I’m an Expert, Dammit!
Even I think I am spending way too much time on the Killian memo issue, but I’m visiting it again because, dammit, I’m an expert. And I don’t think they are forgeries.
I studied typography as an academic discipline (circa 1971) as part of the old journalism school curriculum at U of Missouri. I spent roughly 30 years in the book publishing business, most of which was on the production side dealing with type compositors and printers. I have worked with typography and printing processes from the end of the raised-metal-type era to current digital technology. I have designed and written complete type specifications for more books than I can remember.
As a production editor in the 1980s I became especially good at measuring the type in books to be reprinted so that corrections could be made by patching the film. To do that, I had to measure the old type and match font, body size, ledding, and letter spacing exactly. This is not a skill people need much any more, since books are stored digitally. But I still know how to do it.
I’m bouncing around the web seeing wingnuts flying off about proportional letter spacing and kerning and whatnot, and I’m telling you these people are off the wall.
Why? Because, if you need to measure type (body size, ledding, letter spacing) and match it exactly, you have to work with original documents. If you are measuring a photocopy of an original document, the measurements can be off by half a point or more. If you are measuring a photocopy of a photocopy, the distortion grows to more than a point. If you are measuring a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy scanned into a PDF file, e.g. the Killian documents, forget it. The “kerning” and letter spacing you think you see may or may not exist on the original document. Probably not, in fact.
I know this because I learned it from my old film patching days. If all I had to work with was a photocopy, my patch wouldn’t match. I had to measure the original printed page.
So, let’s dispense with the “proportional type” theory. I’ve looked at the PDF files, and IMO the quality thereof is too far removed from the original (the wavy baselines are a dead giveaway) to know what the original type proportion was. And any “kerning” one might see is probably the result of distortion that occurs in photocopies that are generations removed from an original.
Now, let’s shift focus onto the capabilities of common electric typewriters, circa 1972. As I’ve already explained, the IBM Selectric was very common. By 1972 the offices of America had replaced old manual uprights for electric typewriters, and the Selectric II, introduced in 1971, was the best.
By the time I graduated college in 1973 it would have been shocking to walk into a business office and not see Selectric IIs or similar. It would have been as unusual as using a rotary phone today.
And Selectrics produced documents in a variety of type fonts, including Greek letters and all manner of esoteric scientific/mathematical symbols. You really could type open and close quotation parks and curly apostrophes. Superscript type was easily created by shifting. Even a reduced superscript “th” was technically possible, in spite of what the wingnuts are saying now.
It’s true that some whizbangs took a couple of extra steps. People ask, Why would Killian have gone to the trouble of creating a reduced superscript “th”? But we’re talking about the early 1970s here. Let’s be frank — in those dear departed times, real men did not touch typewriters. Trust me on this. It’s highly probable Killian scribbled a note and gave it to one of the office “girls” to type up for his signature. The office “girls” hardly ever bothered about putting their initials on such documents, in spite of what the secretarial practice books said. But the “girl” would have typed the document very nicely.
Finally, I understand the wingnuts find it astonishing that the type seen in the Killian documents can be reproduced exactly in word processing documents today. But to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of typography, this is not astonishing at all. Times Roman characters produced on a lintotype machine in 1960 will match Times Roman characters created in Microsoft Word today. If two Times Roman characters were not exactly the same, one of them would not be classic Times Roman type, but something else.
Type faces have been consistent for many generations. We still use some type faces that pre-date machine-made type, in fact; e.g., Garamond, still in use after four centuries.
I’ve collected a few books published and printed in the 19th century. I promise you it is possible to recreate the pages of those books digitally. You could set pages in Quark that exactly match the fonts, spacing, margins, etc.; save as PDF files; and “age” the files in PhotoShop, and I doubt any expert in the world could tell the difference by looks alone. Probably an analysis of ink and paper would reveal the difference, but that’s outside my expertise.
Today at Body and Soul, Jeanne d’Arc wrote about the way Right and Left deal with uncertainty — “In general, people on the left face uncertainty the way I did in that post — asking for answers, and weighing evidence (and often giving people with an ax to grind more credit than they deserve). On the right, ‘evidence’ is just whatever supports what you want to believe.”
Yes. And I am not writing this today for the “righties” who will believe whatever nonsense they have to believe to keep their heads from exploding. I’m writing for the “lefties” I’ve seen all over the Web today who are hanging their heads and ready to admit to forged documents.
Stop it. Just stop it. Could the Killian documents be forgeries? Could Paul Wolfowitz be a space alien? Anything is possible.
But there is no evidence I’ve seen so far that has persuaded me the documents are forgeries. And I’m the best expert I know.
September 10th, 2004 at 7:15 pm
Beautifully said.
I hope you got to see Dan Rather this evening defending the reporting and the memos and redirecting attention to what he considers the real questions (the ones about Bush’s service). It was pretty amazing–an anchorman actually acting like a journalist.
Of course I think the real issue isn’t even his service itself, it’s the 30 years of lies and cover-ups, going on to this day, and how that pattern of lying and distracting is consistent with the rest of his history and his record in office…
September 10th, 2004 at 7:19 pm
Itā€™s true that some whizbangs took a couple of extra steps. People ask, Why would Killian have gone to the trouble of creating a reduced superscript ā€œth”? But weā€™re talking about the early 1970s here. Letā€™s be frank ā€“ in those dear departed times, real men did not touch typewriters. Trust me on this. Itā€™s highly probable Killian scribbled a note and gave it to one of the office ā€œgirlsā€ to type up for his signature. The office ā€œgirlsā€ hardly ever bothered about putting their initials on such documents, in spite of what the secretarial practice books said. But the ā€œgirlā€ would have typed the document very nicely.
Oh my God. You’ve never served in the military, have you? Of all the asinine rationalizations I’ve read regarding these documents, this one takes the cake. You honestly believe what your wrote here, don’t you? I’m not saying that the wingnuts falling over themselves are not without fault, but give me a break.
But since you are an self proclaimed expert, answer me this: On memo number 1, how did the office “girl” manage to perfectly center the address heading? I’m talking about three lines, one of which has an odd number of characters/spaces and the other ones even? How can that be done on a typewriter? These three lines are perfectly centered.
Keep up the great work!
Sincerely,
Chris Nath
September 10th, 2004 at 7:52 pm
“On memo number 1, how did the office ā€œgirlā€ manage to perfectly center the address heading? Iā€™m talking about three lines, one of which has an odd number of characters/spaces and the other ones even? How can that be done on a typewriter? These three lines are perfectly centered.”
By counting. It’s a neat trick. However, in the “Memo to the File,” why do many of the letters “s” hang below the line? and the second “m” in the word Memo runs up hill. What word processor program is capable of such feats? I’m next going to check to see is all letters are formed identically. With respect to the letters “m”, they’re clearly not. phil
September 10th, 2004 at 10:55 pm
Oh, for Pete’s sake….
Each typewriter has a mark for the center of the page, if the left side of the page is flush against the left hand marker. One can move the Selectric typeface element to the page’s center, count the number of characters in the phrase to be typed, then move the typeball one space left for every two characters in the phrase.
Every person who took Typing, before computer keyboards, learned this. Sheesh.
September 11th, 2004 at 3:56 am
“Oh my God. Youā€™ve never served in the military, have you?”
Oh my God. You’re too young to remember the 1970s, aren’t you?
Re the centering flap — I learned to type in a high school class, ca. 1977. The class used old upright manuals. One of the things we learned was to center exactly. It took some calculation, but it was doable. Teacher took points off if our heads were not centered. Centered heads were actually quite a bit easier on electric typewriters, and typists centered heads all the time. Accurately.
Update: Come to think of it, I really did spend most of the summer of 1970 living on post at Fort Ord, California, although in a non-official capacity. I was visiting my older brother, an officer. And although observing the office work habits of the indigenous population was not one of my priorities at the time, I stand by my opinion that a high-ranking officer working in a stateside post in the 1970s would not have typed his own memos.
September 11th, 2004 at 4:53 am
Barbara,
You may well be the best expert you know, and I will defer in part to your expertise in typography, but not your apparent “chaos theory” that imperfections caused by spherical aberrations and amplified by successive generations of photocopies and/or faxes account for proportional spacing! I will concede that it is remotely possible that: 1) a small Texas Air National Guard unit had an IBM Executive 4 or similar model with Times New Roman font ball, proportional spacing, and superscript in 1973; 2) the “office girls’” to whom you refer took great pains to either use the typewriter’s superscript feature or manually produce this effect with the shift key on some, but not all abbreviations that would call for it (a most egregious violation of the “secretarial practice books”, no doubt); 3) the typist just happened to number each item, and then use two spaces after the period, just like what someone using MS Word would have to do to defeat the auto-format numbering macro function. Possible maybe, but that’s one heck of a lot to accept cumulatively, and there’s more. As for the “office girls”, I was in the USAF, first on active duty (1984 to 1988) and later in the GA Air National Guard (1990 to 1996). Even in the 80’s, many if not most admin people were men (don’t try making that “real men” not typing crack to them). My field of expertise in the Air Force was metrology (precise measurements and calibration of precision measurement equipment with standards traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology), and I’m now a licensed private investigator specializing in video and audio forensic enhancement and analysis. Now, I am NOT an expert on questioned document examination (neither are you actually) but I am qualified to state that even though it is impossible (as you correctly contend) to make absolute measurements from an undetermined generation copy, it IS possible to make relative measurements, as I detail in the next paragraph. That said, I am inclined to accept the professional opinions of questioned document examiners who ARE experts, many of whom have concluded that these are forgeries, including at least one Kerry supporter. By contrast, the questioned document expert employed by CBS specializes in handwriting, NOT typewriting, according to his own curriculum vitae.
I too learned to type before the advent of personal computers (on a hideous manual Royal typewriter) in the seventies, and am quite familiar with the technique of centering the page, counting the characters, dividing by two and backspacing accordingly. Here’s what bothers me about that theory: on the memo with the 111th FIS address at the top of the page, there are three centered lines, the first of which is centered on the lowercase “r” in the word “interceptor”, and backspaced 18 spaces. Odd, considering the number of total characters with spaces for this line is 34, yet there are 18 characters before the center character, and only 15 characters after the center character, but the line is still proportionally spaced and centered on the page. The next two lines are 15 spaces long, back spaced 8, and 20 spaces long, backspaced 10 spaces, respectively. Both the second and third lines conform to the manual centering convention, yet again, both lines appear to be perfectly and proportionally centered beneath the first, incorrectly backspaced line as well as each other. With what manner of typewriter is this possible? This miraculous and immaculate machine must have been issued to the most talented typist in the pool, because there don’t appear to be any corrections with fluid or eraser, or uncorrected typos; wow, no mistakes! Guess what else you don’t see? Not one hyphenated partial word at the end of any line followed by the remaining syllables on the following line on ANY of the “typed” pages. That’s extremely difficult to pull off with a typewriter, but easy with a word processor. In fact, the questioned documents just happen to correspond to word wrap defaults in MS Word set for standard margins, left margin justified. (As an aside, would any of Dan Rather’s apologists believe these are forgeries if the documents were left AND right justified?) As an example, most typists would instinctively split the word “running” on the first line of the “CYA” memo. Furthermore, said memo with the unit designation and address typed on the page is in stark contrast to actual authenticated documents from the same unit that were typed on pre-printed stationary bearing the proper parent unit (147th Fighter Intercept Group). As for actual authenticated documents from the same unit, they are all typed in a conventional “courier” font; the questioned documents tendered by CBS are the ONLY ones in the rare, coveted Times New Roman font. What makes the documents even more suspicious from a technical standpoint is that they appear to be properly formatted for standard 8.5 X 11″ paper. But all military stationary in that era was a non-standard size: 8 X 10.5″.
Now, let’s address the content of the memoranda: the infamous “CYA” memo dated 18 Aug 1973 states that “Staudt pressured [Bobby] Hodges more about Bush”. That’s a neat trick, considering that Staudt retired in 1972 and probably wasn’t applying pressure to anyone or anything save the occasional striped bass or golf ball. Next, the apparent critical tone of these memoranda is antithetical to the glowing narrative Lt. Col. Killian wrote in Lt. Bush’s fitness report. Finally, it is inconceivable that any officer would reduce to writing any participation, willing or not, in a scheme to backdate or otherwise falsify official records. That would be the exact opposite of covering one’s own backside. I am more inclined to believe the late officer’s son and wife, who stated that these documents would be completely out of character for the man, and that he did not have a home office or private “stash” of junior aviators’ records. Since a conclusive questioned document examination is probably out of the question, there is an alternative: have a forensic linguist compare the vocabulary, style, punctuation, and tone of the memos to known, authenticated samples authored by Lt. Col. Killian.
So why is all this important? Because if forgeries are confirmed, it demonstrates the desperate measures to which a blatantly biased “journalist” will resort to influence an election. It is not the “righty wingnuts” whose heads are ready to explode. If the “Anybody But Bush” Kerry supporters and surrogates get any more shrill, only dogs will be able to hear them. My God, there are even competing conspiracy theories: 1) Despite the obvious discrepancies, the documents are real; real I tell you! 2) The documents are forgeries, but the whole thing was orchestrated by Karl Rove to embarrass the democrats! I’m not trying to personally attack anyone, only to point out the tortured pretzel logic you’d have to accept to believe Dan Rather’s spin. He may never admit it, but he was duped because he wanted to believe. My suggestion is that you not drink the Koolaid he’s serving.
September 11th, 2004 at 5:24 am
Jeff, my dear genius, it appears the “experts” are being won over to my side. Read this and weep.
And when you’ve spent as much time as I have measuring little fragments of type to create a film patch, I will listen to your opinions about my “chaos theory.” I have years of EXPERIENCE that tell me I’m right. Correct, I mean.
September 11th, 2004 at 2:05 pm
Dear Barbara,
On my way to find a box of Kleenex, I found a report that Dr. Bouffard is angry about being misquoted and misrepresented in the Boston Globe article you cite: http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000859.php Hmm, is that the same Boston Globe that published photos from a porno site as authentic photos from Abu Graib?
None of the experts you cite (actually it’s just one expert) as having been “won over” to your side have addressed the factual inconsistencies I raised, such as the alleged source of pressure on Lt. Col. Killian (Gen. Staudt) having been retired at the time, or the fact that Lt. Bush wasn’t due for a physical until July (his birth month), or the implication that there was a shortage of pilots in the Air Guard, when there was in fact a glut of qualified pilots and the Air Force and Guard were trying to “thin out the herd”. What was it you said in your original post about the right searching only for evidence of their own conclusions? Paging Dr. Freud… Can you say “projection”?
You have many years of experience “measuring little fragments of type”. Congratulations; perhaps that explains the apparent obsession with minutiae. By contrast, I have 14 years of experience conducting civil and criminal investigations and obtaining evidence introduced in various Courts of Law. In the real world, triers of fact in a Court evaluate the credibility of witnesses who provide testimony and demonstrative exhibits. In the realm of reporting, different rules seem to apply. Dan Rather claims to have a preponderance of evidence. Really? By what standard? Robert Strong, who claimed according to the Globe that “the language in the documents was ‘compatible with the way business was done at that time. They are compatible with the man I remember Jerry Killian being.’” It seems more logical to believe the late Lt. Col. Killian’s son and wife, who both contradict this conclusion and repudiate the questioned documents. One of Rather’s producers interviewed both by telephone weeks before the story and declined to include them in the story, telling them in essence that their recollection did not support the predetermined conclusion of the segment. That, my dear Barbara, is not journalism; it’s advocacy. It is also intellectually lazy and dishonest. But hey, as long as it’s used to hammer George Bush, it’s OK, right (oops, sorry, correct)? The whole story about George W. Bush being “AWOL” or “a deserter” has become a giant tar baby from which democrats can’t seem to extract themselves. Democratic strategist Pat Caddell doesn’t even believe these documents are genuine.
Cheers,
Jeff
September 11th, 2004 at 3:27 pm
Having begun my work career in the ’70’s and having spent a fair amount of time at the keys of Selectrics, I concur with Ms. O’Brien.
That said…
Stay focused, people, eyes on the ball.
It’s not about the documents.
It’s about W’s inability to prove where he was 1972 through 1973.
It’s about this administration’s continued lying about this hole in W’s records.
It’s about the fact there was no clear and present danger from WMD in Iraq; that the clear and present danger from al Qaida was blatantly ignored, and OBL forgotten except as a political tool; it’s Clear Skies, Healthy Forests, every other environmental action this administration has taken has been on behalf of corporate interests and not that of the American public; it’s that this administration fails to protect the human rights of women, underfunds initiatives that impact our children’s education, fails our elderly with more corporate welfare via the Medicare system; that our status as world leader of democratic values has been trashed by the gutting of real international policy and by our failure to lead by example (Abu Ghraib and Gitmo being only two small examples); it’s that our future security is highly threatened, by massive deficits, through botching of anti-nuke proliferation policy, through arrogance towards our former allies.
Don’t let Rove use the sleight of hand on you to cloud your message. We already know the truth.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE DOCUMENTS.
IT’S ABOUT THIS ADMINISTRATION’S SCREWING UP LEFT AND RIGHT AND LYING ABOUT EVERYTHING.
IT’S ABOUT A MAJORITY OF THIS COUNTRY THAT DIDN’T VOTE FOR BUSH, NOW VOTING HIM OUT OF HIS APPOINTED OFFICE.
You have the power to take back this country, people. Just do it. Stay Focused.
Take a deep cleansing breath and help launch that vast, left-wing conspiracy by picking any one of the following and donating time or money NOW:
http://www.democracyforamerica.com
http://dfa.meetup.com
http://actblue.com/
http://www.americanprogress.org
http://www.moveon.org http://www.grassrootscampaigns.com/index.php
September 11th, 2004 at 5:42 pm
Let’s see: Mr. Spivak wasn’t in the military during the period in question, has no experience with the table of organization for a flying squardron of the Texas ANG that is co-located with its Group and Wing, has no expertise in typography or early 1970s office equipment, but he renders an opinion based on being a lawyer and involvement in calibration 20 years ago.
As for your question about centering the letter head, it’s a process called “tab stops” that we used on IBM Selectrics. When we had to type the same thing repeatedly in those dark days we set tab stops to perform that arduous task, and the most dedicated would use the half-space key to improve appearance. It also had a half-line key if you didn’t want to turn the platen manually for super and suscripts.
My last secretary had a 3X5 card that listed the settings for all of the different documents she prepared. I couldn’t have cared less, but she did and she was a “jewel beyond price” who made the rest of the world believe I was much better than the reality.
I know a bit about typography as I write programs in Postscript, HPGL, and HPPCL for output on typesetting machines.
September 12th, 2004 at 4:47 pm
I’m SO THRILLED to see all these leftists falling on their sword for these pitiful, bogus forgeries.
Kiss your cred goodbye!
September 12th, 2004 at 5:04 pm
As you might expect, I am trembling in remorse because Matthew Cromer disses my “cred.” Not.
Kool-Aiders like Mr. Cromer and Wittle Jeffy Spivak will go to their graves believing the documents were forged, in spite of the fact that EVERY SHRED OF THEIR ARGUMENT has been shown to be bogus. Fortunately, the rest of the world is coming to its senses. Read and weep: this and this.
The second article shows how the whole “forgery” scam was cooked up by a couple of freepers who had no clue what they were talking about. In doing so, they did terrible damage to their country, by spreading lies in the middle of a campaign. But we all know that freepers hate America. So what else should we expect from them?
September 13th, 2004 at 11:30 am
How many court cases have you testified in? Would you care to present to us your membership in either the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners or American Board of Forensic Document Examiners? Do you have the same bona fides as a Dr. Philip Bouffard or a Joseph Newcome?
Elsewise your “expert testimony” doesn’t really matter much when compared to professional document examiners, including the person who wrote the Typewriter Typestyle Classification System.
And if you’re so absolutely certain that these documents were typewritten, there’s a reward of aroun $40,000 for producing exact replicas of these documents. You can even buy IBM Selectric Executive typewriters on eBay for under $200 - you’re more than welcome to put your money where your mouth is.
Or would you rather to continue to flog this particular dead horse with transparently flimsy “proof” of the documents authenticity? For example, superimpose the two images from the PC World article - they don’t match. It’s not even close, the typestyles are dramatically different.
Furthermore, just because a FReeper was the first to notice the discrepancy has no bearing on the substance of the argument. If a FReeper were to notice that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, would it therefore make the assertion untrue? Of course not.
Real forensic document analysts have looked at these documents and said they are forgeries. I’ll take their word before I’ll take the word of someone who is no less partisan and no more credible than the average FReeper.