[EDITED] New Observations Confirm that the Memos Were Typed

deckerd

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Mon Sep-27-04 04:50 PM
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[EDITED] New Observations Confirm that the Memos Were Typed

Edited on Mon Sep-27-04 05:15 PM by deckerd

...but by whom? Any forger would have had to have access to vintage typewriter fonts / typewriters.

More likely is the new theory which I have posited below, that the docs are genuine and the
letterhead was forged in an effort to de-authenticate the memos. This is an open question
for forensic analysts to prove, not idle speculation!

Also open to forensic analysis is the IBM Executive font, DELEGATE.

Why has nobody here pursued this? Five new pieces of evidence:

1.

In the "It's Elementary" thread, a link was posted to a new typographical study by a forensic researcher. This study, unlike challenges to the document's authenticity, was conducted over a sufficient period (over the past two weeks) to come to a forensically valid conclusion based upon sound scientific methods. The abstract also confirms that Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post issued false information about the content of the memos (see excerpt below):

Forensic Researcher Determines Evidence Memos Were Typed, Even if Fake; Study Questions
Washington Post Inference From Typography Used By Howard Kurtz to Support Forgery Conclusion

2.
Right-wing bloggers have raised $10,000 to reward anybody who can reproduce the memos exactly on a typewriter of ANG vintage.

The following experiment was done on a computer using a vintage "TYPEWRITER (CONDENSED)" proportional font unavailable on MS Word.

Near-Exact Reproduction using Font Face "Typewriter (Condensed)"

Burkett would NOT have known how to download this font; nor would I.

Note that the spacing of the font is very similar to that of Times New Roman, hence explaining once and for all the surface similarity of the CBS Memos to the Buckhead MS Word reproduction:

This is a NON-MS WORD, VINTAGE FONT whose proportions are near exactly the same as the letterspacing of "Times New Roman (Microsoft)", a computer-based font.

This document disproves the "Occam's Razor" line of argument which is based upon the "strange similarity" in letterspacing between the memos and MS Word, a GUI word processor created to emulate the product of a traditional desktop publishing device such as the Selectric Composer.

3.

This reproduction, while MORE exact than that of MS Word, remains inexact, in part because the font face is imperceptibly off, although clearly in the same family of Typewriter fonts as the font used in the document.

And in part because it WAS done on a word processor, which is unable to duplicate the jumpy letters best exemplified in "the word "Interceptor" at top.

Over a week ago, a blogger named "Retired_Military" stated that he was an administrative officer in the services at the time, and that, in his professional opinion the documents WERE typed by Killian himself, a hunt and peck typist, in an effort not to implicate Knox in a CYA message, which was a common and recommended strategy in office politics at the time, using the following:

An IBM EXECUTIVE, using the font face "DELEGATE".

Retired_Military was near-convinced of this based on being in a similar position in the services at the time, using similar technology.

Assuming "Delegate" is an early proportional variant of the Typewriter family of fonts, which includes the standard "Courier" at one end of the development spectrum (monospaced, flag serifs, flat characters), and the proportional "Typewriter (Condensed)" (proportional, flag serifs, curly characters) at the other:

This may explain why "Typewriter (Condensed)" is near-perfect but inexact --
since it would post-date Delegate in the hystory of IBM development of proportional fonts (all of which development was done for the TYPESETTING PROFESSION, mind you -- prior to the development of the Windows family of Programs and other physical-desktop emulator GUIs which allowed proportional fonts to be used for the first time).

It remains to be seen whether the docs were produced in this manner;
I suggest it would be a good investment on the part of Mr. Hailey and/or on the part of DU given the presence of the $10,000 offer, and I suggest someone purchase a vintage Executive.

Too many right wingers are assuming that these machines are no longer used and no longer exist.

4.

The image above demonstrates that the letterhead WERE NOT exactly centered, an artifact which, Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Kurtz correctly stated, would constitute proof that the documents were forged on a computer.

I strongly encourage DU researchers to look at the original CBS memos and also look at the blog reports to determine what margins Buckhead, Greenberg et al. were able to discover that provide proof of centering in a computer, given the absence of scale or left-right page delimitations.

They may have simply cut and pasted (overlaid) the centered portion of text, irrespective of its positioning relative to the body text in MS Word. A common error amongst those inexperienced in manipulating formatted text.

Any evidence of "true centering" by a Word Processor is serious and proves that the docs were, at minimum, tampered with on a computer.

Especially considering that the docs were not written by an experienced typist. Knox's testimony, the exactitude of the spelling coupled with the grammatical and punctuation mistakes all point to a hunt-and-peck typist.

(I should know; I am one. And I do not make spelling errors as a result; but frequently other sorts of errors (punctuation and grammar) which I would not know how to correct.)

If any evidence of "true" centering can be found in ANY of the four memos, it is imperative that the researcher (Mr. Hailey or here on DU)
take the next step and confirm that the centered text was done on the same machine as the body text. We need to verify that the POINT SIZE, FONT and BOLDNESS (strike firmness) is the same in the letterhead, as it is in the body of the text. To my eyes, there appear to be subtle differences.

Why, you ask? I do not have the cite for this, but it is my distinct impression based on one of the memos (possibly the one used as evidence of centering) that the point size and/or boldness (strike firmness?) of the letterhead was different from the body of the text in that memo.

This leads me to conclude (a) that the letterheads were done up in a batch by an experienced secretary skilled at centering, a common secretarial approach, possibly at Killian's request; or else (b) which I regard as more likely: that Fake Letterheads were pasted on top of the original document.

This would be the simplest explanation of any differences in technique between the letterhead and the body text for the following reasons:

First, because Killian would have known it was not standard form, especially in the case of the memos to Bush; and would therefore have had no reason to take the trouble, to make the measurements required, and to execute the incorrect letterhead in such a precise fashion.

Second, their style does not match that which any secretary in the office would have used for a letterhead, nor Killian, since he was insufficiently skilled to produce correct centering on a typewriter.

Third, my distinct impression was that the point sizes, font, or possibly just the boldness/strike width of the letters in the letterhead, were subtly different from the body text in at least one of the memos.

Lastly, the only thing blatantly inaccurate about the style and content
of the memos to suggest forgery, is the letterhead. Killian would have
been familiar with the proper ANG letter format at the top of the page.

Other content objections are answerable:

* The reference to "Lt." is a minor stylistic or more likely punctuation error, since it is done at random; the reference to "billets" is corroborated by the presence of "billeting offices" in the Air National Guard, suggesting the terminology has evolved, as have the rules for, e.g. eligibility for the AFOUA ribbon which some have incorrectly cited against Bush based on unambiguous current regs.

* The reference to Staudt raises no eyebrows amongst anyone familiar
with retired military responsibilities and careers. (Retired_Military
addresses this in his blog posts, which I have unfortunately no link;
he was called upon years after retirement to assist an officer's
promotion by rescuing the officer's review records from Retired_Mil's
personal or P-file, the originals of which had been lost in the mail.)

* Inconsistent use of a space between the "th" may have been done in an unsuccessful effort to employ the "th" key by pressing instead of the key, followed by abortion of the attempt and typing of the letters "t" and "h" long-hand.

However, I must point out that this punctuation error (space before t and an h) is ALSO consistent with and indicative of a forger recreating the documents on a word processor using a vintage, Typewriter font, and attempting to avoid macros entirely.

If so, then the presence of the superscript "th" in typewriter font was simply an error (intentional or otherwise) on the part of the forger.

This is the simplest explanation for this particular stylistic artifact, although generation of just such a letter was perfectly feasible on Killian's part; the superscript was, after all, available in the same font package used by the presumptive forger, being identical to the font used by the typewriters it was taken from.

This point is often overlooked.

In short, given evidence that most of the memos were typed on a typewriter, the stylistic and (to my eye) mechanical differences in the point size and/or boldness of the letterhead vis-a-vis the rest of the document suggests that the memos were NOT forged, but instead were tampered with.

The letterheads may be the only part of the memos that were not, in fact, typed by Killian. If so, the motive for selective tampering is simple:

Because the original letterheads would have contained information verifying the documents.

This is a serious determination that needs to be looked into, because
it tells us, assuming the documents were forged, HOW they were forged,
and if any part of the memos is genuine. This is a forensic question.

5.

Additional examples of period tyewritten documents such as the following illustrates, for the uninformed, why the experts relied upon by the Washington Post are insufficiently informed about typesetting to be relied upon by ANY credible journalist.

It depicts an example of "genuine" superscript in which Mr. Hailey, decades ago, used a common letter "o" as a degree symbol, placing it a half-step above the line of text:

Letter "o" Manually Superscripted

First, let me quote Mr. Hailey:

"Figure 4. Washington Post analysis of criticisms advanced by �document experts.� Their criticism is that the type is proportional, the superscript �th� is consistent with word processing software and not consistent with mechanical technologies of the time. Some experts are certain that the font used is Times New Roman, probably unavailable on typewriters at the time, and certainly not used by the military at the time.

The critical arguments of the above document experts are both spurious and uninformed."

To be precise, the infamous Mr. Greenberg (http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm)
stated as the foundation for the whole forgery angle that the special character "th", despite being a special character widely used in the military and (among thousands of other special characters) in science, was not "true superscript" unless placed above the top line of the text. This counter-example (in which the letter "o" is used as a degree symbol), illustrates how Mr. Greenberg, Mr. Dobbs and Mr. Kurtz impeached their own credibility by their reliance on a credulous assertion that superscript positioning was a function inherent in the typewriting mechanism.

I have e-mailed the Post Ombudsman repeatedly on this, asking for
a correction on this and the absence of (pseudo-)"kerning" (cited
by Greenberg and Kurtz et al. as proof of MS Word) in hi-res
images provided by CBS. No correction has been issued to date.

6.

MacDougald (an associate of GOP Operative Roger Stone) confirms he is Buckhead, refuses to answer questions about the provenance of his findings (published 20 minutes after the docs were made public) that the documents were forged:

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