More reasons the documents aren't faked:

[Heath.Hunnicutt]

Or at least could have been produced in 1972:

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Quoting http://www.throck.com/articles/UD_Oct_4_2002.html :

For those young enough for this to be simply amazing, you need to remember that when IBM introduced the Selectric typewriter in 1961 it was an amazing leap forward, utilizing a "golf ball" that could print faster than a traditional typewriter. Three years later, IBM introduced the MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter) that added a magnetic tape drive to the Selectric. The magnetic tape was the first reusable storage medium for typed stuff, allowing it to be stored, replayed, corrected, reprinted whenever needed, then erased to be reused. This might seem like nothing to today's computer users, but before that making a correction to a typo on a document was labor-intensive, particularly if there were carbon copies involved. The MT/ST probably marked the beginning of word processing as we know it today.

Making corrections to documents became a lot easier in 1969 when IBM introduced the MagCard, which actually stored a document on a storage card device. In 1972 Lexitron and Linolex developed a similar word processing system but included video display screens and tape cassettes for document storage. The screen made it possible to enter and edit text without having to print hard copies.

It was in 1972-73 that Vydec introduced its first word processor, which featured floppy disk storage that would hold 80 to 100 pages of text instead of the one page the magnetic cards held. I remember these machines well; if you were really good with them you could actually paginate documents, much to the amazement of authors standing around in a circle watching.

IBM introduced its memory typewriter in 1974 and Wang introduced the 2200 Series in 1976. WordStar, one of my favorite old word processing programs, shipped in 1979. Also in 1979, Apple introduced the Apple II Plus, Intel introduced the 8088 microprocessor, and Texas Instruments introduced the TI-99/4 personal computer. The advent of the personal computer would spell the end of the dedicated word processing machines.

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Wow. Electronic word processors had punched cards, and magnetic memory, in 1964. In 1972, they had adavanced so that users could edit text on a video screen before printing a hard copy. I heard about these today from a relative who informed me that when he was a company clerk in the service in 1971 (stationed at MACV), the Army had multiple floppy-disk using word processors at his unit. This source does not wish to be named, but is the person who showed me how to program computers, based on what he learned in the Army, during Vietnam. His opinion is that the memos could have been easily produced using systems that were available to him and many others in 1971. He was only ranked E-5.

So I guess Killian might have had access to computerized word processing machines utilizing the Times Font, text centering, superscript, and a tab-stob at 4".

Have I mentioned that the faux letterhead looks to me like the output from a machine that uses struck type, like an old line printer?

It looks to me like that letterhead was stored on a punched card, macro, tape, or similar. It consistently has a "descended" last character on each line -- as though the computer printer "got ahead of itself" as it came to the spot where it needed to carriage return but was still in the process of pounding the last letter. That's the kind of bug I would expect in such a device, speaking as a computer programmer and occassional builder of electronics.

My money would be on Killian having made paper cards or storage cartridges of forms, such as this personal letterhead.

Again, the comparisons of Times New Roman to Times are comparing Times to Times after one of them got their named changed by a lawsuit from Linotype. Linotype made print faces for line printers, such as the kind you could hook up to 1960's-vintage computers.

[girl gone mad]

1. Hi Heath.

I suspect the Selectric might have been a popular choicie with secretaries because of tis capabilities and because these women had to make so many carbon copies, they needed a heavy duty typewriter that could make and impact through 4 pages.

Some people say the military wouldn't buy an expensive typewriter. I think that's nonsense. Can you imagine how much paperwork they had to deal with on a daily basis? Especially during Vietnam.

[Heath.Hunnicutt]

2. Hi ggm

I notice we posted on the same topic within 2 minutes of each other. Psychic brain waves.

I can imagine they had lots of equipment for data and document processing. Especially at a place like MACV, where my relative was stationed, which was where data processing happened, there was a huge variety of devices that could be considered word processors.

There were the Selectric typewriters, and also reportedly typewriters from Olympic. There were keypunch machines for Holerith 80-column punched cards of data.

They had machines to transcribe punched cards to magnetic tape and the reverse. Also, they had computers with the ability to output via typesetting typewriters.

I am a computer programmer, and I am pretty convinced the memos aren't really the output of Microsoft Word.

On the other hand, I think the centering layout of his letterhead required a typewriter that had a memory function.

[starroute]

12. Centering layout?

I'm confused as to why you think this would have required a memory function.

As I recall, the Selectric had a special key that would bring the typeball to the center of the page. You'd then spell out the name or title you wanted to center, hitting backspace with every other letter. Then you'd type it for real.

Before that, I remember hand-centering the carriage to type the titles of school papers.

I understand you're saying the letterhead looks like it was typeset, and that the descended last characters look like a computer glitch. But is that really the only possibility?

[Heath.Hunnicutt]

14. Centering Text -and- Word Processor not the same as Computer

If the Selectric centered text just like you describe, then what I am talking about could be a glitch as seen on a Selectric.

What I see as evidence of an electro-mechanical "bug" or defect is the hanging last characters in the letterhead. I do not mean a "bug" in a computer program like we have nowadays, but maybe even something like a badly adjusted gear.

Some things about the letterhead printing make me believe that it was output not at typing speed, but from a scratchpad memory or a recorded cartridge. It looks like it was output by a mechanical typing system under computer control.

I didn't realize the Selectric had such a memory buffer with which to do centering. Now that I know that, I agree it could have been any such typewriter.

One thing I haven't explained is that I've worked as a programmer writing computer vision to do measurement. So I have been looking at these documents down to the pixel level. The centered typed address is centered on itself very accurately. It is so precise that electronic help must have been involved. That would completely fit the Selectric feature you describe.

[starroute]

15. Don't take my word for it on the centering without confirmation

I remember using such a function -- but these are thirty year old memories, and I don't have any way of double-checking them.

However, I believe it did exist and was related to the Tab function. Unlike manual typewriters, where you had to move physical sliders at the back of the machine to set your tabs, the Selectric let you space to where you wanted a tab and then hit the Set Tab button. Or tab to where there was an existing tab you wanted to remove and hit the Clear Tab button.

I don't believe there was electronic memory involved, though. At the time, at least, I thought it was electro-mechanical and that there were physical markers being set and unset by the keys.

[Heath.Hunnicutt]

3. oops duped message

Edit: accidentally posted twice

[unslinkychild1]

8. AKKKKK

Even WITHOUT Vietnam, I typed TONS of stuff all DAY when I was in the Army--I was THE secretary, the ONLY person in an office of 17 with a typewriter on my desk.

My Selectric died (after multiple repairs with rubber bands and paper clips--I kid you NOT), AND they replaced it, eventually, with this shitty typewriter that probably cost about $1,000 or more with LED screen, and HORRIBLE light touch--Panasonic, I think. Between times, I brought in a portable typewriter (in a case) from home because I didn't want to let the work pile up, and IT was on of those with the individual keys instead of a ball, and a ribbon that could be rewound, bought in 1984.

Anyone who's ever used a Selectric, with it's satisfying clackety clack, would probably agree that a typewriter with a light touch after that is a DISASTER. AND years after that (like 1995), I worked for the state of Oregon, and we still had a Selectric, the same model I had used in the Army in 1985, for those docs that just HAD to be done on a typewriter.

I have no idea what model it was, but you could do all the fancy shit on it, and were REQUIRED to do stuff like the th and nd, etc., and erase. The Selectric I had was old, and died of old age and overuse. In those days, NOBODY typed their own stuff--it was just shoved in the 71L's inbasket.

[yardwork]

10. There weren't that many other options, really

I worked in a dirt-poor university office in the early 1980s, and we all had ancient IBM Selectrics. They weren't considered luxuries. They were simply standard office equipment, purchased through central supply. They weighed a ton and lasted for decades and were extremely reliable.

The Olivettis (sp?) with their fussy daisy wheels were considered luxuries, because they were more elegant but also more expensive and less reliable.

It was not cost-effective to buy a cheaper typewriter because it wouldn't hold up in an office and would have to be replaced quickly.

[Protected]

4. One thing about "document gate" is that I've

learned a lot about IBM's typewriter line. :)

[madrchsod]

5. really nice site

i remember those typewriters..they were the latest thing back then and they sold zillions of them. in fact i`ve seen some really old ones turn up at thrift shops.

[hexola]

6. A lot of that implies that we are dealing with "official" documents...

But I think the original story said these documents were from Killians "Personal File" - whats that...?

[Heath.Hunnicutt]

7. or documents produced at the office on his own initiative.

Those memos obviously aren't regulation. That doesn't mean he didn't type them at the office.

[yardwork]

9. The main reason I am certain these documents were typed

is that the letters and other characters jump all over the horizontal line. Hold a straight edge against the bottom of any section of type in any of the CBS documents and you'll see it.

There is no way that a word processor printer could do this.

When I ask this question of our visitors who claim to have replicated the memos on Microsoft Word, they duck and run.

[Heath.Hunnicutt]

11. Word Processors used to be mechanical

I think the terminology is confusing. When I wrote "word processor", I mean clunky electro-mechanical systems from the mid-1960's and 1970's.

I remember in the 1980's, dot-matrix printers were just coming out. Before that, at a local office, I was allowed to use the "line printer."

The "line printer" was basically a "fancy typewriter you couldn't type on, but could hook up to a computer instead."

So, when I say I think it was done on a 1964-1972 era word processor, I think the wavy baseline is evidence for that.

One thing I should mention is that these fairly expensive line printers were stupidly expensive and jumped around from vibrations while printing.

The wavy baseline in general shows that the output was electro-mechanical, using the impressions of keys onto paper. The hanging-down characters at the end of the letterhead output makes me think of a stored macro. The precise centering suggests the assistance of electronics.

This has nothing to do with Microsoft Word. Many of my friends are people who literally wrote the Microsoft Word program. None of us think those documents need to have come from Microsoft Word. Of course it is possible to make them using Microsoft Word, because it is such a powerful program. That proves little.

The term "word processor" is just funny. It might have formerly meant something like a super-fancy typewriter that could do only that one thing, but had a disk drive. Nowadays, a word processor is just one of many things you put on a disk drive.

Kind of like how the first automatic computers replaced the rooms full of human computers who did that job first.

[yardwork]

13. I getcha! I misunderstood - thought you meant Microsoft Word

[Hepburn]

16. Same question...

...the base line on those memos is nothing like what a computer printer does. On those stupid videos I have seen where the MSW stuff is overlayed on a memo....the baseline of the memo is masked by doing this.

What a bunch of BS. There is NO way a computer printer did those memos.

[Heath.Hunnicutt]

17. Are you sure?

I know there is no way a modern laser printer made that output; it's obvious just by looking at it. It has nothing to do with Microsoft Word.

Old computer printers were nothing more than electric typewriters with computer cables plugged into the back. They got bigger from there, some of them could punch out a whole line at a time. The thing is, they were mechanical as well as computerized.

I remember a typewriter we owned in 1986 had a parallel port on the back of it for a computer to plug into.