Posted on 09/09/2004 1:22:10 PM PDT by TastyManatees
Are the CBS National Guard Documents Fake?
(UPDATED: "At Least" 90% Positive They're Fake)
INDC Exclusive. Must Credit INDC.
Based on Powerline's suspicions of forgery over the documents put forth regarding George W. Bush’s National Guard service, I decided to do some legwork and track down the opinions of forensic document examiners that may have an expertise in old typefaces.
After contacting several experts, a rather notable Forensic Document Examiner named Dr. Philip Bouffard took the time to examine a pdf of the documents and perform an initial visual analysis of their authenticity. Dr. Bouffard has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Michigan, but got involved in forensic examination of typefaces after working in “graphics” with NCR until 1973 and taking a two-year Certification Program in Document Examination at Georgetown University. After completing the program, he became specifically interested in typewriter classification and went to work for a prosecutor’s crime lab in Lake County, Ohio.
Using something called the Haas Atlas, the definitive collection of various typefaces, Mr. Bouffard (and other forensic document examiners) examined the veracity of various documents for over 30 years. Beginning in 1988, Mr. Bouffard hired a programmer to write a computer database program that catalogues the nearly 4,000 typefaces that appear in the Haas Atlas. This computer program is now a forensic standard that is sold as a companion to the Haas Atlas by American Society of Questioned Document Examiners (ASQDE).
UPDATE: The name of the program that Dr. Bouffard developed is called "The Typewriter Typestyle Classification Program" (C:\TYPE).
What did Dr. Bouffard think of the documents?
First, the necessary caveats:
• The pdf document is of poor quality. It seems to have been copied and recopied several times, blurring letter characteristics.
• Also, certain types of analysis can only be done on the original documents, which don’t seem to be available, even to CBS.
So Dr. Bouffard is very clear that his analysis is not 100% positive. That being said …
“It’s just possible that this might be a Times Roman font, which means that it would have been created on a computer. It’s very possible that someone decided to create this document on a computer... I’ve run across this situation before … my gut is this could just well be a fabrication.”
The reasons why?
• Right off the bat, Dr. Bouffard noted what others in the blogosphere have been talking about – something called “proportional spacing,” which means that each letter does not take up the same amount of width on the page. On old typewriters that do not have proportional spacing, the letter “i” would be as wide as the letter “m.” Except for professional typesetting, proportional spacing was only available on a very few models (an IBM model, "Composer" and perhaps one or two other models) that were not widely available in 1972-73; the vast majority of typewriters did not have proportional spacing. Because of this, Dr. Bouffard’s computer program immediately eliminated “over 90%” of the possible fonts from typewriters that could create such a document, narrowing it down to perhaps 15 fonts used by a very few models.
• Next, Dr. Bouffard began entering individual characters in an attempt to match them to the remaining fonts that were available on proportional spacing typewriters of that era, focusing on numbers. Thus far, one character stood out, the number “4.” In the document provided by CBS News, the number 4 does not "have a foot" and has a “closed top,” which is indicative of Times New Roman, a font exclusive to more modern computer word processing programs. other characters matched the old proportional spacing fonts (available on only a small few typewriters of the era), but this number did not (please note that this is only an initial analysis with numerical characters).
Dr. Bouffard ran this number and could not find a match in his entire database of over 4,000 typewriter fonts that have been maintained and collected into his computer database since 1988. Otherwise, the font is very indicative of Times New Roman, the font that is only available on computer word processing programs.
The final word?
Once again, let’s not forget the qualifications: it's a bad copy of a copy and we have no original document for review, but, based on the initial analysis of the documents by an industry expert with over 30 years of experience in typesetting and forensic document examination, the documents “could just well be a fabrication.”
In light of this information, I think that it would be highly appropriate for CBS News and the Boston Globe to attempt to obtain a copy of the original document for more thorough vetting, and run a correction/addendum to the story.
I still have two other forensic document examiners that are examining the pdf file, and I will update if/when they get back to me. I also plan to ask Dr. Bouffard more detail about the nature of the "th" on the end of dates, though in our first conversation he indicated that some typewriters had the capability to do something in that format.
UPDATE: Dr. Bouffard called me again, and after further analysis, he says that he's pretty certain that it's a fake.
Here's why
* He looked through old papers he's written, and noted that he's come up against the inconsistency of the "4" several previous times with forgeries that attempt to duplicate old proportional spaced documents with a computer word processing program.
* Regarding the small "th" after the date, Dr. Bouffard told me that it was possible to order specialty keys that would duplicate the automatic miniaturization completed by word processors after a numerical date, but it was certainly not standard, and wouldn't make a lot of sense in a military setting. "That by itself, while suspicious, is not impossible, but in conjunction with the (font irregularity of the) number four, it is really significant," he said.
* Dr. Bouffard said that signature analysis isn't that relevant because the signature could have easily been copied and pasted onto one of the photocopied forgeries from another document.
* He said that he didn't know who CBS contacted to verify the document's authenticity, but that there is really only one other man that may be more qualified to determine authentic typefaces than himself. I think that the burden of proof may be on CBS to reveal this information.
I asked him to put a percentage on the chances that this was a fake, and he said that was "hard to put a number on it." I then suggested "90%?" Again he said it's "hard to put an exact number, but I'd say it's at least that high, sure. I pretty much agree that that font is Times New Roman."
I hesitate to render verdicts, but based on an initial visual analysis by one of the country's foremost forensic document analysts that specializes in old typefaces, it looks like CBS was duped.
The 3-line centered heading is curious to me. If it was supposedly hand-typed, that means that this colonel knew how to manually center a proportional font.
In my old typing lessons, centering on a manual or electric typewriter involved finding the center, and then backspacing one space for every 2 letters. I have NO idea how one would center a proportional font on a typewriter, as the spaces would not be equal.
No problem. Even if I had a photo editor that was capable of rotating in much smaller increments, the distortions caused by the repeated photocopying of the copy of the copy, etc., would most likely prohibit an exact match.
RE: "They should have used Alger Hiss' typewriter."
BWAHAHAHAHA. ROTFL
But this is a Dennis Miller style of joke with a very obscure reference and I'm probably the only one here that knows that you are refering to Whitacker (sp?) Chambers and the attempts by Hiss to claim that the pumpkin papers were forgeries.
Good point on the commas in the dates. You'll also notice that some of the memos have commas and some don't. Interesting that the writer would change his own style back and forth so quickly.
An old ad for 5000 Longmont #7
"5000 Longmont, #7 in Galleria area (Area 22)
3-4/4. Welcome to this very sophisticated Galleria area 1 story townhome with quarters. Former residence of film star Gene Tierney. Immaculate master & guest suites. Furnishings also available. $450,000 "
Gene Tierney? not a bad neighbor to have, I'd say. (Kidding.) What does this ad to this thread? Not much, but I thought it was interesting.
You would be surprised how many Alger Hiss threads have been posted on FR over the years.
I have read most of the the accounts of the Chambers/Hiss proceedings, yet there are many freepers who know a lot more of them than I.
I remember when the Venona papers were made available there were lots of threads of the story.
Yeah, I was going down that path, too, but from what I've read it's not unusual at all for zip codes to morph and change over time due to population growth.
In fact, today's 77027 is approx. 2 miles from today's 77056, so it's not that big of a stretch that it could have been one and now the other over the past 30-plus years. Pres Bush 41 lives in or near 77056, in fact.
I have not seen such detailed analysis of typed memos since I read a book on the Majestic 12 (Area 51) documents. At least in the case of those documents, if they are forgeries, they are pretty good forgeries. The CBS documents look like poor forgeries IMHO.
"Good point on the commas in the dates. You'll also notice that some of the memos have commas and some don't. Interesting that the writer would change his own style back and forth so quickly."
Perhaps suggesting the hands of at least two forgers at work. A conspiracy!
I have to question the content of the memo. Perhaps some Air Force types can help us out in regards to AF-15 requirements concerning flight physicals. In the Navy we go by OPNAV 3710 which mandates annual flight physical to be given during the aviators birth month.
An "Upchit" from Air Force flight surgeon is recognized by the Navy and I thought the requirements were very similar.
President Bush's birthday is the 6th of July. Why would the Col have such a hard one to get him in for a physical 50 days early? Did you guys not use the birth month? When did his physical actually expire?
Great point!!! The chance that a manually centered header on a 1970's typewriter and an auto-centered MS Word header would be so close is, in my opinion, NIL!
More reason this is fake....I looked into the PO box on this and found ALL the TX Nat'l Guard PO Boxes. They are all FOUR digits.
http://www.agd.state.tx.us/main/army/armyunits.htm
Actually, this is a reason why I had NOT been convinced that the documents were fake. I remember using IBM Selectric's with the "type balls" in the early '70s. Different type balls had different single stroke special characters. One of the keys on the typewriter would type various different characters depending upon which type ball you had inserted.
I don't specifically recall whether there was a type ball with a superscript "th" character, but I do remember balls with "1/2", "1/4", ©, ®, ™, and other special characters so there could very well have been ones with a single stroke superscript "th" character. If someone were using a typewriter with a "th" character they might very well forget to use it sometimes and type "th" instead.
However, the document overlay posted by Blood of Tyrants has me convinced. There is no question that the font on the "May 1972" document is identical to the font on the document that was just created by Blood of Tyrants.
I've got one of those, exactly like the one in the old advertisement you posted. I bought it at an auction of Texas state agency used and surplus office equipment in 1980 and lugged it around all through college and law school. The thing weighs a ton but was built like a tank.
This has been discussed. The address, zip code, etc all match other official documents released about Bush.
I like old machines. I have a couple manual Royal typewriters, one with all-caps. Built like tanks indeed!
I wondered about that too.
Then it's just a matter of totalling the value of each letter, adding an average of 3 picas between each word, dividing by 2, finding the center point, backspacing the required number of units, and then typing the line. The typist had the freedom to add or subtract units between words (or even units between letters in a word) so as to make an individual line or word come out "right." I have done this exercise hundreds, if not thousands, of times, in my old life as a "repro" typist in the 1970's.
On other thing, the 'backspace' key on these typewriters moved the platen back just 1 unit. I.e., to backspace over an 'm' would take 5 strokes, over a 't' would take 3 strokes.
All of this is just to say that I am becoming convinced the Killian document is a forgery. While it is definitely possible to manually center individual typewritten lines, it seems implausible to me that such lines typed 30+ years ago would somehow exactly duplicate the same exercise of today's word processors.
Sorry to be so long winded.
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