Bush Documents Forged? - Typewriters in the 1970's

Factual Questions
41

Typewriters may have been around that could do kerning, but it would have been a semi-manual process, because a typewriter can’t know what letter you just typed, so it can’t figure out the kerning rule.

For those that aren’t familiar, this is what kerning is:

  fi

Notice that the ‘i’ actually slides under the top of the ‘f’. Without Kerning, letters that have offset centers look like they have bigger spaces between them. But for kerning to work, you have to deal with characters in pairs. When someone presses the ‘i’ key on a typewriter, the typewriter has no way of knowing whether the previous letter was an ‘f’ which would require the i to be set back, or a Z, which wouldn’t. So if a typewriter supported Kerning, I imagine it would be some sort of mechanical mechanism where the operators can press a key to shift the letter back a bit.

A later typewriter could do it, because it would actually have a small memory to store previous characters. I remember a typewriter in t he 80’s that actually had an 80 character LCD screen. When you typed a sentence it only went to the screen, and then when you hit carriage return or word wrapped, the line would be printed out with a daisy wheel ball. A typewriter like that could do kerning.

So let’s assume that you could kern manually. Why would the author have done so? This was a ‘memo to file’ - a personal memo. Why in hell would you take time to kern letters, superscript the ‘th’, etc? All that is easy now, but it was a pain in the butt back then if it was possible at all. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it’s another data point in favor of ‘forgery’.

So far, for this document to be accurate I think we have to assume that a Texas ANG office just happened to have a very expensive high-end typesetting machine or a high-end typewriter with typesetting features, and that the author took care to use all the typesetting features on a routine memo. Doesn’t seem likely to me.

42

In the army during the Korean war, my father taught typing to male soliders. He himself could only type the “lazy dog” sentence, but that was all he needed to do on the first day to prove that he could type. Then he just taught them from the book and they assumed he knew.
:wink:

43

About the kerning. Check this out (search the page for the word “kerning”). They say that the documents do not show kerning and that MS Word has kerning off by default. I don’t have MS Word at home so I can’t do the experiment they describe right now, maybe another doper can. I did found a couple of sites that support the claim that kerning is off by default in Word. This one says it explicitly (bolding is mine):

And this one strongly implies it (bolding is mine):

So if kerning is off by default and if it’s true that the documents can be exactly recreated with Word defaults than the documents aren’t kerned. When I look at the documents, they don’t look kerned to me.

44

I asked if they denied they are genuine. Did they say anything at all about their accuracy?

Surely if they were inaccurate, they would have noticed and mentioned it before passing them on? Did they? And if not, why wouldn’t they?

45

If any one cares, I just checked and at least on my copy of Word, the Kerning is off by default.

46

Ok, so I guess Kerning is a red herring, sorry guys.

47

It strikes me that these experts are talking out their arses. I’m not an expert, but I don’t see a lot of kerning going on in the document. On the other hand, it’s hard to tell. I wonder how the experts tell. Even on examination at over 100% of the pdf I don’t see much kerning. Obviously, the documents are pretty warped that I can see.

48

Sorry my eyes started to glaze over about ten posts ago. I just wanted to respond to this:

If someone made a profit off of it then it would be fraud. If not I believe it would be just a prank. I don’t know if there are any Federal Statutes for making a false government document, maybe someone can answer that. There is also a civil issue with libel if harm can be proved but that wouldn’t mean it was illegal.

49

More information here.

Among other questions:

The Staudt they refer to in the 1973 memo had retired from the Guard in 1972. He would have had no influence over the active members.

The Killian family states that Lt. Col Killian did not keep personal memos. Indeed, why would Killian have kept a memo on a Lt. on the off chance that 30 years later he would be running for President?

There is kerning in the memo. Look at the word “my” in the second line and “any” in the fourth line.

Despite the fact that the “th” is superscript, it’s smaller than the other letters. Would such typewriters be available to a state National Guard? Did they even exist at the time?

A former CBS executive has admitted that they don’t even have originals of the memos.

At the very least, this whole matter is very :dubious:

50

There’s also a question about the zip codes used in the memo (can someone confirm that?) and that then Lt. Bush’s order for a physical exam came at the wrong time…it should have been around his birthday. Also, that such orders for exams did not come in letter form, but were written on letterhead with copies going to other departments.

51

I went to usps.com and entered the address information…the zip code info is different on the memos, both addresses, the P.O. Box 34567 one and the 5000 Longmont Road one.

Do zip codes change over time? I know area codes do, but I wasn’t sure about zip codes.

52

That doesn’t mean he fastidiously burnt every last piece of paper. Nobody knows the history of these papers (assuming they are real), so to say that they weren’t in Killian’s collection therefore they don’t exist is flawed.

I’m not convinced. The PDFs are far too poor quality to state whether or not that really is kerning.

They existed, and there’s no particular reason the National Guard wouldn’t have one.

Agreed. But it’s all circumstantial evidence (going both ways) so far.

53

Says who? A senior commander for a unit that includes many politically connected sons riding out the Viet Nam war would certainly have earned favors and still be interested in protecting his reputation. Those still in TANG would have an incentive to play along in return for Staudt’s support after they leave TANG and seek business or political careers.

  1. Why do you assume these documents keep from Killian’s personal files, i.e. until recently at his house or among his personal belongings? They could just as easily have come from some other archive.

  2. If you’re pressured to write a positive review for the son of a congressman, a person you haven’t even seen for many months, and is someone who feel has been shirking his duty, wouldn’t you keep a copy?

54

Finally somebody’s turned their attention to the signatures - and has suggested they’re fakes. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040910-104821-5968r.htm (there’s also a lot of other garbage in the article, though.)

55

The signatures have been under discussion for a long time, actually.
Unrelated: As I understand it, CBS has copies of the memos. Did they claim the copies are all that exist? And did they say there were in Killian’s files, or somebody who copied them from Killian?

56

When looking at these documents, several things must be kept in mind:

Even if a typewriter capable of all these features existed, did the ANG have them? Were these typewriters common, or rare? If rare, you must assume (for the sake of a logical argument) that it is unlikely (but not impossible) that the ANG had and used them.

Were the terminology, abbreviations, and formatting consistent with military standards of the time? The answer to that appears to be no; and the combination of all the errors or mismatches cannot be explained away as typos. For- example, Bush was a first lieutenant, the memo says 1st LT., when the standard abbreviation is actually 1LT. It is possible, but highly unlikely, that a professional military man like Kilian would repeatedly make mistakes like that.

References were made to people (Staudt was it?), who were no longer in the military at the time of the memo. Killian obviously would have known who his (current) superiors were. It is possible that a retired office could use his influence and friendships to try to advance someones career, but that would involve another jump in credibility.

The former officer that CBS said supported the content or meaning of these documents now says he was told that they were handwritten - and doubts that a typewritten document is valid. This supports the statements of Killians family that he simply did not type. I remember sitting at a typewritter in the late 70’s, and the clerical staff were all surprised that I could type. Is it possible that Killian sat down and typed these things? Yes - is it likely? Based on what people who knew him say, the answer is no.

The CBS signature expert (not a document expert) says that is Killians signature. Fair enough. But remember, God made all men, but Colonel Xerox made all men equal. I used to forge internal documents all the time to clear up outdated cases - make a copy of a valid signature, cut it out, tape it to a new doucment, pass it through the copier, and voila = a ten year old $1.27 claim is now validated. Give me a few days, and I could probably produce a signed, internal memo from Dan Rather stating that he is the sole living descendant of Czar Nicolas II.

But the real elephant in the living room is where did these doucments come from? Supposedly the “personal file” of Killian. But his family says they are not his, and no one ever contacted them to verify the source. That enough is a reason to fail Journalism 101. Who but his family would have his “personal” files? Saying it is a highly reliable source is not enough. The originals (or at least first generation copies) should be produced, and the source identified.

The combination of mistakes and unidentified origin makes it difficult to accept these documents as valid. CBS should release the originals (or at least first generation copies) and identify the source.

57

Why? My flight physicals were always due on the anniversary of my last one, whenever that happened to be. They’ve never correlated with my birthday.

58

Is your version a Chinese version or a US version?
Can you try to reproduce one of the documents in word with the kerning turned on?

59

It’s a US version. I don’t have the documents and don’t know what this would prove. The issue isn’t can we imitate a document, it should be: did Killian have a chance to use a machine THEN that could produce these docuemnts. :smack:

60

My Mom had three separate Zip Codes while living in the same house for 38 years.

(This does not make the documents more or less accurate. It simply means that, as with the fonts and kerning and signatures and release dates and everything else, the actual information has not yet been established.)