What if Killian retyped the memos into msword before he died?

[Liberal_Andy]

What year did he die? Maybe, he did it as a backup, so it would be on his computer, but back-dated them, for reference. Somebody tell me why that's impossible, and I'll shut up.

[bowens43]

1. There was nothing in the documents that

was unusual for the typewriters of the time. The entire forgery thing has been thoroughly debunked. The memos were not written in msword.

[brook]

6. I 'm getting impatient...

with this ongoing forgery crapola. Within the past 1/2 hour I heard a mewling Laura * twice call the docs 'forged' - and also Dan Abhram had "experts" on his show trying to debunk the legitimacy via the typewriter theory. It wasn't so rare as I recall. I know working in the studios in the 70's there were all sorts of IBM's around. I think anyone who did secretarial work in the time period would be more credible than the people I see being paraded across my TV screen.

As for those who question why Killian would write a "personal" file - (CYA=cover your ass) - I had reams of them when I worked at a major network in an office full of sharks. (in the 70's). It's amazing how stories change in mid-sentence when you pull a memo out of a file and you begin to quote their own words.

edited for spelling.

[HamdenRice]

11. I was a secretary in the 1970s

and I think they are forgeries for these reasons:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2351071&mesg_id=2352531&page=

Of course, people who don't want to accept unpleasant truths will flame, but I think they were planted by republicans to discredit the CBS story.

[Qutzupalotl]

16. Fallacious.

You say you only know of one machine in 1977 that could do proportional type, a typesetter. We've already shown that IBM had several models at the time that could do that.

Also, the only way to get superscript and subscript on an old typewriter was to stop typing, and roll the roller,
That's a lie. There was a dedicated key for "th", "nd" and "rd" on typewriters available in that period. It even shows up in Bush's previously released documents from 1968...a dedicated key for "th".

The dodge that such typewriters were available, but rare, is meaningless. It's just a smokescreen designed to sow uncertainty and doubt.

You deserve all the flames you get.

[Hepburn]

24. Dead Keys...

...Selectrics had a "dead" keys which could be programmed to do various symbols. I am an old time typist. Selectrics could do a ton of things and IMO someone should ask the typists and not the experts who most likely never sat down at a typewriter and did a 50+ page document, but just hunted and pecked around. Unless you have used one and know them, IMO, no room to talk.

[alcuno]

2. He died in 1984.

[Riddler]

7. Why does it have to have been done in Word?

I remember very well the first computer I used, and it was in the mid to late 70's. It was an old Zenith that used 5.25 inch floppy discs. This machine ran on CPM operating system which was before MS-DOS was even invented. But the font that the document printed in was determined by the printer, not the word processing program. How many of you remember the old Okidata or Epson LQ series dot-matrix printers that you adjusted the font on the front panel of the printer, not through the word processing program? So, why isn't it possible that the documents are authentic AND printed on a word processing program from the late 70's or early 80's? I mean it's not like MS-Word is the only word processor that could have been used.

[HamdenRice]

13. I remember dot matrix printers ...

but they could not do proportional fonts. They could do different font sizes. Anyway, those documents were not produced by dot matrix printers.

[Hepburn]

25. They most certainly did have proportional fonts..

...I had and Okidata - it was about the size of a VW beetle, and it most certainly did this. I also had an Epson - 24-pin "near letter quality." I very distinctly recall producing proportional font docs. I used WP and not MSW and that may be the difference. LOL, actually I used WordStar for a bit before that. UGH - all those codes that had to be typed in. The deal with a printer is not the printer but the software that runs it. And, I can tell you the WP most certainly did proportional fonts.

[Nicholas_J]

30. I worked in a university library

That used the IBM Selectrics they are talking about and the student Union rented them out at 25 cents and hour.I had to give them the typeballs and take and I.D. and also had to show them how to do things like suprtscript and subscripting with the typewriter and though it was a pain in the ass ( you had to hold the shift key and another key to get the type to type on a "half line" position" but it worked. Same thing with proportional spacing. There was proportional typing, as the motor on the electric WAS designed to automatically change the distance between characters deoending on whether you were typing a wide character like a "W" or a narrow one like an "I". More than that, you could also change the distance between letters manually so you could have compressed typing, or make the spacing between the letters wider than normal if you wanted to. This could apply to only a portion of a document or you could have an entire document typed in either compressed type, or wide, or extra wide or set the number of points between each character manually if you wanted to. You could set the damnet thing up if you wanted so that the first letter you typed was on the far left margin of a page, and the second letter at the far right margin.

It was a particularly interesting machine for a typewriter, but it was a real pain in the ass to master with all of the various combination keystrokes you had to remember to do all of the stuff it could do.

[Liberal_Andy]

20. So, was ms word available in '84? Or something else...

that Killian (or someome working for him) could have used to produce these memos?

[alcuno]

22. I don't recall our really having computers in 1984.

Macintosh was just starting to market personal computers in the mid to late 80's. Windows didn't come out until the late 80's.

[Hepburn]

27. My computer I used for WP'ing...

...in the mid-80's ran on DOS and not on windows. It was an IBM with two floppy drives. LOL, did I ever think I was up-town! I had one of the first color monitors around! WooWoo! Gotta laugh at how cool I thought this was! Tractor feed paper to a 24-pin near letter quality printer, too.

[mr_du04]

3. actually the truth is Killian invented msword

and he used it all the time then after his death in 84 Bill Gates stole it from him. :)

actually the truth is from copies of copies noone can be certain but, the message that it conveys does ring true so no worries mate.

[hexola]

4. Wow - great take Liberal Andy...!!!

Hodges has said he thought the memos were hand written...

Again I think the truth lies somewhere between the competing versions of this story...

The question is - would somebody do this...?

[benddem]

5. In the Army in 71-72

we had those typewriters. We could do proportional spacing. The secretaries had two separate balls. One of my secretaries used to hide both of them...so we couldn't use her typewriter when she was gone. We used to go to another office and get the balls from that typewriter. She never found out. I would swear to this.

[jtb33]

9. The Army has a VASTLY larger budget than the NG...

The National Guard gets the "yesteryear" stuff from the Army. That includes weapons, tanks, rifles, etc... all they way down to office supplies.

I don't think it's even questionable that the documents presented are not real - at least in the form they were presented to us.

[girl gone mad]

15. IBM leased..

Selectric Composers for $150 a month, including maintenance, to people running home typist businesses in 1970. If a housewife could afford it, I'm sure the National Guard could as well.

[jtb33]

19. I guess you missed it, so let me repeat...

The National Guard doesn't lease new "top of the line" systems... they get the technology from yesteryear that is handed down from the Army. For example, the Nat'l Guard doesn't have F/A-18 jets or F117A Stealth fighters. They don't even have the 20 year old M1A Abrams Tank. The Nat'l Guard uses tanks, planes and arms that date back to the early days of Vietnam. I am guessing that you haven't been to a National Guard base. Trust me, you won't see any year old leased Pentium 4 computers with LCD's there...

[jtb33]

10. Double post n/t

[HamdenRice]

12. Selectrics had two fonts sizes ...

which is different from proportional fonts. You could use a 12 pitch ball or a 10 pitch ball, but the space for an "m" was always the same as a space for an "i".

[Qutzupalotl]

18. Selectric Composers had proportional fonts.

So there. :P

[Hepburn]

28. My Selectric had a chart...

...that gave the values for the different size letters. I recall that a cap "M" was a 3 - I think. It most certainly did proportional typing.

[dogtag]

8. Maybe Dan rather has dictaphone belts

or the handwritten memos. Dan has something. That much I'm sure of.

He's also got 'somebody'. If he were lily livered, he would have

been back tracking by now and he hasn't.

Edited: In 1972, I was using a small Sony taperecorder for letters

that my secretary would type, come to think of it.

[HamdenRice]

14. I think that's the right track...

If these are not republican forgeries to discredit CBS, then the best explanation is that someone -- Killian or someone involved in getting the docs to CBS -- thought they were doing CBS a favor by retyping or retranscribing them.

But its not likely they were produced as originals in the 1970s

[henslee]

17. What if he had no arms and no legs and had to write memos with his tongue?

[athena]

21. The documents were not produced by a computer.

See my thread, which is very conveniently being ignored by the "skeptics":
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x811853#812061

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

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

[Hepburn]

26. I agree with you...

...the biggest clue was the baseline. Computer printers did not act like that.

[Nicholas_J]

29. Everyone is avoiding an obvious possibility

That the documents were scanned within the last few years in order to get copy's of them, and scanned using a program that converted the documents into a Word format. If whoever wanted copies of them wanted then in a compact format to get them out of a location that they could not easily walk out of with pieces of paper, a disk with the items scanned onto them would be easier to transport without detection. This would also copy the signature as well as the text, but it would convert them into whatever the default font of the program was. Given that recently USA Today also revealed that they got copies of the same documents but the person they got them from wanted to remain anonymous for fear of retribution would make the idea that the documents might have been scanned rather than photocopied a more viable idea.