Just keep in mind what previous posters have brought out: that even if these are Word documents (and I still insist they don’t look like it to me), they may not be forgeries; they may well be re-entries of original typewritten documents. The company I worked for in the late 70’s-mid 80’s did an awful lot of re-typing old, typewritten documents into word processing (whereupon they destroyed the originals).
Let’s just see what happens. There seem to be other problems with the documents.
For instance, this 1973 memo refers to interference being run by General Staudt.
Let’s speculate what if the documents are in fact forgeries. What have we learned anyway?
-The only things under dispute would be the CYA document: it’s still now been established that Bush disobeyed a direct order to take a physical, and did not show up where he was supposed to, etc. The only thing under dispute is the “sugarcoating” bit
-There is a man Hodges who has come forward who says that Killian did express the CYA things to him personally
-The White House, if they knew the CYA memo was false, would have said so. But they didn’t and still haven’t. Even if the memo was forged, it has tricked them into tacit admission of the truth of what it contains since they didn’t protest the content, just their usual song-and-dance of spinning the interpretation
I don’t know if it’s “copywrited” but the Selectric Composer was apparently available from 1941s on, not the 1970s as is claimed.
http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1941.html
It has proportional & changeable type and its certainly not inconcievable that an older one bought in the 1940s or 50s could have ended up second hand in an office in 1970s even if it was expensive when first introduced.
Here’s some documents from Bush records whose authenticity is undisputed that contain both superscripted AND unsuperscripted “ths.”
Which documents are you talking about? The pre-printed forms, or the typed letters? I couldn’t spot any 'th’s in the letters, and it would be no surprise that the form letters would have them, since they would be typeset.
Please see my post #90 in this thread for help in finding the small, typed, superscript ‘th’ in an undisputed document describing Bush’s 1968 service.
Sam: see page 3 of the PDF, the entry dated 4Sep68. It’s typewritten, and there’s a superscripted ‘th’ on that line.
I’m not convinced of the authenticity of the docs, but the doubters keep coming up with “damning” evidence that’s not damning. I do personally think that flight 77 hit the Pentagon, however.
I do have to concede that it would be more plausible that these documents were, at the very very least, retyped in Word. It’s not impossible that originals could have been re-typed, but unless the originals are available on microfilm or on paper, it stinks.
Of course, what I said before still stands. It’s pretty much certain at this point that Bush disobeyed orders and that he failed to meet standards. It’s pretty clear that they’ve been lying about this issue for the last four years and have caught themselves out on it whether or not it was forgeries or authentic docs. And if the reason for his skipping the physical is what it’s rumored to be, it might even make sense to create these forgeries to try and destroy credibility of any criticism.
Your cite calls that an “Electromatic”, not a Selectric Composer. It’s a type-bar machine. I think that the museum guy had some confusion about the type-bar/golfball thing, too.
Not something I can link to, but a coworker of mine was a courier in the Army, and served three tours in Vietnam drafting documents and shuttling them around.
According to him, the office’s Varitype machine could produce documents with proportional spacing and raised, smaller size superscripts.
He also says, though, that the documents CBS has don’t look like they were produced on a Varitype machine. They look very funny to his eyes.
I had difficulty seeing this at first even following your directions. This was probably due to trying to read it sideways. So, for anyone else having the same difficulty I’ll try to describe it more precisely. (This isn’t a knock on Squink’s ability to describe it. Just some advice from my own attempts to find it.) It is, as Squink said, the second entry dated 4Sep68. Look at the third column, which has the header “BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DUTY - ORGANIZATION AND STATION”. The entry in this column starts out “Pilot Trainee, 111[sup]th[/sup] Fighter Interceptor Squadron”. It’s hard to spot the [sup]th[/sup] at first because of an extraneous smudge or dot at the bottom of it. But once you see it, it’s obvious.
This site argues that the document could have been made on an IBM typewriter, but could NOT have been made on Microsoft word, as the Freeper detectives have claimed. It’s also not beyond the range of possibility for the 111th to have had these relatively expensive machines: as I said, a second-hand one wouldn’t be too crazy.
“But the principle argument of the freepers – that it would be impossible for a TANG office in 1972 to produce documents that look like these – is simply false.”
But I do agree that the burden of proof is on CBS to establish that these documents are real. They seem to already have presented pretty strong evidence that the story is real, including a witness who confirms that the content of the memos matched what he was told.
At the risk of being shot down and looking like a total asshat I’m going to play amatuer sleuth here for a moment. I am NOT a “typewriterologist” but a lot of this seems like an exercise in observation and common sense. (In other words, something more than a WAG but less than a mathematical proof). If anyone can show where I’m mistaken then please step forward.
Several people here, including myself, have been insisting that there are things here that strongly indicate the use of a typewriter. I’m going to attempt to describe just a few of these instances. I’ll be refering to this document on cbsnews.com which is dated 19 May 1972. It helps to zoom in a little when you examine it.
It starts out with the date on the upper right. Below that, left justified, are the words “Memo to File”. Below that, also left justified, is a line that reads “SUBJECT: Discussion with Bush, 1st Lt Bush”.
Look at the words “1st Lt”. Look at the bottom of the two "t"s and compare them to the “t” in “with” as well as other "t"s in the document. The two in question are cutoff at the very bottom as compared to the others. Now look at the “L” in “Lt”. That also appears to be cutoff in a similar manner. These three adjacent characters would have all been typed on closely adjacent spots on the ribbon. The cutoffs could have been caused by dirt or dry spots on the ribbon or some sort of obstruction elsewhere in the mechanism. I just can’t see how scanning artifacts could have caused these kinds of adjacent, character precise, cutoffs.
Now look at the last part of the last sentence “but think he’s also talking to someone upstairs.” Look at the top of the word “someone”. It looks like the top of it has been “shaved” off at a slight angle going upwards from left to right. The last three letters don’t appear to be involved. This looks to me look something that could have been caused by some sort of misalignment with the ribbon or typewriter mechanism and I can’t see how it could be a copying or scanning artifact.
There are numerous examples of uneven inking throughout the document that are character precise. This kind of uneven inking could have occurred with an electric if the ribbon was cheap or dried out. (Does anyone know if the military possibly re-inked ribbons to cut costs?) Scanning artifacts would result in a general degradation of image quality. Maybe this degradation could cause what appears to be uneven inking, I don’t know. But I fail to see how it could shave off the top of a word at an angle.
Geeze, did I totally kill this thread? Doesn’t anyone have any opinions on my analyses? Did I totally confuse everone with my inane rambling?
That’s IT! I was wondering why I hadn’t posted here today. 
OTOH, as we saw in the prewar WMD debate, people’s minds aren’t likely to be changed by detailed arcanery. Can you make some broad, sweeping claims about the authenticity of the documents? That’s what folks want to hear.
In that light, here’s an excerpt from Scot McClellan’s press gaggle today:
I looked at the document you mentioned, and to be honest it’s just too hard to tell because the condition of the document isn’t all that great. The cutoffs you see could just be artifacts from multiple FAX copies.
I’m still not sold that these are forgeries. It confuses me that CBS would stand by this so adamantly. Rather has put his reputation on the line over this. They must have some other internal evidence that these things are real. I think the blog world is being tooo hasty in patting itself on the back over this - after all the high-fiving going on, if these documents turn out to be legit they are going to look pretty foolish.
the dynamics are cloudy, but it would be sweet to find the first guy who was drafted off the waiting list for ANG spots after W was bumped. Preferably a guy who was at the top of the list, but, well, for some reason that spot went to someone else, ("turnyourheadtotheleftandcough; welcome to Vietnam)
Dan was certainly adamant about this story tonight! His voice was even quaking a bit.
The other oddity here with respect to the docs being forged, is that the white house, which surely knows the truth of the service record, has not denied the content of the memos, only dismissed their appearance as ‘politically motivated’.
Squink: Are these docs part of BUSH’S files, are part of the author’s files. I thought it was the latter, in which case no one at the WH would have seen them before.