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Research support
for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund of the
Nation Institute. |
new
source has emerged with what she says is personal knowledge about
why George W. Bush prematurely left his Texas National Guard unit in
1972--because nerves, fear and a possible drinking problem were
affecting his ability to pilot his F-102A plane. If true, this
information further confirms a growing body of evidence that Bush
has not been candid about his departure from his unit. At various
times the President and his spokespersons have offered shifting
rationales, from the planned eventual mothballing of the F-102As, to
his doctor's unavailability to give him a flight physical, to a
professional opportunity in another state.
However, Janet Linke of Jacksonville, Florida, says that it all
came down to an inability to perform. Linke is the widow of Jan
Peter Linke, who was brought into Bush's National Guard unit to
replace him when Bush left the unit and the state for Alabama in May
1972.
Linke says that Bush's now-deceased
commanding officer in the Texas Air National Guard's 111th Fighter
Interceptor Squadron, Lieut. Col. Jerry Killian, confided in her and
her husband during an encounter at a social gathering as to the
reasons Mr. Linke had been brought in to replace Bush. "He said Bush
was mucking up his flying very badly and he couldn't fly the plane,"
Linke said. "Killan told us that he was having trouble landing, and
that possibly there was a drinking problem involved in that"--which
Linke took to mean a particularly debilitating one, since carousing
was almost the norm in such units.
Jan Peter Linke, a veteran Air Force pilot who was flying the
same plane, the F-102, for the Florida Air National Guard, was hired
by Bush's superiors to replace him in his Texas Air Guard unit.
"They [Houston] were looking for someone they didn't have to spend
extra money training," recalled Linke.
Linke does not appear to have sought out journalists or publicity
for what she knows. She says she voted for Bush's father but that
she had become increasingly disturbed by what she regarded as the
younger Bush's hypocrisy. Frustrated by ads from "Swift Boat
Veterans" that questioned Kerry's military service, Linke visited
the Duval County Democratic Party to pick up a Kerry-Edwards lawn
sign. While there, she made a remark about Bush's flying record.
Party officials encouraged her to tell her story to a local
alternative paper, Folio Weekly, which she did. Linke
subsequently consented to an interview with The Nation.
Notably, Linke's contact with Folio occurred before the White
House's lawsuit-generated release of Bush's flight logs, which
appeared to corroborate the thrust of her claims. Those logs show
Bush in the winter and early spring of 1972 having problems landing
his plane and being placed into two-pilot training planes--from
which he had graduated years earlier.
Linke's account is crucial, because her husband was killed on
August 21, 1973, in an automobile accident following drinks at the
officers' club, when his car went off a road. An official hard-bound
album created for the Guard unit's fiftieth anniversary in 1973
features a group shot of the 111th Squadron in which Jan Peter Linke
is pictured, but not Bush (the unit photo was taken in December
1972).
Linke, who raised her son on military widow's benefits and worked
as an art teacher and arts coordinator in public and Episcopal
schools before suffering a stroke, was intensely private about
personal matters, according to those who knew her, and didn't often
speak about her husband and his tragic death. However, several
people remember her mentioning her knowledge of Bush's flying
problems in the past. One, her fiancé, Delfino Dosio, said the topic
of her late husband's piloting work came up sometime after they met
five years ago, and that he recalls her mentioning several years ago
his replacing the faltering Bush. "[Bush] couldn't cut the mustard;
he was failing in his abilities to fly," Dosio remembered hearing.
"They were going to send him for retraining." A neighbor, Renee
Soforenko, a real estate entrepreneur, says she also recalls Linke
mentioning the matter several times over the past few years.
Sylvia Johnson, principal of West Jacksonville elementary school,
where Linke taught, is not familiar with the Bush material, but
rated Linke highly. "She was a wonderful, outstanding teacher, able
to connect with children in a way you rarely see." She said she
didn't know about the National Guard matter, but "I don't have any
reason to doubt her honesty."
Linke says her husband first heard about the opening for a pilot
in Bush's unit on May 12, 1972. That date preceded Bush's recorded
departure from his base, suggesting that superiors were already
planning to replace him. Bush's last recorded flight came on April
16, 1972. Although his contractual obligation to continue flying
would not expire for another two years, Bush would never fly again
for the National Guard. In August 1972 Killian suspended the
departed Bush from flying, ostensibly for his failure to take an
annual physical exam. But Linke says that the physical was the
result, not the cause. "He just became afraid to fly," she said. "I
don't believe he was a coward. But he clearly had a problem flying
one of these machines, and a problem landing."