Posted on 09/10/2004 10:09:35 AM PDT by doug from upland
For one expert, the jury is still out.
I was thrilled a short time ago to to have a phone call returned from the recognized expert in forensic investigation of documents. He is Dr. Philip Bouffard.
We discussed his preliminary findings "The biggest problem," he said, "is that these are terrible copies."
As of yesterday, Dr. Bouffard seemed to get aboard the feeling that the CBS Killian memos were forged. As of now, "it is a little bit up in the air." He needs to see better documents and has no idea what CBS has.
A colleage in Ottawa sent him some information yesterday about a CD ROM named "Interpol Cards." Since the 1950's, Interpol has collected and categorized type specimens. Dr. Bouffard recalled that he bought the CD back in 1983, so he checked it.
In 1972, something similar existed. He did find some font types that were somewhat similar. There is one in particular, and a few more that have the look of Times New Roman.
A machine that could have been used at the time was an IBM Selectric Composer (if I am reading my scribbled notes correctly). It was an expensive machine.
Someone from the CHICAGO SUN TIMES spoke with him. The man had a military background and knew of that machine. According to him, although some of the top brass might had had that machine, it would have taken some time to filter down to the National Guard. The superscript would have been an expensive special order. And it had 88 keys. To get superscript, you would have had to give up something else.
Some of the problems Dr. Bouffard still see are the "th", the auto centering, the vertical legs of the capital "M" and the crossing of the "F" - whether is was higher or lower.
Dr. Bouffard wonders if Killian kept just these memos or whether there are others. To be definitive, he needs to see the originals.
Dr. Bouffard wonders if Killian kept just these memos or whether there are others. To be definitive, he needs to see the originals.Obviously, if this was a forgery the original was a nice clean MS-Word printout which has long since been destroyed.
-Eric
Most of them are done by reports that the delegations of the United Nations make up. America is going to learn the hard way that the United Nations works against it's interest.
Our politicians are nothing but fools.
Look at most of the laws passed lately, that are unconstitutional.
Most of them are done by reports that the delegations of the United Nations make up.
These reports become laws in America.
Congress is so easily lead by these reports that they base their opinions on to vote by.
Most of them go along with them this international world government.
Just look at the rulings of the Supreme Courts. Some of them say we should go by international law.
And Congress members changing our tax laws. Because the WTO says we have to.
THe WTO meets in secret and we don't know who sits on the board, but yet they are making all our trade laws.
Like I said, their Fools. That the way our Government run
Let's not overlook the obvious - both Killian's son and widow say these were not from their DAD/Husband - and that they did not release any of his files to anyone - so that begs the question as to who could have obtained them in the first place?
You'd still have to explain how the line breaks are identical to that when retyping the document in MS Word and how the formatting of the th is the same as in word (that is to say, where Word automatically formats the th into a superscript and where it leaves it on the same line are exactly identical to the way the th is left in normal mode in some parts of the memo and superscripted in others. This document is a complete forgery.
I hope it’s his professionalism that’s keeping “his jury out” because these are forgeries. Period.
Yep.
I'm the one who sent him the technical specs on the IBM composer. I tried posting it here a bunch of times, but I've been shouted down since yesterday morning, and no one seems to want to check out the links that have the technical info.
It's in Dr. Bouffard's hands, now.
Yes, it is professionalism. He is looking at this as if he would have to testify in court. He must be 100% sure to protect his reputation. I doubt that he is ever going to be able to see either original docs or a first generation copy. (McAuliffe has burned them.)
That fact is another hole in the story and makes the forgery case stronger. The copies of the memos look like Fourth or Fifth Generation copies, using 1970's - 1980's photocopiers.
These memos were supposedly found in Killian's personal files. There was no reason for anything other than the ORIGINAL memo to be in the file - he didn't send them anywhere other than his "CYA File". So, the person who supposedly found the memos, makes his own copies of them using CURRENT photocopying technology - so you have a First Generation Copy using modern technology. Even if you make additional copies of these memos, they all would have been done using modern copiers... there's no reason to have such lousy copies - other than a deliberate attempt to make them look old.
I don't think anyone's saying it would have been absolutely impossible to produce a document that looked like this on the date in question -- just that it would have been impossible to do so with standard military-issue equipment.
apparently, CBS is not revealing their sources for those papers.
Dear Doug,
I'm not sure this accounts for the vertical proportional spacing (modern wordprocessors automatically adjust the space between lines, typewriters didn't, the "memos" are vertically proportionally spaced), or the kerning.
As another poster suggested, perhaps Lt. Col. Killian was writing his personal memos on a typesetting machine, and taking the time to do the kerning, too.
sitetest
Great job Doug!
Come by this thread too:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1212100/posts
If the copies are so bad shouldn't that have raised questions of authenticity. Why would Dan Rather base a "hit" piece on suspicious copies. Blah! Dan is screwed.
The question I have is why did Killian have these papers in his possesion at home. I do not take work papers from my office to my home...and I own my own business.
Was there such a thing as CD-ROMs in 1983?
This seems to be a bone of contention and probably the most easily answered. I assume that particular National Guard unit still exists.
Surely someone from that period has photos of the office and the people in it and, incidentally, a pic of the actual typewriters in that office at the time.
These places are notorious packrats. Surely their archive has thousands of photos. Surely the equipment would be among the photos. In addition, aren't these military posts required to take annual inventory?
Hey Doug....Don't be beaten down....CBS is on the run.
Thank you for some great digging....!
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