Found a Owner of a IBM Selectric Composer Typewriter (Very interesting!)

The Bandit

[The Bandit]

Talked back and forth with a typewriter collector named Chuck who lives in Redlands, CA. He happened to have a working IBM Selectric Composer Typewriter circa 1972! Here is the scoop I got from him....

IBM had a Roman font element, he said it was called "Aldine Roman." The element I guess is what we been calling a golf ball on here! He said it is very similar to MS New Roman, in fact ALMOST identical. BUT, he said the IBM element Roman font had a observable difference in the capital C. He says he does not see a IBM Selectric Composer Typewriter element C in the Killian memo's. He also said if the memo's line up exactly with text from MS Word then he would be very, very suspicious of the source.

About the superscript, he said it could be done but not exactly like it shows in in the memo's AND would take effort, not something he'd expect a unexperienced typist using a such a new type of machine.

Bottom line: memo's did not come from a IBM Selectric Composer Typewriter.

I am beat after all this, good night and hope this info is useful!

[ladyjane]

Is it known that Selectrics were used at those offices at the time.

They're talking about a Selectric Composer, not the ordinary Selectric with the ball but with no variable spacing. The Composer was very expensive. My lawyer had one and he always complained about how much it cost - way more then an Executive.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

"Elusive Element", PM titles (almost) always alliterate, and my DirecTV TiVo is set to vacuum up any Perry Mason broadcast. I'll keep you posted.

[Old Professer]

Ah, so; elusive element, great words for a cryptoquote, 5 "e's", 2 "l's."

[TaxRelief]

Where is this reward posted?

[TaxRelief]

If Col. Killian's business documents produced before and after the dates on these "memos" show any uniform and consistent flaws, then these memos would have to have exactly the same imperfections as the real documents, if they were produced by the colonel. Is there any repository of unclassified documents bearing the signature of the good colonel around the time of these "memos" that we can use to establish a baseline for the typewriter?Excellent analysis and question.

[LibLieSlayer]

It was posted here Saturday afternoon. Do a search... seems it had Reward $10,000 in the title. It was here on FR, however.

LLS

[TaxRelief]

Would you mind linking to that quote please?

[dirtboy]

In the Times interview, Bouffard had also questioned whether the military would have used the Composer, a large machine. But Bouffard yesterday provided a document indicating that as early as April 1969 -- three years before the dates of the CBS memos -- the Air Force had completed service testing for the Composer, possibly in preparation for purchasing the typewriters.

Now someone tell me why a colonel in the Texas Air National Guard with limited typing skills would use such a sophisticated machine for mundane personnel memos. It would take a tremendous amount of skill and effort to replicate what we see in those memos - especially the centering of the headings. Why would crude memos for an officer's personal file be typed on such a machine?

CBS is trying to divide and conquer the various problems with the memos. We can't let them do that.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Arghhh!

i can't remember the exact site;

It's www.indepress.com

(or something like that), but is bookmarked at my home PC, not here. (Which is probably short for independent press.)