Son of Late Officer Questions Bush Memos

[Nambe]

Associated Press

.. "I am upset because I think it is a mixture of truth and fiction here," said Gary Killian, son of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.

Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father and retired as a captain in 1991, said one of the memos, signed by his father, appeared legitimate. But he doubted his father would have written another, unsigned memo which said there was pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's performance review.

"It just wouldn't happen," he said. "The only thing that can happen when you keep secret files like that are bad things. ... No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that." ..

CBS stood by its reporting. "As a standard practice at CBS, each of the documents broadcast on "60 Minutes" was thoroughly investigated by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity," CBS News said in a statement.

The White House distributed the four memos from 1972 and 1973 after obtaining them from CBS News. The White House did not question their accuracy.

Ride Don’t Drive * * It’s Global Cool

[ochazuke]

1. ABC News has questioned authenticity

based on the spacing of characters and the presence of a superscript 'th'. (The spacing looks like proportional typefaces not used in the late 1960s typewriters. Few typewriters of that day had superscript capability.)

[americanstranger]

3. Debunked.

http://www.fact-index.com/i/ib/ibm_selectric_typewriter.html

That type of typewriter was in wide use in the 60s, let alone the 70s.

IBM introduced them in the 40s! Don't fall for this.

-as

[Frodo]

7. Not at all debunked yet.

There's quite a bit of work to be done on this one yet.

Want to completely debunk it?

1) Tell me the name of the font and show that it was available. Including second font ball with smaller type, and unique characters (right/left quotes, "th", right/left apostrophe, etc)

2) Show some OTHER document from the same command produced on the same type of typewriter (surely not just the C.O.'s personal CYA memos used the most expensive equipment.

3) Provide history of the documents and why they should be authentic. Maybe show some other documents he produced the same way?


And if the son is going to question this... ask him if dad had a Selectric Executive.

[UpInArms]

33. I believe that it was typed on a

Selectric Composer that had variable spacing and was done with what was called the "elite" type ball.

I used this in some office back in the early 70s - the moron at the IBM Selectric site says that only "print setting" businesses had those but I can testify that is not a fact by any stretch of the imagination.

http://www.selectric.org/selectric/

what is currently on that page:

Sorry, but due to excessive hits, this page is temporarily out of service.

Please check back after the election.

For those who want my opinion...the documents appear to be done in Word, and then copied repeatedly to make them "fuzzy". They use features that were not available on office typewriters the 1970s, specifically the combination of proportional spacing with superscript font. The IBM Executive has proportional spacing, but used fixed type bars. The Selectric has changeable type elements, but fixed spacing (some models could be selected at 10 or 12 pitch, but that's all). The Selectric Composer was not an office typewriter, but apparently did use proportional spacing. These were very expensive machines, used by printing offices, not administrative offices.

At least my low opinion of TV news remains intact.

[Frodo]

35. Hmm. Well that adds to it a bit. What about?

Would he have had one at home?

If it's at the office why were none of the other unit documents done on that machine?

If it's a guy typing at home for his own records, how believable is all of this swapping print balls stuff? I sure wouldn't have taken the time.

[UpInArms]

40. anything is possible

about someone owning one for personal use - depended on how much money was spent :D

The other documents had different type? Changing a "ball" was easier than changing shoes - just clip on whatever you wanted to use at that moment - it took maybe 2 seconds to put a different ball in place and just a bit of diddling to change the spacing -



Yor are bidding on 8 different elements for the IBM Selectic II typewriter. All are in great working condition, NO broken snaps, NO Broken teeth and comes with a case to keep all of them. One each, SCRIPT 12, PRESTIGE ELITE 12, LETTER GOTHIC 12, LIGHT ITALIC,ORATOR 10, PRESENTOR ORATOR 10, PICA 10, AND COURIER 10.

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This will be one of your BEST eBay purchases! The retail value here is over $500.00 . We are offering for bid a set of 12 RARE Balls for the IBM Selectric II . These GP balls are all BRAND NEW- and come in a BRAND NEW CASE- Custom foam lined with individual compartments for each ball. The fonts are:Prestige Elite, Delegate, Pica, Courier 12, Symbol 12, Olde English, Bookface Academic, Dual Gothic, OCR, Script, Astrology and CPXL. Staples sells these for $59.95 EACH. (We are the largest seller of NEW typewriter elements on eBay for the last three years-check our feedback). And, with this special set of elements comes a wonderful FREE GIFT ! A CD containing the complete owners manual for the Selectric II typewriter. All the photos-all the text- in covenient and easy to access CD form. Simply pop into your computer and scroll to the page(s) you want to see. You are going to love this purchase......guaranteed!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3838177807&category=25326

[Frodo]

43. Boy that is SO WRONG! You are ALWAYS exagerating like that!

Even IBM's OWN ADVERTISING only claimed they could be changed in FIVE second.


:hi:

[Misunderestimator]

77. It's odd, Frodo...

I've read a lot of your posts on the million threads about this so-called forgery the past couple of days... and it seems like you WANT it to be a forgery. You're asking everyone else to prove that it's not, but if you were REALLY as interested in proving that (as it seems you must be given the number of posts you've created about it, and the fact that you belong to this liberal board), then I would think that YOU would be the one out there trying to prove it.

All I see instead is that you are trying to disprove it. :shrug:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

78. And he was vewy vewy sad his Pwesident was only up by 4 pts in Zogby

poll.

:cry:

[Frodo]

80. Read that post again. You don't see the joke?

I'm sure UIA did - we go back a ways here.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

81. Huh?

in plainspoken English-us liberal idiots don't understand your lingo.

[Frodo]

83. Apparently not.

I was AGREEING with him. The point was how quickly you could change the balls and that it was no big deal. Surely you don't think 5 seconds is harder than two second?

[MeinaShaw]

86. Changing the ball for the "th"?

I'm sorry, but I just can buy that someone is going to go to the trouble to swap a ball to superscript the "th". I mean, it is possible, but think what you would have to go through.

First, type these words"...waiting for word from the 180"

Now, stop typing, pull out the ball, put in the new ball, turn the knob up one click, type "th" in he smaller font, take that ball out, put the other ball back in, turn the knob down a click, then get back to typing.

And this is some jar head that is supposed to be doing all this? Maybe an executive secretary with an anal boss would go through this, but in a simple memo. I'm sorry, that is just not believable. I mean, it is possible but that does not make it believable.

[Snazzy]

41. It's not a Selectric

Selectrics, with the exception of the Composer, were all monospaced. So everybody should get off the golf-balls.

The "Executive" however, used proportional spacing.

Here's a 1953 ad:



There was a model dating to either '41 or '44 that also had proportional spacing. And they were in use in the Air Force (I saw a page about that earlier today).

So the proportional spacing is not the issue.

The font is not the issue either--on that now blocked site you could see samples of IBM typewriter fonts. I thought one called "adjutant" was an excellent match--although they were selectric fonts, IBM used the same designs on typebars. (It sure a heck isn't Times, like the loathsome Freeps spew.)

The documents appear to have varied stroke pressure and some characters out of line, so it does look like a typewriter to me. That would take quite a bit of effort to fake.

Would the same person doing that faking and forging the signature not know enough that the superscript ordinal 'th' might be suspicious? Seems unlikely to me--if it were a forgery, it required an expert. You need the IBM font and jumble it and fade/darken here and there (or actual old typewriter--but that doesn't fly with the superscript assertion), a new, but passable signature, and you need to fake the age of the original paper and ink. The last two being especially hard to do if CBS experts were working from the original and not a copy. All that said, I could make a fake like that, assuming I had the paper, but I wouldn't then blow it on subscript "th". No expert would.

Lastly, consider this was an Air Guard base. They needed access to semi-technical typesetting all the time for weather and flight plans and so on. Plus the base's name ended in a "th", the 111th. IBM did indeed make typebars for the Executive that did all kinds of stuff. It's possible they had one of those (considering that's the name of a base, an optional key that does superscript "th" isn't much of a reach--nor is a commander actually using it in pride), or the possibility this was printed by a bigger machine of a printer that the base was also likely to have. I wonder if the author had some special background like doing the weather for the base....

All that said, the superscript thing is a little weird for the time. But who cares, SBVT counter attack in any and all forms welcome by me.

But didn't this come from the military itself? Confused on that. Thought they said they found it.

(N.B. I've been a designer with an interest in type for about 16 years).

[Snazzy]

48. superscript in other ANG document

Thanks to JMM.

Look at page 3 here:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/9-Miscellaneous.pdf

Sept. '68 111th is superscript (although this time in a monospace typeface).

That's enough of this for me. (i.e. Texas ANG had something that did superscript "th"'s--which I thought was the main sticky point. See my above to run down the rest.)

[denverbill]

68. Nice find.

My head hurts trying to read that page sideways though.

[Snazzy]

73. rotate button handy

A DU'r in GD posted this image:



But I do agree we are playing someone else's game here and ought to chill.

[denverbill]

75. Yeah, I noticed that 'rotate' button write after I posted. Duh:).

[mccormack98]

76. KICK - Nice find

[MeinaShaw]

87. I cant find superscript on page 3. Where is it? Sorry

Do you mean the third page of a page that is marked page three? I could not find the superscrpit you are talking about for Sept. '68 111th.

[TahitiNut]

59. That's the typewriter I recall from '68 - the IBM Executive

And I also seem to recall that the 'Adjutant' typeface was standard. That typewriter was only used by the senior folks at Ft. Sam 4th Army (now defunct) HQ, as far as I recall, but I certainly remember proportional typefaces. (As an EDP/MIS person, I was addicted/accustomed to fixed-space fonts and the proportional fonts were an aggravation to me at the time.)

[Snazzy]

74. I was actually thinking about this before the flap

I miss the Selectric--used to do paste-up layouts with a Selectric, a fancy lino machine, OCR golfball and wax.

Anyway, appreciate the verification that the Executive made it to bases. That WaPo story's experts are clearly wrong on a bunch of this.

[Name removed]

60. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[robbedvoter]

84. Tired of trying to burry Air America,? Another exercise in futility?

[ochazuke]

17. Yes, the Selectric was a wonder.

And you'd think there would be people around the ABC News room that remember it.

Why are the media so quick to subscribe to RW spin? I think the 'thuglicans are intimidating the media: "do as we say or you will be denied access."

[brentspeak]

23. ABC News has gotten rid of most of the old school journalists

With the exception of CBS, today's network news is run by young MBAs. And corporations are chomping at the bit to finally get their hands on CBS.

[ochazuke]

31. Howard K. Smith, where are you?

Oh, yeah. He's dead. So is journalism on network TV.

What a sad, sad day. But thank god for the internet, eh?

[piece sine]

65. you mean like VIACOM?

Since when isn't CBS corporately owned?!

[IndianaGreen]

58. The military did not have that type of IBM typewriter at the time

Even as late as the mid 1970s, we were still using the old mechanical typewriters such as Underwood. All military typewriters used a slash across the number zero to differentiate it from the letter "O." Remember that there would be no electric power if we had to go out to the field on an alert, so electric typewriters were not being used while I was on active duty. I can only assume the Reserves and NG had crappier equipment than we did.

[Hepburn]

13. The IBM Selectric Composer

It had mutliple fonts available. All the way from 12 pt to 3 pt. It typed in proportional type - which could be disabled - and it had a "dead" key which could be programmed to do different characters. It was first introduced in 1966.

[ROC]

14. I sure would have liked to have been issued a Selectric back then

[jimshoes]

19. I worked with the composer some years ago

I might still have the manuals somewhere. Pretty slick piece of equipment and could do all sorts of neat tricks. It could even justify a line of type if you knew the trick.

[Hepburn]

28. There is a brochure for it on the internet..

...and some instruction manuals, too. I recall looking at the one about how to disable proportional typing. That is where I got the info from. in the post I did about this machine. IMO, the neocons are hoping and praying that they can make this go away with all their bogus carping.

BTW: I think the IBM site is down because of too much traffic, but if I can find the links again, I will post them for you.

[KoKo]

54. I think you're onto something with this. But would the military have had

new equipment like that? Maybe by the 70's....

[IndianaGreen]

85. They were not part of the military's TOE

They cost well over a thousand dollars back then, and they were not part of the military's Table of Organization and Equipment. We didn't have them, and we were with active duty at the headquarters level. I can't imagine an Air National Guard having better stuff than USAEUR.

[starroute]

49. I've been looking at stuff from the 70's, and the -th- is the only problem

I've just been down in the basement looking at old fanzines that were done on Selectrics, including some that were done on a Selectric Executive, and also at a book done on an IBM Composer. (Not that a military base would have been using a Composer for routine memos. That was a machine that cost several thousand dollars and was meant for professional typesetting.)

Some of the pages I saw looked very much like the memos -- including proportional spacing -- but none of them included a raised -th-. I very much doubt any of the IBM machines would have been capable of it, since you would also have needed a -st-, -nd-, and -rd- to cover all the numbers. There just wasn't that much free real estate on those typeballs.

On the other hand, the type in the memos is far more irregular than any computer-set type. The letters don't keep to an even baseline, and many of them look slightly smeared in a way that was typical of typewriters but not of computers. If they're fakes, it means someone went to a lot of trouble to lovingly replicate the look of typing with a computer, but completely slipping up on that anomalous -th-. If you were going to go to all the trouble, why not just find an old typewriter and use that?

And it would certainly have been possible to produce a raised -th- by using a typeball with a smaller font, if anybody had been anal enough to bother.


On edit: I just checked again, and the Executive did have left and right curly quotes.

[Bread and Circus]

51. Looks like DU'ers are falling for it...

On it's face, we know Bush ducked responsibilities yet the GOP has got us arguing about typewriter technology 30 years ago.

Ha. What a waste.

[leesa]

52. Exactly. The Dems conned again. Ummm...do you think maybe the Bush

Crime Family put out a bogus memo to cast a shadow on the entire case?? DUH! Why else do you think the Freepers would catch on for God's sake if they weren't led by the nose to it?

[jforb]

61. Selectric Executive?

What's a Selectric Executive?

I have a bunch of Selectrics, and one Executive, but they are completely different machines. The only similarities are that they are both electric typewriters made by IBM in the 1960s.

The smearing is the result of recopying the document. Try it some time.

My Executive has only one single quote, no curleys.

If there is indeed a Selectric Executive, I'd sure like to find one for my IBM typewriter collection.

[starroute]

67. Sorry, meant just Executive

Somebody had used the phrase "Selectric Executive" above, and I copied it over without thinking.

And my friend's Executive definitely did have single curly-quotes. I'm looking at a copy of The Tolkien Journal #9 from 1968 which was partly produced on an Executive and I see an example in the phrase "is having a 'Tolkien Party' early in September." And another in "I do not keep 'Mr', 'Mrs' or 'Miss' on my file cards."

The fanzine also makes use of both a regular and a small font-size. Although I have not spotted any reduced superscripts, it would certainly have been possible to produce one.

[xxqqqzme]

88. not anal, but I had 2 do

change balls when typing property descriptions on deeds, especially descriptions using minutes, seconds and degrees. It would take FOREVER! and yes, as some one suggested U could justify the lines, if needed, which was also done 4 the property descriptions. That way the descriptions were set apart from the rest of the deed. This is soooo ancient history. I had a box that housed the balls. Primarily used the courier, elite but sometimes, for filling out forms would use the smaller type cuz U knew it would fit the blank spaces in pre-printed forms.

jeez, I must have spent a lot of time w/ a selectric to remember that much about it. sad

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

2. oh bullshit

It just wouldn't happen," he said. "The only thing that can happen when you keep secret files like that are bad things. ... No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that." ..

This is a CYA memo for record, probably in the guys personal "Pearl Harbor File".

[luaneryder]

4. I always, without fail

kept a CYA file when I worked for the government, military and civilian. You never knew when it would come in handy.

[Frodo]

8. lol. Me too.

But I didn't put "CYA" in the document titles.


Not that it bears on anything. Just think it's weird.

[TacticalPeek]

32. An oral CYA ain't worth the paper it's written on.

I admire the Colonel's foresightful and thorough sandbagging of his position, no doubt the reasonable precaution of a man expecting the famous Shit River to continue flowing in the same direction it has since forever.

[mtnester]

47. Heck, I work for local government and keep a CYA file

Did also in the private sector....I bet you can find more people that keep one than don't. EVERY piece of correspondance I created for the past twelve years is duplicated x2.

[Individualist]

71. I worked for the federal government

and kept a CYA file. Also, much of the work I did was confidential, and I never discussed my work with family or friends.

[CityDem]

5. Faux News also questioned the documents

It seemed like a total BS report by the hacks at Faux. Someone at Faux used MS Word to create the document and the letters/spacing lined up perfectly. They had some hack on there saying it was unlikely the document was created by a typewriter. Where do they find these guys?

However, if enough members of the media whores begin making the authenticity the issue, this story will go no where.

[Frodo]

9. Actually, they were pretty fair. The "expert" he called said it COULD be

genuine. Didn't know how the "th" character could have been created, but I think that's largely been explained (though I can't imagine why anyone would do it that way - doesn't make it a forgery).

[Az_lefty]

6. BS!!! CYA files are very common.

:mad:

[benddem]

11. That's true

any time you get on the losing end of a pissing contest a CYA memo is the only way to save your hide. The son only got to be a Cpt. He probably had no idea the grief the father was getting.

[Frodo]

15. "Son only got to be a captain"

Well, in the Navy we didn't think that was such a bad thing. :-)

Seriously - it's a lot farther than Bush got, isn't it?

[bobbyboucher]

10. Weren't the documents released by the White House?

This has got Rove's old "give em the truth then leak it's a lie" written all over it. Or was it "give em some lies mixed in, by our own hand, and we'll discredit the whole thing". Yeah, that's it.

[Cinic]

12. After receiving them from CBS as the original post states n/t

[yelladawg]

16. bush no longer a chickenhawk

he is a girlie boy

[Cinic]

18. Although I guess

your theory could be true if Rove originally leaked them to CBS, but that doesn't seem likely.

[Demit]

21. who has the original memos? CBS? They will show...

...whether they were typed or printed by a laser printer. The keys striking the paper would make a slight imprint. Plus typewriter ribbons are inked and laser printers use dry toner. Looks different.

Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere, but all the hoohah over superscripts & Times Roman etc is just a bunch of, well, hoohah.

CBS, or whoever has the originals, knows. Probly they're just spinning it out to let ABC and NBC make total blowhard asses out of themselves, with their "forgery experts".

[jmowreader]

26. Selectric ribbons are rarely inked

Selectrics use a carbon-film ribbon. It looks like saran wrap with black stuff on one side of it. And it's in a cartridge, not two spools like on a regular typewriter. They had a "long-life fabric ribbon" but I never saw one, and the Composer, which I think this machine was, couldn't use the fabric ribbon.

Give me five minutes, the real memo and a magnifying glass and I can tell you whether this thing is real or a forgery.

[Hepburn]

29. My thoughts exactly...

...on whether the memos are forgeries or not. It does not take a rocket scientist to see the difference between what key strike marks from a typewriter look like on a piece of paper and what a laser or ink jet printer does.

[Tangledog]

44. There were a lot of Selectric models around

I used one for years that had a fabric ribbon. We might even still have one downstairs, though I'm scared to look.

For a few years before computers, there were all sorts of jazzy typewriters with the Saran-wrap cartridges. Not sure when they became the norm, though.

The only thing that ever happened to Selectrics was that there was a wire on which the print ball rode, and on my company's, it broke about once every 1-1/2 years and I'd have to haul it someplace to have it fixed. Outside of that, if they weren't obsolete, they'd probably all still be working.

[indie_voter]

39. The chemical composition would be different

They can do a scientific anaylsis to determine composition of paper and ink.

[HarveyBriggs]

20. "Ya' Gotta Believe Me!" Says the son.

"If ya don't I'll never work in the USA again!"

"The Bush family swore to it!"

Harvey

[demgrrrll]

22. If you're explaining you're losing...Lee Atwater............n/t.

.

[glitch]

46. they're playing defense now - this is good nt

:evilgrin:

[Julian English]

24. Why would the White House release them if they were forged?

Undoubtedly, the White House had copies of the memo, too, before they received them from CBS. Also, it would seem unlikely that the White House did not check the documents authenticity. What else is the FBI's forensics lab for?

[truthisfreedom]

25. let's ask his dog! maybe he has an opinion? or his son's dog! or the

neighbors! let's ask them! can we, huh? i wanna know what THEY think too!

[Raster]

27. ...let me guess, the son is a 'puke, right?

Or recently had a lee atwater-style come-to-jesus experience?

[alcuno]

30. Is the son saying his own father was not in his right mind?

Where did these documents come from?

[grasswire]

34. let's find out more about Gary Killian

I tried to find political donations on opensecrets.org, with no luck. Perhaps this isn't his full name?

[rawstory]

36. If I was his son, and was a Republican I'd deny it too.

Obviously. I mean, if its true, I'd deny it. If it's not true, I'd deny it. It's not in this guy's interest to say it's true -- in fact, if he did, he'd surely get even more hateful phone calls than I'm sure he's already getting.

[rhite5]

37. there is so much information breaking now about the TANG......

period in Bush's background, the authenticity of this particular memo is not going to matter.

[Dr Fate]

64. Yep- we won this round.

The SVB liars are neutralized.

[stickdog]

38. This type of "journalism" infuriates me to no end!

Why has 98% of our journalism been replaced with this "he said, she said" nonsense?

There IS an objective truth here. Either this document is forged or it isn't. We shouldn't all be given free rein to simply believe whatever we want to believe about this. But that's what this fucking piece of "journalism" does. It simply presents competing claims, and makes NO ATTEMPT whatsoever to determine the veracity of either!

But this is what passes for news today. It's complete bullshit.

[Greyhawk]

42. Bad news...

As was posted in another thread....

>>In the August 18, 1973 memo discovered by 60 Minutes writes:
>>
>>"Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm having >>trouble running interference and doing my job."
>>
>>General Staudt retired in 1972.

[Spiffarino]

50. Bad news my ass.

Doesn't mean anything. Hodges could still have been pressured by Staudt even if he was retired. Colonels and generals can still have friends in high places, retired or not.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

45. Instead of an empirical advancement of proof, we are left

judging which thrown turds have stuck to the wall.

[Spiffarino]

53. Bzzz. Wrong, Jennings, but thank you for playing...

...the re-select Bush in 2004 game.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x780217

[LauraK]

55. Poor man's father forgot to pass on integrity.

[Carolab]

56. OKAY, here's some documentation

The Selectric typewriter was first released in 1961 and is generally considered to be a design classic. After the Selectric II was introduced a few years later, the original design was designated the Selectric I. The Correcting Selectric II differed from the Selectric I in many respects:

The Selectric II was squarer at the corners, whereas the Selectric I was rounder.
The Selectric II had a Dual Pitch option to allow it to be switched (with a lever at the top left of the "carriage") between 10 and 12 characters per inch, whereas the Selectric I had one fixed "pitch".
The Selectric II had a lever (at the top left of the "carriage") that allowed characters to be shifted up to a half space to the left (for inserting a word one character longer or shorter in place of a deleted mistake), whereas the Selectric I did not.
The Selectric II had optional auto-correction (with the extra key at the bottom right of the keyboard), whereas the Selectric I did not. (The white correction tape was at the left of the typeball and its orange take-up spool at the right of the typeball.)
The Selectric II had a lever (above the right platen knob) that would allow the platen to be turned freely but return to the same vertical line (for inserting such symbols as subscripts and superscripts), whereas the Selectric I did not.
Both Selectric I and Selectric II were available in standard, medium, and wide-carriage models and in various colors, including red and blue as well as traditional neutral colors, and both used the same typeballs, which were available in many fonts, including symbols for science and mathematics, OCR faces for scanning by computers, script, Old English, and more than a dozen ordinary alphabets. The typeballs came in two styles: Original models had a metal spring clip with two wire wings that squeezed together, later models had a fragile flip-up black plastic lever that could break off, which was later redesigned to have a substantial plastic lever that did not break. Over the years, there were several different styles for the ribbons, even in the same model Selectric, and they were not interchangeable. Selectric I models used either a cloth cartridge ribbon or a spool film ribbon. Correcting Selectic II models had a cartridge film ribbon instead of the spool style, although the non-correcting models used the earlier cloth cartridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter

[htuttle]

57. CBS has second source confirming authenticity of memos

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=780217&mesg_id=780217&page=

A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said that a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone, and that Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."

"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said. "Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles."

Apparently, the son wasn't aware of all of his father's memos. Perhaps his father just never felt like discussing something like this with him.

[napi21]

62. I suspect his son is trying to protect the image of his father.

People put CYA memos in files all the time! I don't know anything about the military, but Corp American files are full of them!

I think tje Lt. Col;s son is feeling like the admin is attacking his father, and he's trying to protect his memory. I admire him for his loyalty, but he will soon find out that this admin. isn't trying to say good things about his father, but playing CYA.

[Logansquare]

63. BULL--IBM marketed electric typewriters to government agencies

And the IBM Electromatic 04 had proportional spacing--in *1947*

"The Electromatic was a heavy paper-pounding machine that could do some things that no other typewriter could. Besides being speedy, the force exerted by electrically powered type bars could turn out more carbon copies than any machine powered by the weak fingers of a human being. IBM apparently exploited this advantage and marketed the Electromatic (as its Model 01) to government agencies, which frequently had to fill out thick, multi-part forms. A later model "04" had the same appearance as the Electromatic, but featured proportional spacing."
http://www.etypewriters.com/remingtom.htm

[Snellius]

66. Unlikely that one memo would appear legitimate and another not

Not impossible, but improbable that someone would forge documents and yet have access to originals as well. It's also interesting that the son rejected those he thought fake based on the content of the memo and he had no way of knowing their authenticity any more than anyone else.

[Cocoa]

69. did the son go to work with the father?

how do the son and widow know so much about Dad's work?

[ChrisK]

70. Maybe someone can ask what he was using back then

I'm sure there would be paperwork showing what kind of equipment he was issued back then, so there would be a record of what he was using to show if he had the type of machine that could do this type of work...Its not like a big time operation like IBM couldn't get a contract with the Armed services.

The funny thing is "experts" with all have there own opinion on some stuff out there..hell there are "experts" that still believe the "shroud of Turan" is real and belonged to Jesus when when science tells them different.

[CarinKaryn]

72. Stop question these memos!

Their "debunking" has been throughly debunked!

[Ratty]

79. Didn't this come from microfiche

I heard someplace that these memos were printed from a microfiche. The original paper documents may no longer exist, so ink and paper analysis would not be possible. It would also likely be impossible to identify the character specific imperfections that all typewriters have simply because the quality is now so poor.

I've been convinced that these are very likely real simply because CBS consulted document experts and a man who worked in that office and didn't notice anything wrong with the documents. It seems to me that font and superscript issues would have been caught immediately at that stage. I don't think they're real because I want them to be real.

God, there's GOT to be other military documents out there that were produced on the same machine.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

82. Just goes to show you that children often know very little about...

...what their parents have to do at work to explain actions they're told to take by others.

Wonder what he thought of Dan Rather's commentary tonight?