Guardsman.”
Based
primarily on a
torn piece of paper with absolutely no identifying information other that
the middle initial of “W”, Keating and Thyagarajan concluded that Bush
got more points “than he
needed by the end of May 1973 to maintain his standing as a Guardsman.”
What is most amazing about this claim that Bush needed only 50 points is that Keating and Thyagarajan obviously made no attempt to substantiate it. Someone told them Bush needed only 50 points, and they don’t even bother to tell us who made the claim.
Although
Albert Lloyd is not mentioned in the George Magazine piece, the version of the
torn record that was posted by the magazine had handwriting on it that Lloyd
has admitted (to James Moore, author of Bush’s Brain) was his own. The version that was
originally released to Heldt had no such handwriting.
Keating and Thyagarajan did such an execrable job as journalists that they accepted the White House’s word that the document showed that Bush had served on November 29, 1972. When a complete version of the document was finally released in 2004, it was revealed that the “29” represented October 29, not November 29. Keating and Thyagarajan acted purely as stenographers for the Bush campaign, reporting whatever Bartlett and Lloyd told them as fact, without ever questioning whether paid political operatives might be hiding the truth.
When two Senators who had fought for their country raised the issue of Bush’s military service in the waning days of the 2000 Presidential campaign, the Washington Post published an article by George Lardner Jr and Howard Kurtz[11] “correcting” the Senators by citing the completely bogus 50 Point big lie. “According to the torn Air Reserve Forces sheet, Bush continued to compile service credits after returning to Houston, winding up his fifth year with 56 points, six above the minimum needed for retention.” Kurtz and Lardner don’t bother citing any basis for the 50 point minimum.
Throughout the article, Lardner and Kurtz acted solely as stenographers, without checking any factual information. They let Dan Barlett get away with an obvious falsehood (But Air Force Reserve officials rejected the [transfer to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron], saying Bush had two more years of military obligations and was ineligible for a reserve squadron that had nothing to do with flying airplanes. Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett said Bush didn't know that when he applied.) They let Bobby Hodges, who compared the infrequent and temporary loss of flight status by pilots who went “out of state or out of country” distort the permanent nature of Bush’s removal from flight status, and allowed Hodges to imply that Bush was not required, as an F102 pilot, to maintain his flight status without question. And rather than placing the issue in its proper factual context, they reduced it to a “he said/he said” discussion between political campaigns. (Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer called the attacks "the final throes of a campaign that has now lost any semblance of decency. The governor, of course, was honorably discharged, and these are inventions and fabrications. All the questions have been answered." But Gore spokesman Mark Fabiani said the senators "seem to have raised some very important questions . . . that deserve an answer." )
In addition to training requirements, members of the Air Reserve Forces were required to remain in “active status.” Commissioned Officers were required, under 10 USC 1002, to get 50 points per retention/retirement year. (This statute refers to the number of points found in a separate statute, 10 USC 1332[12], and that number was 50.) This, however, was not a hard and fast rule; under certain circumstances officers could request to remain in “active status” and be given permission to do so despite failing to accrue 50 points in a retention/retirement year.
“Status”, however, was separate and distinct from the “training requirement”, and the primary distinction between “active status” and “inactive status” was whether one could accumulate time served toward retirement[13]. You could only accumulate time served toward the awarding of “membership points” if you were in an active status (see endnote 12). But you could be in an “active status” and be required to do not training at all. The Non-Affiliated Reserve Section (NARS) of ARPC was the “active status” Standby Reserves. Officers assigned to ARPC(NARS) were neither required nor authorized to train.
For instance, people who had originally enlisted in the “regular” Air Force for six years (usually) had a three year “active duty requirement”. After those three years, they (usually) had the option of going into the “Selected Reserves” (i.e. into a Guard or Reserve unit where they would be required to train) or be reassigned to the “Individual Ready Reserves” (IRR) as “Reinforcement Designees.” Members of IRR were not required to train at all, and thus could not accumulate any points. Nevertheless, they remained in the IRR (i.e., in an “active status” for the remainder of their six year term.
(The current controversy over the “back door draft” is concerned with these Individual Ready Reservists, who thought that they would not be called up for mobilization once they had completed their active duty requirement because they considered themselves “Inactive Ready Reservists”. As “Reinforcement Designees, members of the IRR are not supposed to be mobilized under the pool of “Selected Reservists:” is exhausted, but all “Ready Reservists” remain subject to mobilization upon Presidential order. )
A second example can clarify the difference between obligors and non-obligors. If an officer who had completed their MSO was transferred to the Active Status Standby Reserves (NARS-A[14]) for hardship reasons, and they were unable to accrue the necessary number of points to remain in an “active status”, he would either be discharged, or placed in an “inactive status” and assigned to the “Inactive Status List Reserve Section.” If an “obligated” officer was transferred to the Active Status Standby Reserves (NARS-B) (see footnote 17), his records would be reviewed each year to determine if he still qualified for the Standby Reserves under the “hardship” provision, and if so would remain in NARS-B until the completion of his MSO.
The CFR also provided numerous exceptions to this strict
policy, providing commanders with broad discretion to ignore the requirements
for Air National Guard members who had spent at least two years on active duty,
had served in combat, or for other reasons.
However, none of these exceptions was applicable to Bush, who had an
“unfulfilled Military Service Obligation” (a statutory based minimum six year
term of service), and who had enlisted under statutory provisions which
provided him with a draft exemption upon joining the Air National Guard.
It should be noted that these are the absolute bare-bones attendance requirements under the law during the period in question. Other provisions of the statutes required physical examinations, and empowered the “Secretary concerned” to set training and performance standards. Bush’s actual minimum participation requirements were far greater than those found in the US Code and CFRs, because his Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) was 1125D, that of an F102 pilot, and F102 pilots were required to do far more than the absolute minimum. When one compares Bush’s record against the requirements of his actual job, there is no question that he failed to come anywhere close to meeting his obligations. Bush had two choices, either fulfill the requirements of his AFSC, or request a different job. He did neither.
[1] For a fuller discussion of Bush’s requirements under Air Force Policy, see http://www.glcq.com/obligations.htm
[2] examples of these forms can be seen at http://www.glcq.com/docs/points_1971.pdf and http://www.glcq.com/docs/points_career_summary_(af_712).pdf
[3] examples of the new format can be seen at http://www.glcq.com/docs/points_1973_detail.pdf and http://www.glcq.com/docs/points_1973_summary.pdf
[4] It should go without saying that, if Bush met his legally mandated training requirements, he would accrue far more than enough “points” to qualify for a “good year toward retirement” during any twelve month period.
[5] Lloyd has acknowledged to the author that the AF Form 526 cited herein is the one that he examined. No AF Form 526 covering the period May 73-May 74 has ever been released.
[6] Until 1994, when it was renumbered as 10 USC 12734, the relevant statute was 10 USC 1334. 10 USC 12734 can be seen at http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode10/usc_sec_10_00012734----000-.html (the notes section here show that the current wording has not been changed since 1962, and that the relevant provision has been in effect since 1956.)
[7] The observant reader will also note that Lloyd’s math is wrong, and that his numbers add up to 50, not 56. Lloyd’s memo is full of such errors. He misidentifies the active duty order dated April 23, 1973 he claims to have examined (it is actually AE 198 TX, not AE 108 TX), does not capitalize “Guard/Reserve”, etc….
[8] for a complete list of Robinson’s work for the Globe on this issue, see http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/national_guard/
[9] In an October 31, 2000 followup piece, Robinson does site a Major Thomas A Deall from the Air Reserve Personnel Center, who asserted that APRC officials had looked and Bush’s records, and concluded that he met “minimum drill requirements”. When asked in 2004 about this statement, Deall could not explain the criteria that APRC supposedly used in 2000
[10] attempts to contact Keating for comment through his current editors met with no response
[11] Kurtz’s stenographic tendencies have been documented thoroughly throughout the internet in the last few years, especially when it comes to statement by Republicans. Recently, Kurtz published a lie by GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who claimed that he lost his position as a leader of a focus group for MSNBC because of “political pressure” brought by left wing groups, claiming he had done “no GOP work since 2001.” A simple google search by Kurtz would have turned up the facts, but Kurtz preferred to publish a slur against David Brock rather than check the facts. Kurtz continues to write on political issues, despite his wife’s lucrative consulting contracts for the GOP. Kurtz did not respond to an offer to comment on this report.
[12] Until 1994, when it was renumbered as 10 USC 12732, the relevant statute was 10 USC 1332. 10 USC 12732 can be seen at http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode10/usc_sec_10_00012732----000-.html (the notes section here show that the relevant 50 point provision was in effect in the early 1970s.)
[13] The consequences of a loss of “active status” were significant in other ways, i.e. it also meant the loss of one’s assignment to an Air National Guard or Air Reserve unit. But if one were in the active status Standby Reserves and one lost “active status”, the only significant difference was that you could no longer accrue time toward retirement.
[14] The Active Status Standby Reserves had two separate sections, NARS-A for “non-obligors” and NARS-B for “obligors.”
[15] For a fuller discussion of Bush’s requirements under statutory law, see http://www.glcq.com/statutory_obligation.htm
[16] Although not explicitly stated in the statutes, as with all “yearly” requirements found in the statues, the default assumption is that the requirement was a fiscal year requirement. This is made explicit in the Air Force policy manuals. (prior to 1976, the fiscal year ran from July 1 through June 30.)
[17] For a fuller discussion of Bush’s requirements under the Code of Federal Regulations, see http://www.glcq.com/cfr_obligations.htm
