Actually, my question was directed at China Guy but if you have a US version and can confirm that kerning is off by default then that answers my question.
One of the first arguments against the documents was the claim that they could be recreated using MS Word, so it is an issue in this discussion. If it is possible to recreate the documents in Word, and if it can be done so with the kerning off, then that’s one strike against the claim that the documents are kerned. I have no idea if it’s a conclusive strike, since I’m not knowledgable enough to say how big a visible difference kerning makes. (If that :smack: was directed personaly against me, it’s inappropriate in General Questions. But I’ll let that drop.)
The :smack: is about the notion that imitating the documents is important. I know people keep bringing it up, but that doesn’t make it important. I’m just saying that with more advanced machines we can likely imitate older machines, but that doesn’t prove much. Sorry if you thought that was directed at you. :smack: 
Sorry if I misinterpreted the :smack: thing.
I agree that the notion about imitating the documents in Word is apparently a red herring.
My point was this:[ul][]Some people are using the supposed “fact” that the documents can be recreated using Word defaults as proof that the documents are forgeries.[]They are also arguing that there is kerning in the documents and that that is also proof of forgeries.[*]If kerning is off by default in Word, then the two arguments appear to be contradictory.[/ul]So my argument is against the imitation argument (or at least the combining of it with the kerning argument). Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
This is strange. The PDF file linked to from the USA Today story on CBS defending the Killian TANG memos shows **six ** different documents, two more than the four that have been analyzed so far. Where did these other two come from?
Perhaps they were part of what Rather referenced when he mentioned other documents and interviews conducted.
Strange as well, the text transcript of the memos (Text of the Memos) only includes the text of the original four memos.
Look again at the CYA document. It is NOT kerned. If it were, the A would most definitely be closer to the Y in the heading. It is one of the character combos that would always be kerned. YA - VA are combinations that leave the unsightly space that you see in the memo, and if anything would have been kerned, that YA would have been. I still question the nice proportional spacing since I don’t remember any type looking that good from that time period, even on a machine with proportional spacing capability. Varityper cold type, yes. IBM composer type, no. Yes, I am was old school typesetter. Why do you ask? IBM selectric composers had proportional spacing, but it wasn’t as good as what you see in that memo. There was much more space between the words, even in unjustified copy. Besides, they weren’t for offices, they were for setting copy for printing. We used them for captions at the newspaper. The other memo with the centered copy would have been a real pain. Centered and justified copy had to be typed twice. I don’t think someone who didn’t type would do that hunting and pecking. His secretary? Maybe, but why? It’s not like it was for publication. As I stated in the GD thread, I’ll go with forgeries for now until I see some compelling evidence to the contrary. And I REALLY REALLY don’t want to. I’m one of the last people who would want to stand up for Mr. B.
You don’t have to. Saying that you suspect these documents to be fake doesn’t say anything whatsoever about your political allegiance. From what I’ve seen, I’m strongly persuaded they’re fake (but I’m being open to alternatives) - but I still believe Bush is the spawn of the Devil here to destroy the earth. (a la Bill Hicks)
Off of the technical physical specifics of the memos for a moment, how really likely is it that a mid-level military administrator in his position, and in the somewhat delicate situation of dealing with a powerful man’s son trying to wriggle out of completing his requirements, is going to generate file memos, accessible by his superiors, with these (IMO) dangerously personal observations re his superiors actions?
In large metro area zip codes may be prone to change due to population growth (there is some kind of cenus tie-in). In rural areas or small towns - probably never.
The official word
What’s up with the sevens in the dates in the upper right of the two August documents? Each one seems to be noticeably different from the other sevens in the same document but they appear similar to each other if you compare the two documents. Does anyone else see what I’m talking about?
I see what you’re talking about - the 7 in the date loos like it has a slightly curved stroke. But I think that might just be a noise artifact. Notice in the Aug 1 documnet the 7’s above in the header look different, but there’s a 7 in the body that looks about halfway between the two. So it might just be a glitch.
And [url=http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html]here’s a site which shows the result of trying to duplicate one of the Bush memos on a Selectric Composer. It’s not very close. The fonts look similar, and it does a pretty good job of proportional spacing, but the spacing itself is all off. Character spacing and leading aren’t very close. The line spacing in particular was way different, and the Composer expert quoted says that the line spacing was adjustable on that machine, making it even less likely that someone operating that machine 30 years would have happened to choose the identical line spacing of MS Word.
And it’s clear that it would never have been made on a Composer anyway. Read the flips and twists that guy had to go to to try to emulate that letter. Now imagine the likelihood of a National Guard Office in Texas having a typesetting machine worth more than a car at the time, and that they used it to write casual memos.
The LA Times reports that the expert who identified the memos in fact only verified one:
**As another of the corroborating experts for its report, CBS and Rather presented an on-air interview with Marcel B. Matley, a San Francisco document examiner. Rather said Matley had corroborated the four Killian memos.
But in an interview with The Times, the analyst said he had only judged a May 4, 1972, memo — in which Killian ordered Bush to take his physical — to be authentic.
He said he did not form a judgment on the three other disputed memos because they only included Killian’s initials and he did not have validated samples of the officer’s initials to use for comparison.**
The article goes on to say:
A CBS official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the network had two other document experts, who CBS did not identify, examine the documents, which were copies of the originals.
CBS won’t identify the other two experts? What in the world is up with that? I can understand that journalistic ethics may preclude them from identifying the source of the documents, but they won’t identify the experts either?
I’m not sure that it had to be a Selectric Composer. This page has an example of something created on an IBM Executive typewriter. At first glance, it looks a lot like the memos to me. The left and right justification was done manually by the typist counting spaces but that’s not relevant to this issue. What’s relevant is the proportional font. At least it looks proportional to me.
One of the blogs said that it couldn’t be an Executive, because it used a fixed type bar and couldn’t do those kinds of superscripts. I don’t know if that’s true or not.
As long as we’re throwing around blogs, Daily Koss has a new page about this (it’s a different one than the one that’s been posted here previously). It’s by someone who claims to be an expert and does sound like he knows what he’s talking about, for whatever that’s worth.
It’s not true.
I used several different model of IBM’s for years. First of all, a superscript of the sort seen in the “th” in these memos would have been produced by a special key, not by some bizarre manipulation of the typewriter. The question would then be… did this office where the memo was supposedly typed have such a typewriter?
Second, it was possible to do both super- and subscripts by manually moving the roller bar a half-notch up or down and holding it in position with one hand while typing with the other. Annoying, but quite possible. But the effect was different than what you see in these memos.
Nothing’s “up” with that. People speaking to the press on the condition of anonymity happens all the time. They can have any number of reasons for doing so - anything from fear through to simply not wanting to field endless unsolicited followups.
That’s ridiculous, CBS should find experts who are willing to attach their names to their work. There’s a good reason to allow sources of information you can’t get anywhere else to remain unnamed, but there’s very little reason for uninterested parties acting in a proffesional capacity to be anonymous.
The two corroborating sources CBS has named, Maj. Gen. Hodges and Marcel Matley, are already contradicting what CBS claims they said or did. It’s not a great leap to wonder if they’ve also mis-understood or exaggerated the claims of the other two experts.
My Dad was an IBM typewriter salesman during that period, and we used them at home, and we definitely had proportional spacing. I don’t remember whether we had superscripts. I had my own Selectric and it was a really cool typewriter.
p.s. – Executive and Selectric typewriters were not “rare.” My Dad sold them to lawyers and doctors, as well as large businesses.
Folks, this is all really simple. Put politics aside and think for a minute. These were memos, just typed out quickly as a memo would be. No one was worried about typesetting. The amount of unlikely things that would have to come together for these memos to be genuine is staggering.
Bottom line: they’re fakes. Plain and simple.
CBS won’t release what they have for analysis, and they won’t identify even one “expert” who will stand behind an opinion that they are genuine. Contrast that with the sheer numbers of others who will stake their reputations on the opinion that they’re crudely-executed fakes.
There is absolutely zero chance that someone could sit down at a computer, using MS word, and without even trying hard, type out a document that exactly matches these memos. Exactly. It’s been done over and over.
There’s not even any question any more. Here you can see an animated GIF that alternates between the memo and what Charles Johnson was able to whip out in a couple of minutes on Word.
I know this is a political issue in a hot political season, but the fact is that these are forgeries, and not very good ones at that. And CBS is simply circling the wagons and not providing any evidence to the contrary. There’s no journalism involved on CBS’s part–just arrogance.