Posted on 09/11/2004 1:46:40 AM PDT by 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!
There are also many fonts made for UNIX systems that would look different in images from the way fonts used for MS images would look. I think we can safely assume that the "document" was from an image file of some sort. And their are many file conversions (imports/exports from one file type to another) possible.
To me the smoking gun is wordwrap. Others have noted that the wordwrap of a manual typewriter works differently than a word processor.
In particular, MSWORD wraps the current word when the end of a word passes the right margin, so that no line of text exceeds the right margin. By contrast, a person typing manually finishes the word (or syllable with hyphen) he is typing when the right-margin bell rings, and then does a carriage return. The net effect of the manual typewritten style is that, if one draws a vertical line at the bell-margin, that line should go through (intersect) the last word of every line of text.
Clearly, from the 1 AUG 1972 memo (and possibly others), NO SUCH VERTICAL LINE CAN BE CONSTRUCTED THAT INTERSECTS THE LAST WORD OF EVERY WRAPPED LINE OF TEXT!
This fact says that the margin control of the documents was not done according to manual typewriting protocol. By contrast, the margin control ends up exactly what MSWORD produces.
I've pointed this out on other threads. And on another thread, bolobaby noted that "this is not definitive proof by any stretch of the imagination," because a typist has the option to manually violate the wrapping convention of the bell, and squeeze in extra words. But I replied, what are the odds that a manual typist, over the span of 4 memos, would exactly choose to squeeze in the EXACT SAME words, so as to "accidentally" coincide with what MSWORD would produce. I would say, with metaphysical certitude that the odds are nil. Bolobaby agreed.
Not to disagree but it's important to recall this was a photocopy and the .PDF is of the fax that CBS sent to the White House. At least that's what I've seen. There's a possibility we're just seeming the degeneration resulting from the photocopying, scanning, faxing and possibly rescanning processes. Those serifs are going to deteriorate terribly and depending on the algorithm settings for converting to B/W, it might well appear to be "squared off"--this is just a caveat.
Remember the a Perry Mason, where he showed that a document was actually typed on the murder's typewriter by palming the ball and switching them in court? Of course you do, it was "The Case of the Elusive Element". Tragg gets all flustered when Perry shows him how the forged document could have been typed on another machine without having access to the actual machine.
http://www.oz.net/~daveb/Season6.htm#177
Let's call Rathergate, "The Case of the Elusive Element".
Don't even worry about it: The Selectric Composer cost as much as two cars, and was used to produce camera-ready copy. The procedures to compose a page required you to type it twice.
Typing "memos to self" on one of these things would be less plausible that asserting Col. Killian flew to work in a gyrocopter he made himself.
This story is nailed. The memos are a fraud.
That seals it. Microsoft Word circa 2004.
Is it known that Selectrics were used at those offices at the time.
Well take your expert talents and produce an exact match to any of the memos. There is $10,500 of reward money posted on this site, just waitng on YOU to collect it!
LLS
Amen. There's no way in hell some National Guard colonel is going to be doing his own typing on a rich-man's typewriter.
Explain to me please, why MS Word can create a document (using what you say is the incorrect font) that EXACTLY over-lays with the bogus memo. I mean EXACTLY!
LLS
The samples were typed with the wrong font. The font in the CBS pdfs is NOT a Roman type font.
Bump.
It is not a perfect match, the font faces are different although the spacing appears to be almost the same.
If so, maybe for their printing office. These were high end machines used by printers or type houses. Besides, the above statement only claims that the Army tested the typewriters, it doesn't say that they purchased any.
As I recall, my Mom bought a Duster with a V-8 for $3100 in '73.
Also - in an active duty fighter squadron in 85-89, we had a couple of electric typewriters in the training shop and a couple in admin. The admin section also had ONE word processor that allowed you to type about 4-5 lines of text before it actually printed.
All the electric typewriters we had in the 80s were Courier or Elite font, as I recall. None were capable of proportional spacing. Of course, everyone knows the Guard gets the top-of-the-line stuff, like typewriters that cost more than two cars...
The issue is that the documents show sophisticated typesetting elements that were not available even on the most sophisticated typewriters of the time (i.e. IBM Selectrics). Elements such as kerning, proportional spacing of letters and some features of the way the wordwrap works as well as the superscript that appears when there is a reference to Bush's fighter group, the 147th. In the circa 1972 memos the "th" appears half-sized and raised, something neither the Selectric nor other common typewriters of the time could do. These are features of a word processor and they didn't come into common use until the late '80's, proof that these memo's are forgeries
Faxing always slightly changes the size of an image. This accounts for the "pulsing" you see in some image comparisons. Also, the fax had poor vertical registration, and the document was slightly skewed in the paper feed.
However, none of these distotrtions cover up for the fact that gross comparisons alone - line breaks, automatic superscripts in all places EXCEPT where a space is inserted, etc. - nail the documents as forgeries.
And then there are the dozens of diversions from military style in the documents.
And then there is the center-justified headings INSTEAD OF letterhead.
And on and on. At this point, you'd have an easier task making the Hitler Diaries be accepted as genuine.
There is no kerning in the CBS pdfs. For example, in the string "CYA" the space between Y and A should be reduced if kerning was done. It is not in the CBS pdf. Type the string "CYA" into MS Word and turn on kerning (it is off by default) from font properties to see what kerning does.
"...proportional spacing of letters..."
IBM Selectric Composer and IBM Executive series typewriters did proportional spacing of letters. As did a some other typewriters available in the early 70s.
"In the circa 1972 memos the "th" appears half-sized and raised, something neither the Selectric nor other common typewriters of the time could do."
Not true, I've seen at least one testimony on FR about the ability to make the "th" superscripts with IBM typewriters available in the early 70s.
Furthermore, although the resolution is very low, I'm almost certain that the character serifs in the CBS pdf are not of the 'curvy' Times Roman type. Times New Roman was used in the MS Word document prepared by Charles Johnson of the LGF blog.
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