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.
Bingo.
I actually remember from the bad old days when I had to type college papers on a real, fixed pitch, typewriter.
Centering is a bloody pain in the Rather.
You'd have to count the letters, center the carriage, then backspace half the count.
With proportional fonts, nobody but a typesetter would bother.
Dear Exigence,
No problem. I think the last 24 hours have been positively disorienting.
This may be the pivotal event of the election.
If it proves true that the DNC and the Kerry campaign were aware of these documents, and clued CBS in on them, Mr. Kerry will have to fight hard to get in the mid-40s.
If it proves true that the DNC and the Kerry campaign thought they were forgeries when they went to CBS, Mr. Kerry may struggle to keep 40%.
It all makes my head spin.
sitetest
That would be my question. If these memos were in the ltc's personal file, why would anyone except his family have access to it?
If he was retired, did he leave his personal file in the office? If he died while still serving in the guard, would not his personal effects in the office be returned to his family?
This whole thing smells worse than "ole crusty" after a busy weekend.
Good work Doug, but I gotta go with JT. I'm a little confused, he needs to clarify what he means by "CD from 1983". I work in broadcasting that is heavily fortified with computers. Never saw a CD-ROM until the 90's sometime. And we received our first CD audio players in 1986.
I'll stand corrected, but I do believe the audio technology came before digital data.
http://journal.aiga.org/content.cfm?ContentAlias=_getfullarticle&aid=%23.%5EG%2F%0A
Courier was originally designed in 1956 by Howard Kettler for the revolutionary “golfball” typing head technology IBM was then developing for its electric typewriters. (The first typewriter to use the technology was the IBM Selectric Typewriter that debuted in 1961.) Adrian Frutiger had nothing to do with the design, though IBM hired him in the late 1960s to design a version of his Univers typeface for the Selectric. In the 1960s and 1970s Courier became a mainstay in offices. Consequently, when Apple introduced its first Macintosh computer in 1984 it anachronistically included Courier among its core fonts. In the early 1990s Microsoft, locked in a font format battle with Adobe, hired Monotype Typography to design a series of core fonts for Windows 3.1, many of which were intended to mirror those in the Apple core font group. Thus, New Courier—lighter and crisper than Courier—was born. (In alphabetized screen menus font names are often rearranged for easier access so now we have Courier New MT in which the MT stands for Monotype Typography.)
Courier’s vanquisher was Times New Roman, designed in 1931 by Stanley Morison, Typographical Advisor to the Monotype Corporation, with the assistance of draughtsman Victor Lardent. The Times of London first used it the following year. Linotype and Intertype quickly licensed the design, changing its name for their marketing purposes to Times Roman. Times Roman became an original core font for Apple in the 1980s and Times New Roman MT became one for Windows in the 1990s. (Ironically, at the same time IBM invited Frutiger to adapt Univers for the Selectric Typewriter, they asked Morison to do the same with Times New Roman.) Whether superior to Courier or not, neither of these digital renditions of Morison’s original design is the best one available today—in the opinion of information design specialist Erik Spiekermann that honor goes to a version called Times Ten.
It appears that Morison was hired "in the late '60s" to do his thing with Times New Roman, but we don't know how long it took to get the job done. If you had a Selectric, all that you had to do was buy the new "ball". But, did the Texas National Guard even have electric typewriters, much less the Selectric?
Did he say anything about the 'smart'/curly apostrophes?
Doug,
This guy is being very careful in what he says. I'm betting these experts instantly realized the ramifications of their decisions. If these guys come right out and declare them to be forgeries, the election will be O-V-E-R.
IMO, they are being very careful to dot their "i"s and cross their "t"s.
There seems to be some confusion on that point. Another source I read somewhere today said personnel file. Still, who would put something like this in his personnel file if he wanted to continue to have a career with the military? That was the son's point.
I tried it in MS Word and got exactly the same document (allowing for painfully obvious faxing & copying in an attempt to "age" the "original") with practically no effort. The chance of two very different technologies giving the same results 30 years apart is nil.
Occam's Razor. A perfect duplicate is trivial to make on widely accessable technology ... vs. ... digging up a rare old Composer might produce something comparable. The MS Word theory wins hands-down unless you can create a duplicate document on a Composer (if you can find one). Go for it - I'm very curious about the results.
There seems to be some confusion on that point. Another source I read somewhere today said personnel file. Still, who would put something like this in his personnel file if he wanted to continue to have a career with the military? That was the son's point.
Yes, it has the "curly" apostrophe.
Wonder if there's one at DNC headquarters? :-)
Seriously, though, we need to find a "type element" (silver golf ball) with a code that starts with PR- (possibly PR-12-E).
My husband was a communications specialist in the US Army in Panama from 1971 to 1973. He did a lot of typing. He says he did not see ONE Selectric of any type much less a top of the line model while he was in the military proper. The likelihood of a Guard unit having such expensive equipment as a Selectric Composure or Executive during those years is almost, if not, nill.
How about this. A psychiatrist would not publicly proclaim that John Kerry is mentally ill unless he at least had a 2-minute session with him.
Actually, when you typed the same header, over and over, you had the counts memorized. I had an assistant who used to keep a stack of papers with pre-typed headers handy.
Although, I suppose the white out from the erase ribbon may not show on such bad copies, I also clearly remember you having to type over the erased letter a couple times for it to take, and that the corrected letter(s) always stood out.
In 1983 your options were 5 1/4 inch floppies (either SS/SD or SS/DD - I don't think the DS/DD were readily available until 84 or 85) or the big 8" floppies.
There is never 100% certitude. But when it becomes 99.999% it is time to make a call
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