This might turn out to be quite the feather in your cap, Bill. Congrats.

--|PW|--

Hats off to you Bill. It was quite amazing to watch this story take off in the blogosphere and then watch it discussed by Brit Hume and his panel tonight. Bit of blogging history in the making I'd wager :)

I'm not sure I buy it. Why would someone use a computer to forge documents from the early 1970's?

I hope CBS provides the originals to an outside expert - until then color me skeptical.

What is there left to be skeptical about? Something like 4-5 forensic experts have declared them forgeries soley based on visual examination of copies.

Skepticism only goes so far before it's denial.

You repugs are SO full of shit, you nazi idiots.

http://www.lindastarr.us/blog/_archives/2004/9/9/137912.html

You may know by now that the Republicans are using a bogus "forged documents" gambit to attack the CBS and Boston Globe stories on Bush's ANG service. This one was originated by the idiots over at the Power Line Blog.

They're claiming that the documents were created using modern word processing equipment, not on a typewriter -- because, they claim, superscripts, subscripts and proportional spacing couldn't have been done on a typewriter in the early 1970s.

As the attached letter shows, the IBM Selectric, introduced in 1961, could do all these things and more, making a letter look as if it were professionally typeset. And IBM typewriters could do proportional spacing as early as 1954.

*********************************

Check http://www.ibmcomposer.org/SelComposer/description.htm:

There were selectric models that did PROPORTIONAL SPACE back in 1966.

And from http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/IBM-Executive-series-typewriter (thanks to Atrios):

The IBM Electric typewriters were a series of electric typewriters that IBM manufactured, starting in the late 1940s. They used the conventional moving carriage and hammer mechanism. Each model came in both Standard and Executive versions; the Executive differed in having a multiple escapement mechanism and four widths for letters, producing a near typeset quality result.

One model of the series was introduced in the late 1940s:
IBM Model A Two models of the series were introduced in the 1950s:
IBM Model B
IBM Model C One model of the series was introduced in the early 1970s:
IBM Model D Modified Standard versions of the A, B, and C models were commonly used as "console typewriters" or terminals on many early computers (e.g., JOHNNIAC, IBM 1620, PDP-1). Following the introduction of the IBM Selectric typewriter in 1961, which was much easier to interface to a computer, these typewriters were rarely used anymore as "console typewriters" or terminals.
And an Atrios commenter reports:

Not only was the selectric ii capable of producing superscript, it also had a semi-proportional type capibility. it divided the standard letterspace into (i believe 4) smaller increments which allowed for a proportional look to a letter. i was a sci-fi geek back in the 70s and i produced several fan-fiction fanzines using my amazing selectric. people thought i had had them done by a phototypesetter because all the columns were fully justified, left & right margins, something not capable of doing on the average typewriter of the day. just the selectric.
And here's an IBM ad from 1954 showing typewriters with proportional fonts:

http://www.etypewriters.com/1954-b-2.JPG

A final point:

Here's something for the freepers to chew on; even if the documents are forgeries (and there is absolutely no credible evidence for this just speculation on a blog) the Boston Globe came to the conclusion that Bush was derelict in his duties without the documents in question.

YOU WINGNUTS ARE LIARS!

Congrats, Bill. It is a real accomplishment for you to have tracked down your expert and gotten his opinion.

The docs are indeed forgeries...there is no doubt about that now. It's only a question of how the MSM reacts to it now.

tooting my own horn

Stop it, Bill. You'll go blind.

Seriously, damned fine work.

Mr. Right Wing Lies,

I highly doubt that typing the document on one of those typewriters would yield an exact duplicate to within a millimeter.

RWL, just open up MS Word. Type the document. It will match exactly. Charles at LGF actually overlaid the two and there is nary a line out of place.

The only explanation, and I'm sure we'll here it tomorrow, is that these documents were transcribed into Word from typed originals sometime recently. But that begs the question: why the "aging"?

This is the most pathetic forgery I've ever heard of. It's like using a color copier, photocopying a $20, and expecting no one will notice.

DUMMICRATS! HAW! HAW! HAW!

Just wanted you to know...some guy credited your blog (with keeping on top of this story) while speaking on the Hannity radio show today. Specifically recommended your site.

Way to go!

You repugs are SO full of shit, you nazi idiots.

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm convinced by this well-reasoned, thoughtful argument.

"Right Wing Lies," put a sock in it. It's a fake, and no amount of spin by you is going to change that. It only makes you look bad. In fact, watching you post your copy-'n-pasted Googled article is one of the few laughs I've had today. I can only imagine the veins popping out on your forehead as you desperately search for anything to save your position.

You want this to be true. You need this to be true. And it shows.

Have a nice day, chuckles.

Nice work, Bill.

I don't normally respond to messages that begin with Nazi references, but this is just too good to pass up.

RWL, did you bother to look over your own evidence? Here's what a operator of the 1966 Selectric Composer needed to go through in order to get the variable spacing:

"The first IBM Composer was the IBM "Selectric" Composer announced in 1966. It was a hybrid "Selectric" typewriter that was modified to have proportional spaced fonts. It is 100% mechanical and has no digital electronics. Since it has no memory, the user was required to type everything twice. While typing the text the first time, the machine would measure the length of the line and count the number of spaces. When the user finished typing a line of text, they would record special measurements into the right margin of the paper. Once the entire column of text was typed and measured, it would then be retyped, however before typing each line, the operator would set the special justification dial (on the right side) to the proper settings, then type the line. The machine would automatically insert the appropriate amount of space between words so that all of the text would be justified."

Now why would Lt. Col. Killian go through all that hassle for a memo to the file? Maybe he knew that his memo would become the subject of heated debate in a future Presidential campaign, and wanted to make sure he made a good impression?

It's honestly much more likely that this whole thing was planted by a Bush operative in order to discredit critics of the President's ANG service and close off the whole issue once and for all. Whoever did it, you guys fell for it. Hard.

K-Smooth

First, Kudos.

Second, to debunk:

As you point out:

Not only was the selectric ii capable of producing superscript, it also had a semi-proportional type capibility. it divided the standard letterspace into (i believe 4) smaller increments which allowed for a proportional look to a letter.

Except the document in question is truly proportional, and shows evidence of lots of modern typography: kerning, etc.

Well Done!

"Why would someone use a computer to forge documents from the early 1970's? "

Because they are either so arrogant they think they'll get away with it, or so stupid they don't know the difference. I'm betting on stupid.

RWL: You may be right. A National Guard office just might have had the latest and greatest typewriter available, despite the fact that their jet fighters were dangerously obsolete. And a Lt. Colonel might possibly have been so monumentally stupid as to write and file a memo implicating himself in "sugar-coating" an airman's record.

But please explain, as Update 10.1 over at Powerline (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php) describes, just how the miraculous Selectrics managed to KERN letters?

Oh, one more thing - since we're looking at Bush's records in such detail, how about Mr. Kerry releasing all of his so they can be similarly scrutinized?

Another issue: why would a "memo to file" be photocopied at all, much less copied and copied again so many times to look as bad as this document does?

Absolutely stupendous job, Bill. You done us proud.

Good work, Bill. I typed on one of those proportional spacing typewriters in the 70s, and the font looks totally different, lots of difference in size of the characters. A

Also, (from a lifetime of experience in government), people are not in the habit of talking about, much less writing memos, about CYA actions their boss is asking them to perform. It's like wearing a sign on your back that says "kick me, I'm stupid."

Congrats, Bill. Khorosho job.

Instapundit reports that Nightline will be covering the forgeries aspect.

Anyone notice the timing of this? Just after 'Cueball Carville' and 'Bagpipe Begala' join the losing team...hmmmmm
Looks like a Billary set-up for 2008 to me....

I'm not a professional typographer, but I've worked with type for 20 years, and computers for 30. Here are a couple of points that might shed some light...

First, there's really no such thing as "A" Times Roman, or "THE" Times Roman. There are a number of typefaces by that name, but "Times Roman" has really been depricated to mean any of a large number of different typefaces. Just compare Microsoft's version to Linotype's version, to the one used in HP's early Laserjets. They're not even close.

What you can say is that the memos were set in some generic serif typeface.

Second, there really does seem to be a mechanical uniformity to the type. This is not what you'd expect from a typewriter. (Particularly given that there would be several layers of carbon and papers, and given the heavy use/shitty maintenance that you'd expect a piece of ANG equipment to get.) Even the positioning problems (like the slightly raised "e" in the "Colonel" of the may4 document looks to me like things I used to see with the daisywheel.

Third, yes, Selectrics had a ball for proportional type, But the most common of these was a san serif typeface, and the "elite" proportional ball had typeface that was more stylized than these purported documents.

Finally, what these look like to me is printing from an old Okidata Daisywheel printer. IIRC, (and I'm going from memory here) the Daisywheel DID have a couple of ligatures that printed in superscript. It was a standard "letter quality" printer back in the late 70's and early 80's, usually driven by something like Wordstar. (Note: these beasts were EXPENSIVE in their day, not something you'd expect in an ANG office...)

So, not discounting the computer gen theory, I'd wager that someone pulled out an old printer to make these, figuring an old impact printer would lend some authenticity to it. Still, whoever did this missed the mark by about a decade...

Also, the defects (small marks) from the "photocopying" are a dead givaway that something's amiss. In the real world, these originate from two sources -- dirt on the copier glass, and dirt/scratches on the xerographic drum. In the former case, the marks end up on the same place on every copy. In the latter, there's some regularity to them -- you'll get the same defect in a series, as a vertical line down the copy.

Note that there's a line of defects down the page of both the May 4 and August 18, and in a very similar position. BUT, note that there's no regularity in the defect series (as you would expect in a drum scratch) and little similarity in the defect line on the two documents (as you would expect if the documents were copied on the same machine.)

They're pretty obvious fakes, if you ask me.

One reason someone might have used a computer to produce these documents is he (or she) is too young to have experience with typewriters and doesn't realize the significant differences between the 2. I'm old enough to have gotten through college and grad school typing papers. If I'd forged them, I'd have used Courier because it mimics a typewriter, but to someone who grew up on MS Word, that's just another typeface.

You-American
Me-Japanese

I humbly bow in your direction.

A toast to you, Bill. Very, very fine work.

You.
You camera swinging, moonbat kicking DUDE!
(here's the deal. Come to NYC; dispatch the party's in your name; they'll get in the way. One righteous blast up the block (and Black 47 don't even close to own it: but I got a checkbook and you tossers are a lost mission.)

I learned to type on a Royal Manual and moved up to IBM Selectics in 1966 or so. I remember being able to superscript on some of them, but it was the same size as the regular font, just raised a half-line. It was not half-size. It also wasn't italicized as this appears (to my aging eyes) to be. Just my two cents.

Good work! And an interesting story all told for me on a personal level, having used old world typewriters for many years, tranitioned to the digital typing world and also served in a Texas National Guard unit.

Who is the real target of this fraud, assuming the docs are forged:

1. Bush: the ostensible target
2. Kerry: guilt and incompetence by association
3. CBS: a vedetta to discredit 60 minutes
My money iS on 3. No one that could hatch the plan and get the docs planted could be stupid enough to screw up the forgery that badly unless the goal all along was for it to be discovered.

The current MSNBC page on the matter does not even cite the blogs as having any role in this.

Look Bill, credit or not, fake or not, you did your part in questioning something that needed questioning. Very commendable Bill!

I’ve worked on and supported Word since the early 90s; a little bit of me is in that program too. The most suspicious thing that I would like to see an answer to is the common kerning, line breaks, etc. between the Word output and the alleged document. I hope the experts can address that – should be interesting to know a typewriter and a word processing program should be so close.

Counting Bloup, Bill

(Blogosphere coup)

well done...

No one that could hatch the plan and get the docs planted could be stupid enough to screw up the forgery that badly unless the goal all along was for it to be discovered.

Well, that may or may not be the truth, but if it's so, the conspirators would've had to count on the people at 60 Minutes (not to mention the people who supposedly corroborated the memos--including so-called "experts" who said they were real) being mind-numbingly stupid enough to think they were the real deal.

Hey Right Wing Lies:

I invoke Godwin's Law...you lose! If you don't know what Godwin's Law is, I suggest you google it. It may save you from future embarrassment.

Keep up the Outstanding work Bill! An historic day for the blogoshpere, and you personally.

Sorry, Bill, but the fact that the good professor that is the expert in document forgery is simply not credible. He may be world-reknown, hands-down THE top guy in the field, but he is still voting for Kerry, and that makes him a friggin' blind fool.

Expert?

Your expert says "I certainly have strong questions about this "th" combination that is being used in the superscript, that we discussed earlier."

Yet almost every other document from that era has a "th" combination for the superscript as well. What an expert.

Never Believe-
You're about 18 hours behind on the discussion... I'd suggest you start by first reading the original posts here, then (if you're still clueless) running over to Power Line and reading all the posts there, as your point has been answered *multiple* times.

Obviously a lot of you don't know what you are talking about.

IBM Selectric typewriters could (and did) produce type exactly like the Killian documents. Depending on what ball you put in proportional spacing, superscripts and other weird characters were available.

K-Smooth, While the IBM Selectric Composer could set fully justified type using the procedure you describe that feature was not used in any of the Killian documents. Look up "justified type" and tell me where it was used in these documents.

From the quality of the copies it is impossible to tell the origin of the documents. There is nothing in the typography that a Selectric could not do.

Face the facts. Bush has been a FAILURE at everything he has attempted in his life. The content of these documents and the rest of his sorry attempt at a military "career" are just another chapter in that book of failure. Someone likley died for him in Vietnam and now over a thousand have died due to his failure to conduct himself properly in his current position.

Previously he has been lucky enough that "higher ups" were able to save his silver spoon fed ass.

Now that he is President who can save him now?

"But Bouffard told the Globe yesterday that after further study, he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time."

***

"But Bouffard yesterday said that he had not considered one of the machines whose type is not logged in his database: the IBM Selectric Composer. Once he compared the Bush memos to Selectric Composer samples obtained from Interpol, the international police agency, Bouffard said his view shifted."

http://tinyurl.com/6f4ed
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/11/authenticity_backed_on_bush_documents/

Check out this: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1213112/posts
F O nt Problems Dan Rather

or

this:
http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html
Did the expensive, complex IBM Selectric Composer create the memos?

The typographical "oddities" are damning enough in themselves.

The fact that Saudt (sp) retired 18 months before the date of this purported memo is the final nail in the coffin....

This is a sloppy forgery made by some unwashed partison who was too young to remember the typewriter days.

Good work, Bill!
SSgt USAF 1975-1982

That output is definitely not from a daisy wheel printer. There is no way a daisy wheel printer with a proportional font could produce output like that.

The shapeofdays page is pretty compelling evidence that the Composer didn't create those documents, either.

The docs were produced on IBM Executive Series D with an optional superscript 'th' key often ordered by outfits like the 111th who had to type "th" a lot. (see other, monospace superscript 'th' docs in Bush's official files)

It HAD proportional spacing and a times roman-like font. (I know; I've seen it.) Some version of this machine had been in production since 1941.

A guy on one of the other right wing blogger boards claims he worked for TANG in the early '70s., "...and all we had was IBM series D typewriters.". He meant that to discredit the idea that the docs were printed on one of IBM's sophisticated "composer" series machines from that time. He ended up confirming that the docs were indeed made on the series D.

PS--
Why are repugs such typography experts all of a sudden? In the real world, repug typographers and graphic designers are about as common as black hockey players. Now suddenly, a bunch of mooks who don't know a ligature from an em space have gone all font expert on us. Yeah right.

I worked on IBM typewriter (typebar), IBM Executive typewriter (typebar), Selectric (golfball), Selectric Composer (golfball), Mag Tape Composer, Mag Card Compser, laser (with toner) printers, wire matrix printers, and ink jet printers.

I don't know how I could maladjust a machine to get the serifs to misalign or characters to smudge like the memos show on any of them except the typebar typewriters.

The Mag Tape and Mag Card Composers could do one time entry and play out justified.

I have a 1978 IBM Typebar, Element, Keybutton, and Font catalog and I can not find a sub/super script "th" in it. There are 60 typebar typestyles and I lost count at 160 for the Composer.

There are 18 styles of type for the IBM Executive. The Executive worked on a 5-unit excapement system. The space, "i", "l", "t" "period", "comm" were two units. The "w" was four. The "m", "W", "M" were five. Most everything else was three. It didn't matter which of the 18 type styles were used, they spaced the same. I have an IBM Exec and I typed two of the lines of type and the length of the lines didn't come out the same length as on the memo. One got shorter so the proportional spacing system is different on the memo than with an IBM Exec.

Government offices at that time seldom used IBM typewriters because of low bid requirements.

I don't see how you can get a laser or ink jet printer to do the smudged misaligned type today so I don't think that was used. I never met an IBM customer that wouldn't be screaming about the poor misalignment if it had been an IBM typewriter or Composer. With alignment that poor on a Selectric or Compser the teeth would be breaking off the ball.

So what else?

Somebody made a typewriter to compete against the IBM Executive typebar typewriter. I can't remember if it was Smith Corona, Underwood, Adler, Royal, or somebody else. It sticks in my mind that the proportional spacing was based on three units instead of the IBM five.

The Selectric and Model C (Standard and Exec) were in use when I was hired in 1961. The Selectric Composer came out in 66 and was married to the Mag Tape Typewriter in 67 or 68.

Get the original document and look at the backside for impression. If from an ink jet or laser there won't be any. Very little from a Selectric or Composer and quite a bit from an Exec. If it is from an IBM Exec the impression of the period will be the same throughout.

Since this is a government office they were probably doing ten copies. The Selectric does not do copies well and the Composer, not at all. The Composer was to be used with photo offset.

John Bauer

*The docs were produced on IBM Executive Series D with an optional superscript 'th' key often ordered by outfits like the 111th who had to type "th" a lot. (see other, monospace superscript 'th' docs in Bush's official files)*

The only way I can see your explanation being credible, is that an Officer who didn't take many notes, didn't type and liked Bush...decides to type four memos (one of which was a CYA where he admitted back dating...some CYA!) and he suddenly decides to check out a new feature on the typewriter. It was so new that he was the only one to use it! LOL The other docs you're throwing out there, didn't come from the same place.

Put yout tin hat on and ask yourself this...Why would Daddy Bush make sure that this NG Unit had state of the art equipment so they could keep documets to use against his son later?? If Bush1 didn't do it who did...GWB???

well.. Here is my two cents.

There has been a lot of stuff thrown around about this topic.. many things point to forgery... in fact dozens of discrepancies exist.

I am an digital animator, and visualization professional. Here is what I did...

I created the document in MS Word. Simply made an image of the document, and imported into Photoshop.. Halved the opacity, and laid it on top of the memo in question. It matches PERFECTLY.. NOTHING fits perfectly like that. Every single letter and period fit exactly. EXACTLY.

It's a fake, very simple. And not even well done, if you look at other documents from this unit and time period.

So, my professional opinion is that the documents are fake, and not even good fakes.

Almost certainly done by an amateur.

AnimatorKen said:

"Almost certainly done by an amateur."

AGREED!

The "th" was used as a superscript in one place and a regular "th" in another.

One place the date is: 04(space)May(space)1972 and in another location it is: 14(space)May(comma)(no space)1972.

I still have Army orders from 58/61 and they all have my service number on them. Did that change by 72? Not even a Bush SS number on the document I saw. (I can tell my orders were done on a typebar machine because the periods and hyphens show on the back side - embossing)

I am curious about one thing. How did you get the base serifs to misalign with the letters IAW? I don't see how that is possible with a non-impact printer.

>Check http://www.ibmcomposer.org/SelComposer/description.htm: