Typewriter Expert can't duplicate Guard memos using IBM Composer

The Shape of Days Blog ^ | 9-10-04 10:34 PM | J Harrell

[handy]

When I first heard back from Gerry, I felt a little bad for having bothered him. He'd been fielding calls and letters all day, he told me, including an inquiry from CNN. But he was a trouper, willing — enthusiastic even — to help out.

I asked Gerry, in a fit of hubris, if he wouldn't mind trying to reproduce a sample from one of the CBS memos on his Selectric Composer. Just over an hour later, he emailed me back a sample, typed up on his Composer using the 11-point Press Roman type ball and scanned into his computer.

At first glance, the sample Gerry provided looks pretty darned close. The type is proportionally spaced, just like the type in the CBS memos. Gerry was also able to reproduce the now-infamous superscripted "th," though he had a disclaimer about that.

snip

The most obvious discrepancy was that the line-spacing — what typographers call leading (rhymes with "shredding") — was off. I e-mailed Gerry about this, and he replied: "Yes, if I had really tried, I could have matched the spacing (leading). The leading on the composer can be finely adjusted. Don't know if it is down to the single point level, but it probably is since you can set the leading according to the font, and the leading dial goes from something like 6pt up to 14pt."

Much better … and pretty darned close to the original. But not close enough.

[Travis McGee]

True, that has worked in the past, and they take it for granted. But this time, the blogosphere has been added to talk radio and FOX, and they can no longer stonewall a story. The success of the Swifties has proven it.

Another factor: the old-fashioned legacy news mags are raring to sink their teeth into this story, and become relevent again (at least for a week.) This type of side-by-side forgery story is their forte. Think "Hitler Diaries" exposes. You can bet that the non-CBS news weeklies are working overtime as we type, to break this story open. And there is only one way it can break: forgery.

PS, somebody came up with a great "Sore-Loserman" type slogan:

KERRY-EDWARDS: FORGING AHEAD!

[Lazamataz]

Hm. Hope you are right.

I'm planning to do that boat thing in the next few years. :o)

[Publius6961]

"The story is true. The story is true," Rather said. "The questions raised in the story are serious and legitimate questions."

What's the frequency Kenneth?

First of all, there is no story, at least as you intended it.

The story is someone tried to foist a forgery onto our political system, and you swallowed the bait. You idiot. That's the "story".

No honest man can be scammed without either sharing the ethics of the scammer, or not being very bright.

[Squantos]

Yep......they are in scream mode for sure !.

Stay safe !

[sirchtruth]

Yes they know they are exposed as liars, outright. But that won't stop them. They'll still move right on to the next lie. They won't look back. They won't apologize. They will just go right on to the next deception.

Good point Laz. They somehow do not see truth as relevant, which is not there fault, it's the majority of people that will not hold them accountable for misrepresentation.

[Publius6961]

John Kerry strangled three puppies with his bare hands last night in his hotel room and ate them for breakfast.

Stop worrying about whether what I reported is fake or not. Look at what it says.

Dan Rather was arrested last night for violation of probation as a child molester.
Don't be an idiot and question the provenance of the document, the important thing is what is says. I is a perfeshunil jirnalist!

[handy]

Hi... Did you read the article in total that is posted here. I think the most compelling proof is that the memos could not possibly have been centered on any typewriter at that time, that consistently.

Yep, saw that. That was complelling, but I thought picutres were the most compelling. Even an admitted specialist on the IMB composer could not replicate the memos.

[Sofa King]

Even if it was possible (the only evidence of which DUers have seems to be "I bet I could do it"), you have to ask yourself why this guy would have gone through so much trouble to type it like this in the first place. If this was a standard memo, they'd be able to dig up other memos to compare it to, showing that there's nothing odd about it. I have yet to see any.

[BIGLOOK]

While on flight status, notification to show up for a flight physical was delivered verbally by a clerk. He'd say something like "You've got a flight physical scheduled for 0700 tomorrow, don't forget" Formal orders were for TAD/TDY or change of station, not for reporting to the dispensary.

[handy]

This kind of stuff should be forwarded to as many new agencies as possible.

I agree, and I did. But wouldn't this be the first thing you would think of if you were a journalist? I mean it's so obvious. Can we replicate then memos with a typewriter? duh! I'm convinced the guys that went to journalism school could not cut it in my world (CPA, CFA, fixed income trading). Clearly could not cut it in the law profession (Power Line & Instapundit eat their lunch). They are just so lazy & gullible. Sure they can type better than me, but they can't out-think the people on this web site & the blogs. No way.

[The KG9 Kid]

"... I have been saying the same thing. I also question the possiblity that the ANG was using the top of the line, newest techonolgy available equipment in the office. I suspect they were using surplus junkers."

The lefties have been saying that Bush was deliberately sent to an ANG unit that flew 'obsolete' fighters so that daddy's boy would never be called to serve in Vietnam -- yet this same 'obsolete' unit had cutting-edge typewriter technology that could perform a pagination regimen that didn't even exist yet.

Worst. Hoax. Ever.

[faithincowboys]

You know what would be interesting to know-- how long he spent and how many mess ups he made to not be able to duplicate it.

[handy]

Your list is OUTSTANDING, and overwhelming.... I hope you have taken steps to distribute it WIDELY, to folks like Hannity, Rush and others......

It's not my list. The growing list of reasons this is a fraud was the creation of mabelkitty who deserves a TON of applause!

[Binghamton_native]

If any Freepers know how to get the attention of folks at Fox News, they should suggest that Fox News stop parroting the CBS justification of the memos based on the "th". First, Fox News should continually report that there are many other problems with the memos, and second, as has been pointed out here on Free Republic many times, the superscript "th" CBS is ranting about is not the same as the superscript "th" produced by modern word processors.

I was just listening as Tony Snow reported on the memos, and all he did in telling that CBS stod by the memos was to again mention that CBS says the "th" was present in other memos of the time. Tony, you need to say more!

[DameAutour]

This is an excellent article. To sum up some of the points:

1. There is probably only one machine that existed in the early seventies that could have created these memos: The IBM Selectric Composer. But the Composer is not really a typewriter, it is more like a typesetting machine. In 1973 dollars, it would have cost upwards of $16,000.

2. Gerry Kaplan, who operates the only website dedicated to the IBM Selectric Composer, attempted to duplicate a sample from one of the memos on his Composer. Here is the result:

As you can see, the Composer was able to create the superscript and it is proportionally spaced. So at first glance it looks pretty close to the memos. But here is what you get when you superimpose what the Composer produced on top of the actual memos (red is from the Composer, black is the actual memo):

As anyone can see right away, these do not match up. The second and fourth lines are completely off. It is becoming increasingly unlikely that the IBM Composer, the most advanced "typewriter" of the time, created these memos. Just to get it as close as he did (and that's still not very close), Mr. Kaplan had to do a lot of manipulating. So much so that it is highly unlikely that a non-typist like Killian would have gone to all the trouble.

3. Another thing that points toward a forgery is the perfect centering of the head. This is what convinced Gerry Kaplan that the whole thing is a hoax. The letterheads on two of the memos (supposedly created months apart) were perfectly centered and when superimposed on one another, match exactly. You couldn't do this on a Composer. It's hard enough to get it so perfect once, but for Killian to be able to do it AGAIN, months later? The final test was to see if this perfect letterhead could be created on MS Word. Here it is, with Word superimposed over the actual memo:

They match perfectly. This is a scam.

[Fawnn]

You can turn off superscript and subscript in Microsoft Word's autocorrect.

There's another option if you don't want the autocorrect version to appear -- e.g., you want to keep (c) instead of having ©. All you have to do after the program "autocorrects" your typing is hit control+z and it changes back to your original entry. The hit space or your next letter and continue typing (or your data entry).

Not only was Rather's forger inept, he was lazy, too. ;)

[cdubya]

He was stationed at Ellington AFB located just outside of Houston, TX.

[sdkhaki]

ping for later

[namvetcav]

Re: #25
I haven't seen anyone reply to you and I too have wondered about this matter. Where are the originals? Why are there even Xerox copies? Why would some obscure joker copy a few obscure papers and have them available for a secret pass off to CBS? Why aren't there more copies of obscure papers that would support the fours Xerox memos? Why can't we answer these questions?

The problem is that this vital information is being closely held. The derivative speculation about why it's closely held serves CBS in some way. Why is that? Who could know? Asking questions about CBS may lead to answers you don't like . . . and so forth. This helps CBS but why does it do that?

My reaction to all this is something like the movie character General Buck Turgison in "Strangelove", "I smell a big fat commie rat!"

The jerks at CBS are jerking us around but they seem to have a monopoly on the inside info. I speculate that if any part of it really helped them, they would have disclosed it by now. Also, holding it back, especially to CBS' peers, gets unprofessional fast. When you're serving truth and virtue (if CBS does such a thing) but cause your MSM peers to waste great efforts and expense because you're deceptively coy about provenance, it causes hard feelings. "We at CBS wanted to look dishonest for a while so you could waste your time." I doubt that people involved in a serious profession can get away with that in public.

It seems like an excellent bet that CBS is actually dishonest and its' source is important for partisans to hide. The reality is that copies suck and are bad evidence. Handwriting analysis is stupid on copies. Why CBS thinks that the "nth" generation copy excuse is useful is truly pathetic. It does cause them problems when we rightly ask, "Why don't you have the original and why didn't you release the best copy and explain why it got copied and the original got destroyed?" This matters when they say that experts validate the CBS position.

[Revel]

You can stop word from doing the superscript. Just leave a space before the "th". Then click before the "th" and delete the space. You do end up with "147th" with no superscript. You don't even have to turn anything off. Whoever typed this fraud was not very bright for many reasons.