Former secretary says she didn't type memos

[Shrek]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/091504dnpolnatguard.1185eb4ae.html

HOUSTON – The former secretary for the Texas Air National Guard colonel who supposedly authored memos critical of President Bush’s Guard service said Tuesday that the documents are fake, but that they reflect real documents that once existed.

Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1956 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, said she prided herself on meticulous typing, and the memos first disclosed by CBS News last week were not her work.

“These are not real,” she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. “They’re not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him.”

Mrs. Knox, 86, who spoke with precise recollection about dates, people and events, said she is not a supporter of Mr. Bush, who she deemed “unfit for office” and “selected, not elected.”

“I remember very vividly when Bush was there and all the yak-yak that was going on about it,” she said.

But, she said, telltale signs of forgery abounded in the four memos, which contained the supposed writings of her ex-boss, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.

She doesn't sound like a RW partisan, but she's calling them forgeries. Yet she indicates that the sentiment is accurate.

:shrug:

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Maybe she'd like to show us

the memos she did type?

We would just like to see the ones about George W Bush. Thanks.

[WI_DEM]

2. would it necessarily have had to have been her who typed them?

[yardwork]

19. No, it could have been somebody else, but....

her story is very interesting all the way around. She certainly isn't supportive of Bush. And she says that similar documents actually existed, which raises a very interesting question - WHERE ARE THE ORIGINALS?

I've thought from the beginning that these documents are not particularly skillfully typed (and I do think that they were typed). I believe that a skilled typist would be insulted at the suggestion that she typed them. That doesn't mean that somebody else didn't type them, but why would they?

LOL! The plot grows thicker and it doesn't help shrub one bit. No it does not....

[liveoaktx]

32. And she says that Killian had a personal CYA file

The memos, if real, would show that as a pilot, Mr. Bush defied a direct order to obtain a flight physical, enjoyed the benefit of pressure from high officials to “sugar coat” his record, and was grounded for failing to meet military performance standards.

Mrs. Knox said she did all of Lt. Col. Killian’s typing, including memos for a personal “cover his back” file he kept in a locked drawer of his desk.

She said she did not recall typing the memos reported by CBS News, though she said they accurately reflect the viewpoints of Lt. Col. Killian and documents that would have been in the personal file. Also, she could not say whether the CBS documents corresponded memo for memo with that file.

“The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones,” she said.

[jumpstart33]

39. No one ever asks someone else to prepare a CYA memo.

They are usually prepared by the individual who needs the cover and kept secret.

[mtnester]

52. I would NEVER ask someone else to type one of my CYA memos/notes

They fall out of the CYA classification if you do.

[ender]

57. you've never had a confidential secretary...

emphasis on the "CONFIDENTIAL" bit.

any person in any authority position in the 70's had a confidential secretary. a lt. colonel most definitely did.

[Randers]

61. I don't think it's that much of a stretch to think the guy typed them hims

[Warpy]

47. Would she necessarily remember what she typed

and how she typed it more than 30 years later? That she vaguely remembers the sentiment isn't unusual. That she refuses to own up to the typing job is odd.

[Hepburn]

62. Typist habits...

...I think that most of us who did a lot of typing back then recognize our own typist habits and some times the habits of others whose work we saw a good deal of. I had a habit on envelopes that was unique to me on 3 line addresses that no one else did - I always double spaced them.

But..this gave me a thought that if the typewriter she had could do what the memos had on them as to font, superscript, proportinal, etc., then she may recognize the typewriter. And the poor typist habits that she saw may have been indicative of someone who did not type well - like Killian - doing the memos.

[Sparkle]

3. Strange....

[spooky3]

4. How does she reconcile "that they reflect real documents

that once existed" with "they're not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him"?

Who typed the "real" documents then?

I hope CBS has checked this out.

[babylonsister]

5. I worked for the feds in a reserve center

and find it hard to believe what this woman might recall typing. Seems like a long time ago to have such a clear memory of this.

[LisaL]

14. Furthermore, she is 86 years old.

It's just silly. Who the hell remembers what they were typing 35 years ago?

[yardwork]

26. If she was a skilled typist she could tell that this wasn't her own work

They aren't skillfully typed. The "th" superscript appears here but not there, the letters and characters jump around, etc.

I've never thought that these documents were typed by a skilled typist. They were typed, though, I do believe that. It doesnt' mean that they weren't typed last week! The big questions remain -

Where are chimpy's records?

Why didn't chimpy show up for a required physical?

Why did the National Guard let him get away with it?

Why did chimpy walk away from being a pilot after years and millions of dollars of training and promising that he would be a pilot forever?

Why wasn't he shipped off to Vietnam like everybody else who didn't show up for a required physical?

Where was chimpy during most of 1972 and much of 1973?

How did he get away with being AWOL for so long?

Where was chimpy and what was he doing and how come he got away with it during wartime?

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. I can remember the things I typed in the 1970's too!

:crazy:

[Sparkle]

12. Really? I barely remember letters I typed last year,

let alone 20 years ago when I first started in the corporate world.

[librechik]

40. I came back from vacation yesterday and couldn't remember my phone#

I hope I can look forward to better recall when I'm 86!

[Yupster]

63. Take heart

I hear memory gets better the older you get.

[Alpharetta]

16. strangely enough, I can

I sometimes used a mag card machine. those mag cards were not cheap.

a mag card is like a forerunner to the word processor. you type a form letter into it, and then when you run the mag card, it stops for you to type in the addressee, his address, extra greetings, etc.

As a matter of fact, it was a campaign worker at Jimmy Carter's headquarters, 1976 Peachtree Street, who taught me how to use a mag card machine. I still remember some of the form letters I did for him.

[Carni]

55. I sure as hell can't remember what I typed in the early 80's

And I sucked as a typist so every document was a major undertaking!

[rogerashton]

7. There is a difference between a copy and a fake.

n/t

[roguevalley]

8. gld bless her. at least she corroborates they are there. By the way,

here is a email I got from Mark Crispian Miller about this stuff:

The Supposedly Forged Document
by Dave Johnson, Seeing The Forest
September 13, 2004

Remember the Sandy Berger smear ? This was the story claiming that President Clinton's National Security Advisor had smuggled incriminating documents out of the National Archives. (Berger was completely cleared .) This was a planned smear - in the works for months - and was used by the Republicans to make the public think that Clinton was responsible for letting the 9/11 attack happen and that "the Democrats" were engaged in a conspiracy to cover up the evidence.

Well, along similar lines, and listening to Limbaugh just now, I can see that the Right's "Bush Guard memo forgery" is taking shape. The entire Wurlitzer - the Right's media echo chamber that is able to repeat a lie over and over and over until it is the ONLY story in the news - is cranked up and telling the public that CBS has been caught engaging in a smear against Bush using forged documents. Never mind that the document (one document, no plural 's') in question is legit .

According to Limbaugh:

* One document is said to look like it could have been typed on a modern computer.

* Therefore ALL such documents are forgeries.

* Therefore CBS is intentionally working a smear on Bush.

* Therefore ANY stories about Bush's National Guard service are not to be believed - he served honorably.

* Therefore this proves that CBS (and by extension, ALL mainstream media) is a tool of the "Liberal Elite" and is working hand-in-hand with the Kerry campaign to smear Bush.

* Again, by extension, ANY stories ANYWHERE, EVER about Bush doing ANYTHING bad are Liberal lies.

Keep in mind that this is not just Limbaugh. In a NY Times Op-Ed this morning William Safire has a piece titled " Those Discredited Memos " (note that he uses the plural...) And it doesn't stop there. It hardly even STARTS there. Today a Google News search for "Bush documents CBS" locates 2,460 stories. ( According to reporting from Salon , a Republican PR firm that is also involved with the Swift Boat smear is engaged in driving this story.)

This also has all the earmarks of typical right-wing smear tactics. It starts with a small, unproven accusation. The Right's Wurlitzer picks up the accusation and amplifies it until pretty much everything else is deflected out of the news. Soon every story on the subject assumes the truth of the original accusation. As soon as each new accusation is refuted - a refutation never even mentioned in the Right's stories - new accusations emerge, leaving the original accusation and refutations behind. Within days the accusations are escalating so fast that no one can keep up - by the time one accusation is addressed two or three more appear, which creates a fog that is impossible to cut through. The cumulative accusations -- all assumed to be true in the stories put out by the Right media -- become a general attack on "Liberals" or "Democrats" in general. The entire episode "proves" that the public should dismiss ANY story from the "mainstream" press or any authority figure that previously might be thought of as "responsible."

And so it goes. Watch your backs!

[grasswire]

28. and it's a two-fer for them

They get to whack Dan Rather at the same time.

The Bush-Rather feud is decades old.

[seabeyond]

9. ya they are forgery but they are true

hm...........that is an intersting perspective. so what now. do we let the truth go because these are forgeries, if they are

[Cocoa]

10. bad news for Bush

her memory of the issues involved, and Killian's views, support the content of the memos.

But her dispute of the authenticity of the memos is nearly worthless. She could easily have forgotten, or Killian could easily have typed them himself.

[CornField]

25. bad news for Marian Knox

The last couple of people who knew something that this administration didn't want in the public eye ended up committing suicide. Hope her life insurance is paid up.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Sorry, but no officer I knew ever let their secretary (if they had one),..

...type up sensitive CYA documents.

And quite frankly, she talks about "telltale signs" but fails to get too specific about what they may be.

[Sparkle]

18. Yeah, but did you see this quote:

"I remember very vividly when Bush was there and all the yak-yak that was going on about it,” she said. "

People in the office were talking about Bush not reporting for duty. They all knew and probably helped cover it up.

[LiberalFighter]

41. Those telltale signs that a secretary would recognize...

would be the initials in caps of the person dictating the letter

would be the initials in lower case of the typist


If I was typing the letter for myself it would not have either of the initials.

[Sequoia]

49. You are right on that point.

I was a secretary in the USAF during the 70's, and I had to type my initals in lower case after a forward slash with the writer of the letter initial in CAPS. I remember the commanding officer's secretary having MAG cards, because working for a police unit we had lots of form letters. I'm not 86 but I can't remember all documents I typed. Mostly they were performance reports called APRs.

[dweller]

13. uh, Miss Knox, take a CYA memo for me...

somehow i don't think so.

dp

[Snivi Yllom]

15. yak-yak

Why did they not report on the 'yak'-yak'?

[CityDem]

17. This is not good

She stated that the CBS documents are fakes. She states that she typed all correspondence for Killian. She states that she does not like Bush and thinks he was selected. This puts Rather's ball in a vice and discredits the CBS story.

[LisaL]

22. She is 86 years old, for crying out loud.

She says she didn't type them-it was 35 years ago.
Some real documents existed, according to her. Well, who typed those, if she supposedly typed all the document? Yet, she didn't say she typed the real ones.
I wish people got a clue and stopped saying that they remember exactly what they did 35 years ago.

[w4rma]

29. Actually, this is getting good. (nt)

[yardwork]

31. I disagree. It tends to corroborate the story

She corroborates the truth about the content of the documents. That's the issue.

[Paradise]

53. For what it's worth, Theresa LePore SAID she was a "Democrat"! n/t

[Alpharetta]

20. so does she remember the REAL reason Bush lost his wings?

I won't consider this matter closed until Bush tells us why he lost his right to fly planes for the Guard.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

21. “I remember very vividly when Bush was there and all the yak-yak ...

...that was going on about it".

I wonder what "IT" refers to. Apparently, something big went down regarding Bush that resulted in a lot of "yak-yak". It probably has something to do with why he was grounded (and I personally think Bush was quietly told not to attend his medical exam, giving the Guard a less embarrassing reason to suspend him from flying in their official forms - the real reason, I would guess, is that he was caught doing drugs along with James Bath).

[yardwork]

33. or caught having sex with James Bath

That would have caused exploding heads in the TANG, I would think.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

23. Isn't it possible Killian typed them himself?

Yes it is.

[Shrek]

27. Possible, but apparently not likely

Both Killian's wife and now his secretary have said that he wasn't a typist. But yes, I realize that those claims are not definitive.

[readmylips]

24. 80 year olds only remember their childhood...

the history in between is gone. Talk to any 80 year old, if you find one. We loved my Grandma, but she made us sick with her childhood repeated stories. We didn't want to be disrespectful but she couldn't get off the subject. There were times when she talked about how she met my grandfather and the depression. She couldn't even remember where she had worked as a nurse.

[Philostopher]

59. My grandmother, who died at 96

was sharp as hell at 86, but after years of being a Democrat voted for Nixon. Twice. It was about then my mother decided she must be starting to have cognitive impairments.

She could remember some things like they'd happened yesterday; and yet she used to go through a roster of names every time she tried to get somebody's attention. She'd go through all the female names of members of the family until you turned around and nodded; same with male names.

Which is to say, not all 86 year olds are necessarily experiencing senile dementia; however, you're right that by then things usually are starting to slip and even the healthiest brain may have some cognitive gaps.

I don't know what I think about what Marian Knox is saying, but that's what I remember about 86-year-old women. What they remember, they remember well -- but you'd have to have been there yourself to corroborate it, since my grandmother was absolutely sure she remembered some things that absolutely didn't happen.

[geek tragedy]

30. I was waiting for the secretary to surface.

Interesting, she says that the story is true even if the documents are false.

[Kierkegaard]

34. The article has a better conclusion than might first meet the eye

screw the documents' authenticity...

"The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones,” she said.

[n2mark]

35. An Ex -Manager

When I was a manager there was no way I would have my secretary or any personnel type or document my observations, statements or meetings I had with an employee. This was between the employee and myself. I typed my own personnel comments. Actually, my employee file was off limits to others. When I went on vacation or left for the day, these files were locked. This was confidential!

Although secretaries believe they know everything in the office, there are some things boss's do not discuss.

But, when I left this information was available for the new person in charge.

It is seems the Bush mob is attempting to bully these people.

[LiberalFighter]

43. That would be the appropriate way to handle confidential info

[Spazito]

36. It would be VERY interesting to know what the "yak-yak" was about!

For someone to remember vividly, it must have been something very much out of the ordinary.


“I remember very vividly when Bush was there and all the yak-yak that was going on about it,” she said.

I hope the Dallas News is going to pursue this avenue, could be very telling!

[REVOLT823]

37. Hmmmm, the plot thickens. Either way,

she has verified that these were the positions of Mr. Killian in relation to Lt. Bush, so to me that makes the argument of whether the memoes are forged or not irrelevant.

[Nederland]

38. Skinner is right

We need to stop assuming that CBS is perfect and start confronting the possibility that the documents are fake. This means we need to have a plausible response if and when it becomes obvious that the documents are fake. At this rate that will be any day now.

[spooky3]

44. Who's "we"? CBS may be imperfect but when I look at all the

evidence that's been made public, and reactions to this evidence, I find their case to be more compelling.

Even in a courtroom you don't prove have to have perfect evidence to prove your case; you win with preponderance of evidence, or beyond a reasonable doubt, or whatever standard is appropriate to the case.

[Gregorian]

42. Oh this IS getting good. :) Who typed them, and when? And why?

I now am intrigued by who might have typed those. And in fact, it makes total sense. Assume that they were not typed recently. Assume they were forged way back then.
So in a sense CBS isn't wrong. They are a "real" forgery. Perhaps.
Maybe Little Boy Bush had this done. Like his drivers license purge.
Wherever these documents came from, is the only clue.

The real story is spirit of this mess. And the fact that he is AWOL today.

[in_cog_ni_to]

46. Someone paid a LOT of $$$$ by KKKRove and Co. n/t

[liveoaktx]

45. Documents aside, I'd like to know what she knew about Bush

If the DMN could go down there and get an interview, all TELEVISION MEDIA ought to be able to do it, preferably CBS

[okieinpain]

48. this is riduculous. why don't they just ask her what type of

typewriter did she have. hell ask her what did she hear about bush. what the hell is wrong with the frickin media. Damn i wish I was rich, I would start my own paper and ask the damn questions myself.

[Shrek]

51. To be fair, the article does mention it

She said the typeface on the documents did not match either of the two typewriters that she used during her time at the Guard. She identified those machines as a mechanical Olympia, which was replaced by an IBM Selectric in the early 1970s.

She spoke fondly of the Olympia machine, which she said had a key with the “th” superscript character that was the focus of much debate in the CBS memos. Experts have said that the Selectric, and mechanical typewriters such as the Olympia, could not produce proportional spacing, found in the disputed documents.

But it doesn't say much about what she might know about Bush. It just teases us with the "yak-yak" comment.

[peacemeal]

50. The documents are forgeries but the contents are true

It's looking more and more like Burkett is the source of the Killian memos. How's this for a hypothesis - Burkett read the documents that were dumped from Bush's file in the mid-1990's and then tried to recreate what he remembered. This would explain why the White House hasn't protested much about the docs - because they are basically factual - and maybe the whole truth is even worse!

[0rganism]

64. I tend to agree that Burkett would be the source, but why the forgeries?

Let's say Burkett is the source, remembering details from stuff he saw go into the shredder. He's clueless about typesetting, so instead of buying an old typewriter from the pawn shop for $10 he rips off the contents in MSWord, runs them through the xerox and the fax a few dozen times, fakes Killian's signature from memory, and drops them into a bogus CYA file with Killian's name on it. Later on, someone (maybe Burkett) retrieves the files via lawsuit.

CBS then gets offered the memos as a result of the 3rd-party FOIA lawsuit, runs the contents by Hodges over the phone, with which he agrees. This is consistent with earlier allegations by Barnes. The contents match what was said at the time. A handwriting analyst says the signature looks about right (i.e., within reasonable limits of variation). There are typewriters which are capable of producing something close enough to the result of the forgery that this doesn't immediate set off alarms in the CBS fact-checking process. The whitehouse has no comment when CBS sends them over, and in turn makes them widely available. CBS figures they check out, calls them "vetted", and runs the story.

Meanwhile, freeper Buckhead, a lawyer for the bush/Cheney campaign, is tipped off that this is coming down the pipe. Someone in the Whitehouse has figured out they're forgeries, and rather than stop CBS from airing them, decides to use them to discredit the whole story. Within an hour of 60 Minutes airing on the west coast, Buckhead has posted his commentary on freerepublic.

OK, all this works for me, except the first part. WHY did Burkett attempt to reproduce the memos? Did he figure his earlier allegations were dismissed only because they lacked hard evidence? Did he think he could forge evidence so convincing that it wouldn't be challenged? That he'd never have to produce original typed pages?

Very odd. Something doesn't smell right about this.

[Carni]

54. OK WAIT A MINUTE!

Why wouldn't CBS ferret her out before airing the memos?

WTF found her now???

There is something very screwy about all of this and at this point it doesn't even look particularily Roverian.

[peacetalksforall]

56. Hold on, hold on. Who contacted her? Who wrote up the quotes?

I'm not registering with any more newspapers, so let me know if the following is explained.

If she was interviewed and questioned by little rovian 'journalists' - you can forget the whole story. They can get an 80 year old or a 20 year old to say anything they want them to say - they are psy-op experts - psy-op was custom designed for them by friends in intelligence.

I'm not 80, but I typed on IBM machines in the 70's and I couldn't tell you what the fonts looked like even if you promised me a fair election. (I do remember the IBM repairman and the way fellow employees swooned.) It is one thing to say you're not a typist and it is another to watch how paper is inserted and hunt and peck and figure out what 'caps' means.

If you think about it you will be able to create the sequence of questions and the answers given and then imagine how they worded the article.

Tell me that the interviewer was a highly respected investigative journnalist and had no contact with rovians and I'll reconsider

[Sparkly]

58. "THE" secretary? There was only one secretary at the TANG?

I find that hard to believe.

[Bolo Boffin]

60. This part of the debate is now over.

This lady has capped one question: the documents are fakes.

She's left the general issues raised in play, though - the forgeries accurately reflect what Killian was going through at the time, there was a CYA file that she maintained for Killian, and memos about the Bush controversy were in there. Hodges has confirmed that this was Killian's state of mind, and the White House didn't try to refute the document's contents because they knew the contents to be true.

These memos are the equivalent of the LAPD throwing that bloody glove behind Simpson's house. They're framing an guilty man.