'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake

Phil Skayhan · Post by **Phil Skayhan** » 2004-09-10 11:02am

If CBS has the originals, they are not going to release them until they have run them by several experts (who will be named this time). CBS realizes that the other media outlets can smell blood in the water and would love the chance to pounce on Rather and CBS if they can show the documents are fake.

If they do turn out to be forgeries, I almost feel sorry for the source of these memos.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-09-10 11:29am

Kuja wrote:Not that I necessarily believe Durandal's theory, just pointing that out.

It's just a conspiracy theory. Honestly, I still think the best explanation is that they're real. Killian's family doesn't carry a whole lot of weight with me. In the military, there are simply certain things that you document, typist or not. Hell, not being a typist would explain a lot of the nitpicks and details that people like Beowulf have pointed out.

CNN claims that they interviewed associates of Killian about the memos, and that those associates said the memos accurately reflected Killian's feelings at the time. And the White House still hasn't bothered to dispute the documents' authenticity. Bush should be well aware of what was going on at that time, so he'd know whether or not they were real.

These documents were uncovered by the Department of Defense after searching a file that they'd previously neglected to search because of a 24-month flight record retention policy. If these documents were forged, then they must have been commissioned by someone who had the power to slip them into the DoD. And again, I reiterate, why would someone with that kind of influence do a half-assed forgery job?

And honestly, all these armchair forensic-expert bloggers claiming that a document created in Word "matches up perfectly" are just full of shit. As you can see from my superimposition, they don't even come close. In fact, the documents in question have inconsistent lines and are far from perfectly straight on the page, which is what we'd expect from a typewriter, not a modern word processor. Or did Microsoft suddenly create a "Document Forgery Wizard"?

The best thing to do would be to date the originals. However, I have a feeling that they're going to do precisely that, find out that they're authentic documents and then let the story quietly die, so most people will still believe they were fakes.

Phil Skayhan · Post by **Phil Skayhan** » 2004-09-10 11:41am

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from my reading of the news stories including 60 Minutes version, the memo did not come from the DoD files but were independantly supplied to CBS. Otherwise, the memos would have been an AP story and not CBS's.

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2004-09-10 11:47am

IAW the consensus establishing itself, I'd have to "me too" and say that the only way to properly resolve the dispute is to call in actual experts to examine the originals.

Also, whether or not the guy customarily wrote and/or typed notes is irrelevant. Either they're fakes or they're real. If they're fakes, then that's that. If not, then it's irrelevant if he didn't usually type or make notes of things. A long-established principle in the military, as in any bureaucracy, is CYA, and that's what those sorts of notes are for. One doesn't normally get to become a lieutenant colonel without learning to cover one's six.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-09-10 11:59am

Phil Skayhan wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but from my reading of the news stories including 60 Minutes version, the memo did not come from the DoD files but were independantly supplied to CBS. Otherwise, the memos would have been an AP story and not CBS's.

No, the memos were released under the FoIA to the AP.

From Mike's thread on this topic ...

Months after insisting it could find no more records of President Bush's Air National Guard service, the Defense Department has released more than two dozen pages of files, including Bush's report card for flight training and dates of his flights.

...

The Pentagon and Bush's campaign have claimed for months that all records detailing his fighter pilot career have been made public, but defense officials acknowledged Tuesday they had found two dozen new records detailing his training and flight logs after the AP sued and submitted new requests under the public records law.

"Previous requests from other requesters for President Bush's Individual Flight Records did not lead to the discovery of these records because at the time President Bush left the service, flight records were subject to retention for only 24 months and we understood that neither the Air Force nor the Texas Air National Guard retained such records thereafter," the Pentagon told the AP.

"Out of an abundance of caution," the government "searched a file that had been preserved in spite of this policy" and found the Bush records, the letter said. "The Department of Defense regrets this oversight during the previous search efforts."

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-09-10 12:06pm

Incorrect.

The CBS documents came from a DNC opposition research staffer who obtained them from a 'retired military officer.' more than six weeks ago.

The original site is down, but here's a FR repost of the Prowler article.

More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.

The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military officer." According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.

"More than a couple people heard about the papers," says the DNC staffer. "I've heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much. When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their authenticity."

The concerns arose from the sourcing. "It wasn't clear that our source for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn't confirm from what file, from what original source they came from."

The documents that CBS News used were not documents from any of Bush's personnel files from his time in the National Guard. Rather, CBS News stated that they were documents uncovered in the personnel files of Killian. That would explain why the White House or the Pentagon had never before released or even seen them.

According to a Kerry campaign source, there was little gossip about the supposedly hot documents inside the office of the campaign on McPherson Square. "Those documents were not something anyone was talking about or trying to generate buzz on," says the staffer. "It wasn't like there were small groups of people talking about this as a bombshell. I think people here weren't sure what to make of it, because provenance of these documents was uncertain."

These documents had nothing to do with the AP's FoIA request.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2004-09-10 12:11pm

First off who or what is the Prowler?

Second, why not include the title "Anatomy of a Forgery"...seems someone's made their mind up already there eh?

And lastly, why not include the rest of the article in your repost here?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-09-10 12:14pm

It sounds like we're talking about two things at once here: there are documents from the DoD showing clearly that he missed a physical exam and did not show up for duty when his unit went on a mission. There are also missing documents which should be present when someone misses a physical exam or doesn't show up for a mission.

There are also documents (these must be the ones associated with CBS) purportedly showing that one of his superiors was pressured to sugarcoat his performance reviews. Those are the ones under attack.

In other words, even if the latter set of documents is a forgery, the former is still a massive disproof of his claims, and it strongly hints at what the latter supposedly confirms: a sugar-coating of his performance reviews.

Not that I'm a big fan of conspiracy theories, but the timing of the discovery of these documents would be a rather fascinating coincidence if they do turn out to be fakes, because they came out around the same time as the indisputably real DoD documents showing pretty much the same thing: that he skipped a flight exam, didn't show up for a mission, and was grounded. By associating the two as one, the real revelations get discredited along with the fake ones.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-09-10 12:20pm

And lastly, why not include the rest of the article in your repost here?

To save bandwidth. Why repost an entire article when I linked it and you can look it up yourself at your leisure

The prowler is the online version of American Spectator magazine.

As far as the title goes, I didn't name the article.

The point is that the source of the documents, whether they are true or false, wasn't the AP's FoIA request that produced the records Durandal and Mike are talking about. CBS acquired them on their own.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-09-10 12:34pm

Darth Wong wrote:It sounds like we're talking about two things at once here: there are documents from the DoD showing clearly that he missed a physical exam and did not show up for duty when his unit went on a mission. There are also missing documents which should be present when someone misses a physical exam or doesn't show up for a mission.

There are also documents (these must be the ones associated with CBS) purportedly showing that one of his superiors was pressured to sugarcoat his performance reviews. Those are the ones under attack.

Exactly.

No one is arguing that the DoD sourced documents are fake, and those are the more damning ones.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-09-10 12:45pm

It appears that someone stole my idea.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-10 12:58pm

You know, it's not like a group with the resources of the Republican party wouldn't tear apart everything in their path looking for signs of forgery. The makers of this couldn't be stupid enough to think it'd get overlooked, could they?

Of course, this brings to mind a downright disturbing but admittably masterful possibility: This faked memo was leaked to CBS, just so it could be shown to be a forgery, and cast doubt on the entire release of info by using the same methods used to associate Saddam and A-Q.

Someone please tell me the RNP isn't that good.

EDIT: RNP not RNC, ya goofball...

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-09-10 01:02pm

The term is "GOP"

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-10 01:03pm

phongn wrote:The term is "GOP"

I bah on you and your correct terminology.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-09-10 01:05pm

If this does turn out to be a fake (by no means a solid conclusion at this point) and it was orchestrated by a person sympathetic (or connected) to the GOP, it's absolutely brilliant. Every time the DoD information release and its devastating information will be mentioned from here on in, people will associate it with "forgery" and dismiss it.

Not to belabour a point, but compare the speed of these attacks with the laggardly Democratic response to the Swift boat ads. The Republicans are simply far better at this game than the Democrats right now.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-09-10 01:38pm

http://www.drudgereport.com/cbsd2.htm

Rather is still sticking by the documents.

CBS News is either going to come out of this looking absolutely fantastic or with their credibility completely shot.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-09-10 02:11pm

I vote shot credibility.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2004-09-10 02:12pm

Darth Wong wrote:If this does turn out to be a fake (by no means a solid conclusion at this point) and it was orchestrated by a person sympathetic (or connected) to the GOP, it's absolutely brilliant. Every time the DoD information release and its devastating information will be mentioned from here on in, people will associate it with "forgery" and dismiss it.

Not to belabour a point, but compare the speed of these attacks with the laggardly Democratic response to the Swift boat ads. The Republicans are simply far better at this game than the Democrats right now.

It's probably another one of Karl Rove's campaign plotting.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-09-10 03:19pm

I've been trying to get any info I can on my father's service record since he died 12 years ago. I've received letters saying many records were destroyed in a fire in some records room in early 1973 or so. My dad served in Korea...I think. That's how much he talked about it. The closest I got to any record was one the army sent me from someone named Arthur Wayne Powell, and I believed he served in Vietnam, completely incorrect SSI number, completely incorrect birthday. (My dad's full name is Wayne Arthur Poe, and so is mine!)

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2004-09-10 05:16pm

Kos on the subject

Daily Kos wrote: TANG Typewriter Follies; Wingnuts Wrong
by Hunter
Fri Sep 10th, 2004 at 15:37:04 GMT

(From the diaries -- kos)

Against my own better judgment, but because I believe that the more rapidly charges are countered, the better, I spend a goodly portion of the last day researching -- shudder -- typewriters of the '60s and '70s. As everyone on the planet no doubt knows by now, the hard-right of the freeper contingent -- specifically, LittleGreenFootballs, a site which frequently is cited for eliminationist rhetoric and veiled racism, and PowerLine, a site linked to with admiration by such luminaries as Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt -- discovered that if you used the same typeface, you could make documents that looked almost -- but not exactly -- like the TANG documents discovered by CBS News. This qualifies as big news, of course, so from those two sites, the story has spread into the mainstream media through the usual channels, most notably Drudge, NRO, etc.

I do not believe there is any truly "new" information here, but I hope to condense it in one easy-to-digest reference.

So here are some point-by-point findings re: the "forgeries".

Diaries :: Hunter's diary ::
First Claim (LittleGreenFootballs): "The documents can be recreated in Microsoft Word".

What the LGFer did to "prove" this was to type a Microsoft Word document in Times New Roman font, and overlay it with the original document. As he says:

Notice that the date lines up perfectly, all the line breaks are in the same places, all letters line up with the same letters above and below, and the kerning is exactly the same. And I did not change a single thing from Word's defaults; margins, type size, tab stops, etc. are all using the default settings.

We're going to make this simple.

First, of course, in order to do this, he first had to reduce the document so that the margins were the same, since the original PDF distributed by CBS is quite a bit larger. Then he superimposed the two documents, such that the margins on all sides lined up.

What he then discovered is that Times New Roman typeface is, when viewed on a computer monitor, really, really similar to Times New Roman typeface. Or rather, really really similar to a typeface that is similar to Times New Roman typeface.

Um, OK then.

You see, a "typeface" doesn't just consist of the shape of the letters. It also is a set of rules about the size of the letters in different point sizes, the width of those letters, and the spacing between them. These are all designed in as part of the font, by the designer. Since Microsoft Word was designed to include popular and very-long-used typefaces, it is hardly a surprise that those typefaces, in Microsoft Word, would look similar to, er, themselves, on a typewriter or other publishing device. That's the point of typefaces; to have a uniform look across all publishing devices. To look the same. You could use the same typeface in, for example, OpenOffice, and if it's the same font, surprise-surprise, it will look the same.

So kudos on discovering fonts, freeper guy.

Next, however: do they really match up? Well, no. They don't.

If you shrink each document to be approximately 400-500 pixels across, they do indeed look strikingly similar. But that is because you are compressing the information they contain to 400-500 pixels across. At that size, subtle differences in typeface or letter placement simply cannot be detected; the "pixels" are too big. If you compare the two documents at a larger size, the differences between them are much more striking.

For instance: In the original CBS document, some letters "float" above or below the baseline. For example, in the original document, lowercase 'e' is very frequently -- but not always -- above the baseline. Look at the word "interference", or even "me". Typewriters do this; computers don't. Granted, if you are comparing a lowercase 'e' that is only 10 or 12 pixels high with another lowercase 'e' that is only 10 or 12 pixels high, you're not going to see such subtleties. That doesn't prove the differences aren't there; it just proves you're an idiot, for making them each 12 pixels high and then saying "see, they almost match!"

"This typeface -- Times New Roman -- didn't exist in the early 1970s."

There are several problems with this theory. First, Times New Roman, as a typeface, was invented in 1931. Second, typewriters were indeed available with Times New Roman typefaces.

And third, this isn't Times New Roman, at least not the Microsoft version. It's close. But it's not a match.

For example, the '8' characters are decidedly different. The '4's, as viewable on other memos, are completely different; one has an open top, the other is closed.

So yes, we have proven that two typefaces that look similar to each other are indeed, um, similar. At least when each document is shrunk to 400-500 pixels wide... and you ignore some of the characters.

"Documents back then didn't have superscripted 'th' characters"

That one was easy. Yes, many typewriter models had shift-combinations to create 'th', 'nd', and 'rd'. This is most easily proven by looking at known-good documents in the Bush records, which indeed have superscripted 'th' characters interspersed throughout.

"This document uses proportional spacing, which didn't exist in the early 1970s."

Turns out, it did. The IBM Executive electric typewriter was manufactured in four models, A, B, C, and D, starting in 1947, and featured proportional spacing. An example of its output is here. It was an extremely popular model, and was marketed to government agencies.

"OK, fine, but no single machine had proportional spacing, 'th' characters, and a font like that one."

No, again. The IBM Executive is probably the most likely candidate for this particular memo. There is some confusion about this, so to clear up: the IBM Selectric, while very popular, did not have proportional spacing. The Selectric Composer, introduced in 1966, did, and in fact could easily have produced these memos, but it was a very expensive machine, and not likely to be used for light typing duties. The proportional-spacing Executive, on the other hand, had been produced in various configurations since the 1940's, and was quite popular.

(Note: However, it is not immediately clear that the Selectrics and Selectric IIs could not in fact emulate "proportional" spacing. There is skepticism in some circles that these memos really show "proportional" spacing. Looking at the blowups, it appears pretty obvious to me that there is, but still researching.)

Did they have a font that looked like Times New Roman? Unclear; they apparently were manufactured in a range of configurations, and with different available typefaces. Note that these were not "typeball" machines, like the Selectrics; they had a normal row of keys. But it is worth noting that IBM had what we will call a "close" relationship with Times New Roman:

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.)

So, as you can see, both IBM and Microsoft specifically obtained the typeface "Times New Roman" from the designers of that font; neither was the creator of it. And, as we said before, typeface includes not just the "shape" of the letters, but the size and spacing between those letters.

One of the differences between the Times New Roman as implemented on the IBM machines, as opposed to Microsoft Word? The IBM machines apparently had the alternative '4' character that matched these memos, while Microsoft Word's TNR does not.

Oops.

Now, would the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron have extravagantly purchased typewriters that contained the th superscript key? Would the military want or require typewriters with the 'th', 'nd', and 'rd' characters? Hmm. Ponder, Ponder. What would the 111th need with a th character... I'll leave that to the enterprising among you to deduce.

This is not the final word on this, and it is certainly possible that any documents are forgeries. But the principle argument of the freepers -- that it would be impossible for a TANG office in 1972 to produce documents that look like these -- is simply false. Within a few days, however, we should know for sure either way; these typewriters still have a following, and type samples should be forthcoming.

Update [2004-9-10 4:26:25 by Hunter]: Also see kj's diary just after this one, for evidence on the IBM Selectric Composer, first marketed in 1966. This machine definitively had all the features necessary to produce these documents. Because it was apparently very expensive and difficult to use, the argument is that a TANG office would never have had one. Unclear. Nonetheless, it strikes down the theory that a 60s-70s era machine could not have produced these docs.

Update [2004-9-10 5:48:19 by Hunter]: Here is an excellent article explaining the recent history of Times New Roman in particular. Note that Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, and other firms redesigned their "Times [New] Roman" typefaces in the 80s-90s specifically to more accurately match the original design of Times New Roman:
When Microsoft produced its version of Times New Roman, licensed from Monotype, in TrueType format, and when Apple produced its version of Times Roman, licensed from Linotype, in TrueType format, the subtle competition took on a new aspect, because both Microsoft and Apple expended a great deal of time and effort to make the TrueType versions as good as, or better than, the PostScript version. During the same period, Adobe released ATM along with upgraded versions of its core set of fonts, for improved rasterization on screen. Also, firms like Imagen, now part of QMS, and Sun developed rival font scaling technologies, and labored to make sure that their renderings of Times, licensed from Linotype in both cases, were equal to those of their competitors. Hence, the perceived quality of the Times design became a litmus for the quality of several font formats. Never before, and probably never again, would the precise placement of pixels in the serifs or 's' curves etc. of Times Roman occupy the attention of so many engineers and computer scientists. It was perhaps the supreme era of the Digital Fontologist.
So as you can see, it has indeed been a primary design goal of Microsoft and other firms to make their Times New Roman font match the original 1930's typeface design as closely as possible.

Update [2004-9-10 6:47:49 by Hunter]: Here is an actual manual for an IBM Selectric Composer, circa 1966, itself created using a Composer.

Update [2004-9-10 14:26:41 by Hunter]: This is from a commenter at Kevin Drum's Washington Monthly site:
Kevin, I worked in the IBM Office Products Division field service area fixing typewriters in NYC for over 13 years in the 70s. I can tell you that the Model D can produce those documents, not only did it do proportional spacing, you could order any font that IBM produced AND order keys that had the aftmentioned superscripted "th." Also you could order the platen, thats the roller that grabs the paper, in a 54 tooth configuration that produced space, space and a half and double spacing on the line indexing, this BTW was popular in legal offices. The Model D had to be ordered from a IBM salesmen and was not something that was a off the shelf item, typical delivery time were 4-6 weeks. Also, typewriter keys were changed in the field all the time, its not that hard to do. I wish I had saved my service and parts replacement manuals to backup this claim but I'm guessing a call to IBM with a request for a copy of their font and parts replacement manuals would put this to rest ASAP. Posted by: BillG NYC on September 10, 2004 at 12:24 PM | PERMALINK
FYI, but I have found nothing that contradicts this information. It would appear you could order the humble IBM Executive with a wide variety of typestyles and characters, especially if you were a large, important client.

Talon Karrde · Post by **Talon Karrde** » 2004-09-10 05:53pm

Here's my problem with it. If CBS is so sure about the autheticity of these docouments, why not release the names of those experts who have proven their authenticity and their reasons for doing so. Just because Dan Rather comes out and says, "We stand by our story," proves nothing. If he wants to eliminate any cause for doubt, why not prove it? If they could prove their authenticity to put them on air, why would it be so hard to prove it now?

Alex Moon · Post by **Alex Moon** » 2004-09-10 07:05pm

Here's a list of all the arguments against the memo so far.

The blogosphere has been all over the CBS documents, but all the information is parceled out in penny packets all over the place. At the request of a reader, I thought I'd try to consolidate them into a single post. This is not canonical, of course, just the stuff I know about.

Typographical Arguments

1. The use of superscripted "th" in unit names, e.g. 187th. This was a highly unusual feature, available only on extremely expensive typewriters at the time.
2. The use of proportional fonts was, similarly, restricted to a small number of high-end typewriters.
3. The text of the memos appear to use letter kerning, a physical impossibility for any typewriter at the time.
4. Apostrophes in the documents use curled serifs. Typewriters used straight hash marks for both quotation marks and apostrophes.
5. The font appears indistinguishable from the Times New Roman computer font. While the Times Roman and Times fonts were rare, but available, in some typewriters at the time, the letters in Times Roman and Times took up more horizontal space than Times New Roman does. Times New Roman is exclusively a computer font.
6. Reproductions of the memos in Microsoft Word using 12pt TNR and the default Word page setup are indistinguishable from the memos when superimposed.
7. The typed squadron letterhead is centered on the page, an extremely difficult operation to perform manually.
8. Several highly reputable forensic document specialists have publicly stated their opinions that the documents were most likely computer generated, and hence, are forgeries.
9. The numeral 4 has no "foot" serif and a closed top. This is indicative of the Times New Roman Font, used exclusively by computers.

Stylistic Arguments

1. The memos do not use the proper USAF letterhead, in required use since 1948. Instead they are typed. In general, typed letterhead is restricted to computer-generated orders, which were usually printed by teletype, chain printer or daisy-wheel printer, the latter looking like a typed letter. Manually typed correspondence is supposed to use official USAF letterhead. However, even special orders, which used a typed letterhead, were required to use ALL CAPS in the letterhead.
2. The typed Letterhead gives the address as "Houston, Texas". The standard formulation for addresses at USAF installations should require the address to read "Ellington AFB, Texas".
3. Killian's signature block should read:

RICHARD B. KILLIAN, Lt Col, TexANG
Commander

This is the required USAF formulation for a signature block.
4. Lt Col Killian's signature should be aligned to the left side of the page. Indented signature blocks are not a USAF standard.
5. The rank abbreviations are applied inconsistently and incorrectly, for example the use of periods in USAF rank abbreviations is incorrect. The modern formulation for rank abbreviations for the lieutenant grades in the USAF is 2Lt and 1Lt. In 1973, it may well have been 2nd Lt and 1st Lt, but that certainly wasn't correct in 1984, when I entered active duty, so I find the rank abbreviation questionable, and, in any event, they would not have included periods. Lt Col Killian's abbreviations are pretty much universally incorrect in the memos.
6. The unit name abbreviations use periods. This is incorrect. USAF unit abbreviations use only capital letters with no periods. For example, 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron would be abbreviated as 111th FIS, not 111th F.I.S.
7. The Formulation used in the memos, i.e., "MEMORANDOM FOR 1st Lt. Bush..." is incorrect. A memo would be written on plain (non-letterhead) paper, with the top line reading "MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD".
8. An order from a superior, directing a junior to perform a specific task would not be in the memorandum format as presented. Instead, it would use the USAF standard internal memo format, as follows:

FROM: Lt Col Killian, Richard B.

SUBJECT: Annual Physical Examination (Flight)

TO: 1Lt Bush, George W.

Documents that are titled as MEMORANDUM are used only for file purposes, and not for communications.
9. The memos use the formulation "...in accordance with (IAW)..." The abbreviation IAW is a universal abbreviation in the USAF, hence it is not spelled out, rather it is used for no other reason than to eliminate the word "in accordance with" from official communications. There are several such universal abbreviation, such as NLT for "no later than".
10. The title of one of the memos is CYA, a popular euphemism for covering one's...ahem...posterior. It is doubtful that any serving officer would use such a colloquialism in any document that might come under official scrutiny.

Personal Arguments

1. The records purport to be from Lt Col Killian's "personal files", yet, they were not obtained from his family, but through some unknown 3rd party. It is an odd kind of "personal file" when the family of a deceased person is unaware of the file's existence and it is not in their possession.
2. Both Lt Col Killian's wife and son, as well as the EAFB personnel officer do not find the memos credible.
3. Keeping such derogatory personal memos , while at the same time, writing glowing OERs for Mr. Bush would be unwise for any officer. At best, it would raise serious questions about why his private judgments differed so radically from his official ones, should they ever come to light. At worst, they would raise questions about whether Lt Col Killian falsified official documents. As Lt Col Killian's son, himself a retired USAF officer, has said, nothing good can come of keeping such files.

The reasons above constitute a very reasonable basis for serious questions about the legitimacy of the memos distributed by CBS. In light oif them, it seems to me that CBS has a positive duty to disclose as much information about the provenance and authenticity of the memos as possible. So far, their response has been, "We think they're true, so do not question us!" That is an understandable reaction, and, indeed, it's much the same as that of the German magazine Stern, when it claimed to have found Adolph Hitler's diaries in the 1980s.

It is not a helpful response, however, and it indicates that CBS is, at this point, far more interested in performing CYA operations than it is in getting to the bottom of these questions.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-09-10 07:36pm

Talon Karrde wrote:Here's my problem with it. If CBS is so sure about the autheticity of these docouments, why not release the names of those experts who have proven their authenticity and their reasons for doing so. Just because Dan Rather comes out and says, "We stand by our story," proves nothing. If he wants to eliminate any cause for doubt, why not prove it? If they could prove their authenticity to put them on air, why would it be so hard to prove it now?

Lemme see ... because those experts only agreed to certify the documents under a condition of anonymity? Honestly, if someone brought me a photograph and asked me if, in my expert opinion, I thought it had been doctored, I wouldn't want my name to go along with it, just in case I was wrong.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-09-10 09:02pm

Excellent summation, Alex.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-09-10 09:17pm

Once it's confirmed that these documents could have originated from a 1970's typewriter (or that they actually did), the burden of proof for everyone claiming forgery shoots sky-high. Things like improper signature blocks and the use of periods in acronyms aren't anywhere near enough on their own to discredit a document, especially when the author of said documents was not a very good typist, according to his immediate family. They're nitpicks that can simply be explained by human error.