# If the CBS documents are shown to be fraudulent, should CBS produce their source? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 14, 2004, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459 "2004-09-14T19:50:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/21 "2004-09-15T19:27:17Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > As more information is revealed about typewriters and typefaces, the charge of fraud is looking more vaporous with each passing day. Yet few are aware of these facts… they’ve heard the accusations of fraud and those who want to believe they’re frauds have drawn a conclusion and are unshakable. So, the accusers have served their purpose. Don’t you just love the high regard for truth and accuracy we have in this country?? Now excuse me while I go vomit. ---
**Author:** ![Meursault](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@Meursault](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meursault)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/22 "2004-09-15T21:52:24Z")
> [@bughunter](#): > > Yet few are aware of these facts… they’ve heard the accusations of fraud and those who want to believe they’re frauds have drawn a conclusion and are unshakable. > > So, the accusers have served their purpose. > > Don’t you just love the high regard for truth and accuracy we have in this country?? > > Now excuse me while I go vomit. I would argue that it takes more mental gymnastics to view the documents as authentic than it does to view them as fakes. The weight of the evidence is squarely on the side of forgery. None of CBS’s defenses have withstood scrutiny. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/23 "2004-09-15T22:30:32Z")
If the documents are forgeries, then I wonder how this came to pass: > [@](#): > > _Originally from [The Washington Post](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1803&ncid=1803&e=10&u=/washpost/20040910/pl_washpost/a9967_2004sep9)_ > A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network’s sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents’ alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that “these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time.” > > “These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people,” the CBS News official said. “Journalistically, we’ve gone several extra miles.” > > The official said the network regarded Hodges’s comments as “the trump card” on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not want to hurt Bush. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine in Texas. Frankly, I don’t even understand why anyone continues to bring up the issue of GWB’s service. It seems by all accounts that he was a spoiled little drunken brat during that period of his life and his family pulled strings to keep him out of harm’s way and also out of the media to avoid political embarassment. The Democrats should stick to substantive issues. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/24 "2004-09-16T01:14:19Z")
Moving this from IMHO to Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/25 "2004-09-16T01:30:51Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > **CBS Has Egg on Its Face!** **And Fox News and CNN and the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and the Guardian have Omelets on theirs.** Everyone’s screwed up a big story in the last year or two. What’s the big deal here? Even if the documents are forgeries, there’s no evidence of malice in this case. Can the same be said for Bush’s pushing of the African yellowcake forgeries? ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/26 "2004-09-16T01:44:48Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Robert Novack’s source was not giving fraudulant information. If these documents prove to be false then the source is not a valid source to be protected any more than the guy who found the Hitler diary. If the documents prove to be forgeries then CBS should reveal who pulled the wool over their eyes. No, his source gave illegal information, but not fraudulent information. And, there is another side to this too. CBS may still want to protect a source, for example, if the source has been reliable in the past and they have reason to believe that the source obtained these documents believing them to be authentic. All I can say is that there are going to be a lot of people who look pretty silly if these documents **do** turn out to be authentic. As for me, I don’t have a horse in this race…Maybe they are real, maybe they are not. Hopefully, time will tell. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/27 "2004-09-16T02:05:25Z")
> [@Fox Paws](#): > > I, for one, don’t care about the journalistic purpose of anything they’re doing. I want to know their source just because it has the potential to be quite fascinating. It probably isn’t, of course, because so few of these little hullabaloos turn out to be fascinating in the end. But think of the possibilities… > > Politics and the media rarely fail to entertain me. Hear, hear! I’d be even more certain that they were frauds if the WH had acted as if they were fakes. IIRC, **not all of the docs are being questioned- some seem to be legit**. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/28 "2004-09-16T02:32:47Z")
I realize that this thread is more about the behaviour of CBS than it is about the mechanics of fonts and such but if anyone’s interested in that aspect, we’ve discussed it extensively [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=274827) and [here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=275389) ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/29 "2004-09-16T02:33:47Z")
CBS’s own experts went on TV stating they did not and would not vouch for the authenticity of the documents. They have no evidence they can show to support their claims other than their word it exists and they are keeping it hidden to protect their sources. Given the nature of the material this places CBS in the position of a 521 group. If they don’t want to substantiate their claim that’s fine, they just need to file the appropriate paperwork as a soft-money political group and present it as advertising. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/30 "2004-09-16T02:56:39Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > …What I saw was a statement by _somebody_ that one of the officers that is alleged to have signed one of the documents had actually retired 18 months prior to the date of the document… That’s incorrect. All of the documents that are signed contain Killian’s signature (or at least a forgery of it) and Killian was still active. I think what you saw was someone talking about Colonel Walter Staudt who’s signature is not on any of the documents. He is, however, mentioned in the CYA memo which is dated 18 August 1973. Staudt retired in 1972. The CYA memo contains this sentence: > [@](#): > > Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. But there is some question about whether Staudt may still have wielded some influence even after his retirement. From [here:](http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-12-bush-documents_x.htm) > [@](#): > > Records show that Staudt retired in 1972 and would not have been involved in Bush’s military career in 1973. CBS acknowledged Sunday that Staudt retired in 1972 but said he remained influential in the Guard. The Dallas Morning News on Saturday quoted retired colonel Earl Lively, who was director of Air National Guard operations at state headquarters in 1972 and 1973, as saying that Staudt “wasn’t on the scene” after he retired. “Once you’re gone from the Guard, you don’t have any authority,” Lively said. > > Some former Guard officials agree that Staudt may still have been wielding influence behind the scenes after he retired. Bob Strong, a former Texas Air National Guard officer who was assigned to state headquarters in 1972, said Sunday that Staudt was powerful and well-connected in Texas politics and had been influential in getting Bush into the Guard. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/31 "2004-09-16T03:56:29Z")
> [@](#): > > A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network’s sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents’ alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that “these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time.” Hodges has recanted. He says that he was asked to verify the documents _over the phone_, and furthermore that CBS misrepresented what they had, and then misrepresented his comments. Basically, what happened was CBS phoned him and said they had _handwritten_ memos from Killian that said X, and wanted to know if that sounded plausible. Hodges said, “Well, if that’s what he wrote, then that must be what he felt”. Since then, Hodges discovered that there were no handwritten originals, and that the documents CBS has are in dispute. Hodges is now of the opinion that the documents are forgeries. As far as I know, CBS can not produce a single expert willing to testify that the documents are genuine. On the other hand, EVERY expert consulted by the Washington Post, ABC News, the New York Times, the Associated Press, and CNN have all said that they believe the documents are forgeries or at least questionable. CBS’s response to this? “Expert opinion is divided, which is not unexpected”. This is a load of horse manure. Expert opinion is not divided. Even if CBS manages to cough up an expert who thinks they are real, he’ll be outnumbered about 20-1. Furthermore, (and here’s the really damning part), CBS consulted two experts _before_ they aired the documents, and both experts said they had grave misgivings about the documents. Said one, “If you air these on Tuesday, on Wednesday you’ll have hundreds of document examiners asking you the same questions I’m asking now.” So CBS had reasonable doubt that the documents were forgeries, and they ran the story anyway. And they didn’t mention the doubts of their experts in the piece. This goes beyond shoddy journalism and into reckless disregard for the truth. At the very least, they should have presented the documents as ‘possibly authentic’ and mentioned that there was still dispute among experts. They did not. They are guilty. Even if the documents turn out to be real, suppressing the opinions of experts that they sought out is shoddy practice. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/32 "2004-09-16T03:59:43Z")
> [@Tigers2B1](#): > > Well, to be fair, the IBM Composer, which is the typewriter which people use when making your argument, had a $4,000 price tag (in 1970 dollars). OTOH, the IBM Executive series, the _other_ typewriter people mention when making that argument (but which others conveniently fail to mention when attempting to debunk it), was less expensive. > [@](#): > > Mrs. Knox, Col Killian’s secretary is on the record as saying that she used a conventional, stanbdard issue typewriter during that period and that she type Col Killian’s documents. Now we’re getting somewhere. [For The Record: Bush Documents](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/15/60II/main643768.shtml) > [@](#): > > “I did not type those memos. And it’s not the form I would have used. And there are words in there that belong in the Army, not to the Air Guard. We never used those terms,” says Knox. “I know that I didn’t type them. However, the information in those is correct.” > […] > Knox says the information in the four memos that CBS obtained is very familiar, but she doesn’t believe the memos are authentic. She does, however, remember her boss, Col. Jerry Killian, being upset over Mr. Bush’s failure to take a physical. > […] > “These memos were not memos that you typed, and you don’t think they came directly out of his files,” Rather asked Knox. > > “The information, yes,” says Knox. “It seems that somebody did see those memos, and then tried to reproduce and maybe changed them enough so that he wouldn’t get in trouble over it.” ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/33 "2004-09-16T04:11:47Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > This is an apple. This is an orange. From the OP: > > Robert Novack’s source was not giving fraudulant information. **If** these documents prove to be false then the _source_ is not a valid source to be protected any more than the guy who found the Hitler diary. If the documents prove to be forgeries then CBS should reveal who pulled the wool over their eyes. What journalistic purpose can be served by protecting people who endangered the life of an American intelligence agent and her sources for a bit of petty revenge? You DO see there’s a difference in magnitude here, don’t you? And that it falls against the Plame sources, not the CBS sources. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/34 "2004-09-16T04:18:00Z")
The secretary has said that she used a manual Olympia typewriter until the early 70’s, when it was replaced with an IBM Selectric. Neither of those typewriters could possibly have made that memo. Both a monospaced machines. The Selectric Composer is a completely different machine, and that office did not have one. Also, there is a web site where someone who has a Selectric Composer tried to recreate the documents, and failed. The character spacing and line spacing were quite different. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/35 "2004-09-16T04:33:22Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > The secretary has said that she used a manual Olympia typewriter until the early 70’s, when it was replaced with an IBM Selectric. > > Neither of those typewriters could possibly have made that memo. Both a monospaced machines. The Selectric Composer is a completely different machine, and that office did not have one. Moreover, the secretary denies typing them herself. That still leaves the questions of who typed them, when and how they were typed, and how the mystery typist managed to reproduce the same information that was in the _actual_ memos Knox referenced. > [@](#): > > Also, there is a web site where someone who has a Selectric Composer tried to recreate the documents, and failed. The character spacing and line spacing were quite different. Has anyone tried to recreate them on an Executive? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/36 "2004-09-16T04:45:11Z")
From what I understand, the Executive can’t do it because it uses a fixed type bar and can’t do true superscript. You have to use a custom key with a little ‘th’ imprinted on it, but the character still fits in the line of the others. Some of the authentic CBS documents have that type of ‘pseudo superscript’, including ironically a document that CBS showed as an example of superscript that showed their document could be real. They didn’t even notice the difference. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/37 "2004-09-16T05:08:28Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > From what I understand, the Executive can’t do it because it uses a fixed type bar and can’t do true superscript. You have to use a custom key with a little ‘th’ imprinted on it, but the character still fits in the line of the others. Do you have a link about this, preferably with pictures? Also, what do you think of the claim that some characters (mainly digits, IIRC) in the memos don’t look like Microsoft’s Times New Roman, and are closer to IBM’s Press Roman? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/38 "2004-09-16T05:18:05Z")
[CBS Guard Documents Traced to Tex. Kinko’s](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24635-2004Sep15.html) > [@](#): > > Documents allegedly written by a deceased officer that raised questions about President Bush’s service with the Texas Air National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko’s copy shop in Abilene, Tex., according to another former Guard officer who was shown the records by the network. > > The markings provide one piece of evidence suggesting a source for the documents, whose authenticity has been hotly disputed since CBS aired them in a “60 Minutes” broadcast Sept. 8. The network has declined to name the person who provided them, saying the source was confidential, or to explain how the documents came to light after more than three decades. > > There is only one Kinko’s in Abilene, and it is 21 miles from the Baird, Tex., home of retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who has been named by several news outlets as a possible source for the documents. Burkett has been the subject of much speculation on the blogs as a potential source. Burkett has been attacking the guard for some time over medical costs they refused to pay, and has a definite axe to grind. In the last election he surfaced and claimed that he had seen from very incriminating documents about Bush in a cache that he was ordered to destroy. He failed to produce the documents and was generally dismissed as a fraud. Rather worked that case then, and there is some suggestion that he has been working it ever since. So then perhaps Burkett surfaces again and tells Rather, “I found the documents.” Now they have the proof they need, and go public. Rather just refused to believe that Burkett was dishonest. Anyway, that’s the speculation in the blogosphere. If this does get tracked back to Burkett, it’ll be very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/39 "2004-09-16T05:45:08Z")
Getting back to the OP… I would expect that, assuming the documents are forgeries, that we are not treading any new ground here. Surely there is a journalistic precedent for that scenario and CBS should follow it. As a journalistic layman, I can see arguements on both sides of this debate. I would wonder if the source of these docs, again assuming that they ARE forgeries, might be in physical danger if he were exposed. We need someone with a background in journalism, like **Jonathan Chance** , to weigh in here. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2004, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459/40 "2004-09-16T05:52:57Z")
> [@SimonX](#): > > IIRC, **not all of the docs are being questioned- some seem to be legit**. I’m not sure that YRC (you recall correctly). Can you give us a cite explaining which of these documents are \*\*not \*\*suspect? If not, then you shouldn’t post otherwise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-cbs-documents-are-shown-to-be-fraudulent-should-cbs-produce-their-source/264459.md?page=3)