Talk:Killian documents

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[edit] OT discussion about authenticity

Hi. I took your advice and in from the Little Green Footballs wiki. That's a very curious date on your posting, since that's just after when I showed how the DoD records acutally do contain a proportionally printed document, the only one in the entire database of Bush's records and strangely and quietly released just a couple of days after CBS backed away from authenticating the memo: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records, "Documents Released on September 24, 2004," page 6 (also note the funky fonts in the documents on pages 3&4). If you're little fuzzy eyed about recognizing proportional spacing, go here: http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/BushRecordPSClipRuler.jpg

Also, I don't understand why you're using that same murky instance of superscripting, that "Report to 111th F.I.S." when I had already pointed out in the LGF thread that there are much nicer, cleaner examples here: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records, "Part 6," page 45. It's undated, but it's rather obvious that it's not a Word document.

But you are indeed right that "a feature of modern computer word-processing programs such as Microsoft Word automatically changes "th" to superscript characters when following numerals," but if you look at the superscripting in *all* of the memos, you will note some strange discrepencies. A comparison of the superscripting pattern in the memos to what happens when you type them up in Word can be found here: http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/SScriptsCompared.jpg

Hmmm, not only are only some of the th's following a number not superscripted, but none of the st's. There is a strangely inserted odd space that can explain away some of this, but not others.

The discrepancies aren't at all strange. They look like exactly what you'd expect if somebody were trying to avoid the auto-superscripting. Not that that proves anything. Also note that there are multiple ways to defeat the auto-superscripting in Word, including editing afterwards, using an el instead of a one, and IIRC just hitting undo after typing. But what the inconsistencies do suggest is that it's unlikely that a skilled typist familiar with the device they were using made these memos in the normal course of their work. - Thomas Phinney 10:32, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Your argument makes no sense. We're not talking about a pile of documents, just 6 memos in total, some very short. If you figure out how to get around Word's auto-superscripting, then why not get rid of all the superscripts instead of just leaving them off and on in such an odd, random pattern (except for the "st's," none of which are superscripted)? The hypothesis is that the forger used a modern PC or Mac to create the memos, so if he or she makes a mistake, like leaving in superscripts, it would only take a few seconds to fix it and print it out, so why leave them? Lack of time, maybe? But obviously the forger would have had to have spent an awful lot of time to have achieved the detailed matchup in the contents and dates of the memos to whose of the DoD records. There was even a reference to "Bath" in a very short memo USA Today had, meaning James Bath, who was also suspended from flying, evidently again by Killian, just one month after Bush was, but this information had been redacted from the DoD records in 2004, and it was only by chance a researcher had already copied seen the pre-redacted version: http://sugarinthegourd.com/redacted.html

And better yet, why not just use one of the many, MANY typewriters still common in offices to type up forms and labels? Was it that the forger was somehow both very, very smart and very, very stupid, including being completely illiterate with using Word (not that Word has been shown to be able to convicingly recreate the memos)?

As far as whether typewriters from the early 70's can do this sort of stuff, for some strange reason, all these typewriter experts ignored IBM Executives, or just mentioned them in passing without any demonstrable tests, despite these models being pretty common all over until being gradually replaced by businesses and agencies with the more reliable Selectric models. Those clunky old Executives could do a few tricks that the sleek Selectrics couldn't do, though. These are from a "Model C" Executive: http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/ExecSuperscript2.jpg and http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/ExecSuperScript3.jpg. A sharp eyed person will note that both examples are also proportionally spaced.

But undiscussed by all these so-called typewriter experts is the Diablo Systems daisywheel printer, made since 1969, and evidently common by 1972 when Xerox bought Diablo for $28 million. Diablo's cofounder, David Lee, left Xerox in 1973 to found Qume. Qume also made daisywheel printers that were code and plug-compatible with Diablo's to the point that ribbons and print wheels with interchangeable. It's important to note the the early Diablo printers were strictly for the OEM market, and hence sold under a large variety of names. See http://goldsea.com/Innovators/Digital/digital.html, http://mfelker5.tripod.com/printwheels.htm, http://www.okoffice.com.au/product.asp?pID=44193&cID=879

The Diablo is a big issue because all Diablo models could proportionally print with same spacing shown in the memos, and well as being being fully capable of full super/subscripting (via half line feeds). This is a code set for the Diablo's: http://www.nefec.org/UPM/dblomain.htm And besides having a variety of standard printwheels, evidently it was easy to get customized ones if a special character or two was desired. A PDF file with some reprints of computer-related articles from the 1980's has some backgound on this stuff,starting on page 14: http://www.tinaja.com/glib/atg1.pdf

The only serious dispute for the memos being created on a Diablo has been a claim by some die-hard pro-forgers that, yes, maybe Diablo's could only do all this, but in only 1974+ models. This is apparently related to some patent applications found on the Internet. However these patent apps seem related to a dispute that formed between Xerox and Qume when Qume started selling its Diablo compatible printers in 1973/74, and which eventually resulted in a lawsuit: Qume Corp. v. Xerox Corp., 207 U.S.P.Q. 621 (N.D. Cal. 1979). However all the information available indicates that all Diablo's, from their inception, came with a core code set that included the proportional and super/subscripting commands (they could also function as high-precision plotters.)

Hope this clarifies. And if someone wishes to dispute any of this, please do me the courtesy of providing some relevant countering evidence in kind instead of opinion or links to opinion. Obviously I've tried at least to be very thorough in presenting my case. I'm obviously in a very small minority with my view on the memos, but to paraphrase Anatole France, if fifty million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. -BC 209.6.203.244 16:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Joseph Newcomer considered and rejected the Executive, for several reasons, along with the Composer, at http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm (click on the 18 Sept 04 update for the page about the Executive; each of the colors leads to a different multi-anchored page.) I do not remember him addressing the possibility of a HyType machine. --htom 17:41, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, Joseph Newcomer, PhD, long on words (and words, and words....), but a wee bit short on actual demonstration. As you might have guessed, I've been to his site and found it a bit lacking in actual scientific methododogy. You do not remember him addressing the Diablo HyType because he never did, as was the case with all these alleged experts that came out of the woodwork back then, like Peter Tytel, the "typewriter expert". I guess we can cut Tytell some slack since a daisywheel printer technically isn't a typewriter. But one can't really do the same Newcomer -- he makes an awful lot of claims about his expertise. From http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm: "I am one of the pioneers of electronic typesetting." and it just goes on and on from that. Also, he boldly states, "The probability that any technology in existence in 1972 would be capable of producing a document that is nearly pixel-compatible with Microsoft's Times New Roman font and the formatting of Microsoft Word, and that such technology was in casual use at the Texas Air National Guard, is so vanishingly small as to be indistinguishable from zero."

But as I've more than enough demonstrated, by 1972 there were two widely available devices capable of printing proportionally, and in superscript, and with a small font: the IBM Executive typewriter and the Diablo daisywheel printer. Both devices have been obsolete for decades, but would expect any sort of real expert to show due diligence in researching all the devices available around that time that might have possibly created the memos, discover and examine what their capabilities were, try to find print samples and/or specifications, and so on before rendering any sort of conclusion. In Newcomer's case, the Diablo is not mentioned once on his entire site, and the Executive typewriter is not even examined -- and even then, his sample is only a wedding program -- until until about a week, Sept. 18, 2004, after he makes the claim of forgery on or before Sept, 12, 2004. If that doesn't sound very scientific, that's because it's not: http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~bcb25/scimeth/intro1.htm

I seriously considered and dicarded the Executive, for multiple reasons, by the end of the first weekend after the Killian memos came out. Sure, it's a proportional device. However, in my mind the real question (1) whether the device was capable of the particular particular spacing in question (the IBM Executive was not, as I mentioned earlier on this page back in July), and (2) whether anything very similar to the Times Roman used on the memos was available for that device(again, not for the IBM Executive). See http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/21939.html?cprose=5-39. - Thomas Phinney 10:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I also had seriously considered the Executive. I did some research and got my hands on a copy of a technical manual that the author remembered being created on a Model "C" Executive. It was proportionally spaced and had full super/subscripting in small fonts. But as evidently with you, I found its proportional spacing to not match up with that shown in the memos. I don't think you can say much about the font or typeface since the Executives came with a choice of typefaces.

The point I was making is that there were at least two devices available around 1972 capable of proportional spacing and full super/scripting: the IBM Executive typewriter and the Diablo printer. Considering that the forgery charge initially with the false claim by the likes of "Buckhead" that there were no devices then that could proportionally space, this was not a trivial matter. Think about it -- the whole "there were forged" business got started with some then anonymous blogger making nonsensical (that is if you had bothered to check) claims about typewriters then and even things like Wang word proccessors could or could not do. And then have these self-proclaimed experts like Newcomer coming out of the woodwork discussing Selectrics and Veritypers and also claiming forgery before even looking at an Exexcutive and apparently utterly unaware of the Diablo. Of course our diligent media didn't exactly help to clear up matters... -BC 209.6.203.244 14:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Newcomer actually inadvertently provides strong evidence that Word was NOT used for the memos. Go back to his site here: http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm#12-Sep-04 There are two things to look at: one is the poor matchup character-by-character between his Word-created "from" and a memo "from". If you do further character-by-character matchups, you will find that the Word Times New Roman font is consistently inconsistent with the font used in the memos, especially in terms of height.

And further up the page, he makes an extremely damning admission: "I was a bit annoyed that the experiment dealing with the 18-August-1973 memo was not compatible, until I changed the font to an 11.5-point font. Then it was a perfect match, including the superscript 'th'". And then a little further down he tries to explain this away with, "However, this might be an accident of the many levels of transformation from the original (wherever that is) and the photocopying, scanning, document conversion, and re-printing. The 11.5-point font could represent a reduction to 96% of the original size in the various transformations."

Well....

First off, MS Word uses long established character spacing for Roman-style fonts. WordPerfect for DOS used similar spacing with its "CG Times" font, and it was also the default proportional spacing used in Diablo and Qume daisywheel printers (and don't forget that many of the early laser printers has a Diablo mode to "letter quality" printing). So you would expect at least a modest matchup between Word and a Diablo in terms of spacing, but an *exact* match? No, and the letterheads on May 4th and Aug 1st memos prove this. As well as eliminate Word.

"First off, MS Word uses long established character spacing for Roman-style fonts. WordPerfect for DOS used similar spacing with its "CG Times" font..." What do you mean by that? Both applications simply use the spacing built into the fonts (whether it was a system font or a printer font, depending). I have similar difficulty with the rest of your comments on the printers. I did a very careful analysis of the spacing; in order to match the memos, the font spacing would have to be a lot closer than any general non-font-geek's idea of "similar." (No offense intended, but if you think the font could be Palatino, you're not looking at the same level of detail you need to be.) - Thomas Phinney 11:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

There was some research with different "Roman style" fonts, both with Word for Windows and Mac, as well as WordPerfect for DOS, to see how they compare to the font used in the memos: http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/CBSBushMemos.html#FunWithFonts Note how all the different PC-generated fonts both match and *don't* match the memo font in some aspect, including even Times New Roman, although they all indeed show "similar" spacing as I claimed. I can't return to this until tomorrow, but I would be interested in your opinion since you apparently genuinely looked at this stuff (I am just a troll after all.) -BC 209.6.203.244 14:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


You can demonstrate this on your own if you are handy with a PaintShop type program. First grab the May 4th and Aug 1st memos from here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/08/60II/main641984.shtml Now replicate one of the letterheads as best you can using Word, print it out and then scan it in. Now then superimpose your Word replica as best you can on either of the letterheads and feel free to resize all you want. You should end up with what you might think is a pretty good match at first sight.

But now try superimposing one of the memo letterheads on the other. You will then find a true dead-on match that is noticeably much, much more accurate than your best efforts with creating a Word replica. You can see one such experiment here: http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/HeadersCompared.jpg The two upper samples were made from overlaying a Word-recreation of the letterheads over each of the two memo letterheads; the lower sample is from overlaying the two memo letterheards over each other.

But if there was all this claimed distortion and smearing that occurred when the forger tried to make the memos look old, how can that be that the memo letterheads are dead-on copies of each other?

If you believe the forgery scenario, then the May 4th and Aug 1st memos were originally created in Word and then were deliberately distorted to make them look old. But then how come they still end up as perfect matches to each other but not to a fresh Word replica? Where is "The 11.5-point font could represent a reduction to 96% of the original size in the various transformations" that Newcomer uses as an excuse to for using a very non-standard font size?

All I can say is tsk, tsk... -BC 209.6.203.244 00:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's much need to disprove the Diablo HyType, as the first version of this venerable daisy wheel printer appears to have been introduced in 1973 (apparently in the fall), rather than having been in use in, say, the spring of 1972. At least, that's what every source I can find suggests. Do you have any actual evidence that the HyType was available in early 1972?
There were certainly a few proportional-spacing devices available at the time, but the Executive was not capable of doing the fine level of proportional spacing shown in the memos. It offered a much coarser set of predetermined widths than the memos, and its most similar available typeface was much wider than the Times Roman used in the memos.
As for the memos looking similar to each other, they all went through the same set of operations as far as photocopying, faxing, and being scanned into Adobe Acrobat. So it is perfectly reasonable that they would suffer the same kind of overall scaling distortion. None of the experts have claimed that they "were deliberately distorted to make them look old" - that is a straw man argument you created, not any kind of reasonable interpretation of your opponents' views. -Thomas Phinney 10:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Please provide at least one alleged source for the statement "I don't think there's much need to disprove the Diablo HyType, as the first version of this venerable daisy wheel printer appears to have been introduced in 1973 (apparently in the fall), rather than having been in use in, say, the spring of 1972. At least, that's what every source I can find suggests. Do you have any actual evidence that the HyType was available in early 1972?"

Define "actual evidence" -- I already showed that Diablo Systems as an independent company began making daisywheel printers in 1969 and was bought by Xerox in 1972 for $28 million, and that one of the co-founders of Diablo left Xerox in 1973 to form a rival daisywheel printer company called Qume. What do you think Diablo was doing between 1969 and 1972 when Xerox paid all that money for it? When Xerox bought Diablo, they got the HyType I. If that isn't enough proof, I found some ribbon crossreferences for the HyType I ribbon, which was mostly, but not completely replaced at about 1974-75 with the HyType II ribbon, and they link to a bunch of old, forgotten dedicated word processors dating back to at least 1972. If a 1972 word processor uses a Diablo HyType I ribbon, that kind of suggests that perhaps, perchance HyType I's were being used then. The best ribbon crossreference I found is no longer online, but this Swiss one isn't so bad: http://onlineshop.jpd.ch/sp/farbband-multistrike/qume-1145-farbband-multistrike-original-schwarz.asp

Hmmm. I hate to point this out, but it is actually quite common for companies to acquire each other to get technologies that are still in development and haven't shipped yet. The company I work for does this pretty often. Your first few sentences there do not constitute very convincing evidence. However, the rest sounds pretty plausible. - Thomas Phinney 15:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Note how you won't see either "Diablo" or even "HyType" mentioned -- Diablo Systems was originally strictly an OEM supplier.

Here's the promotional brochure from Diablo that came out in September 1973. http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Xerox/XEROX.Diablo_HyTypeI.1973.102646256.pdf#search=%22Diablo%20HyType%22. But as you point out later, even if 1972 [Edit: oops, meant 1973]was the year it was introduced under that name, it wouldn't matter if the HyType was available earlier as OEM equipment. So what we'd need is some specific model of printer that was made in that way, to research. Do you have any specific names of printer models that one could research? - Thomas Phinney 11:42, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I Googled some of the CPT models in that Swiss ribbon crossreference and found this computer timeline mentioning the CPT model 4200 word processor as being introduced in 1972: http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/01HISTORYCD-Chrono1.htm

Since the Swiss ribbon crossreference for the HyType I ribbon lists the CPT 4200.... -BC 209.6.203.244 03:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

My comments about the Executive were related to how it was not examined, along with the Diablo, by any of these alleged experts before they plunged ahead with their forgery charges. I strongly suspect that only reason why all discussions focussed on Selectrics, at least initially, was simply because there were and are Selectrics still in operation all over (primarily for typing up labels and filling in preprinted forms) and hence handy and not requiring much work. Since almost all functioning daisywheel printers and IBM Executives have long ago been scrapped, Selectrics became the default representives of all 1972 office technology. Until Marian Carr Knox mentioned that she used an Olympia typewriter. So then it was Selectrics and Olympia typewriters that represented all 1972 office technology, with a side discussion of Selectic Composer, a typesetting machine that would never have been used to create just memos. Executives made a belated appearance here and there, but Diablo's not at all. All of this represents inexcusably shoddy journalism by the media, and laughably incompetent "research" by all of these alleged experts.

As far as the aging of memos go, your claim that "None of the experts have claimed that they "were deliberately distorted to make them look old" - that is a straw man argument you created, not any kind of reasonable interpretation of your opponents' views" is demonstrably false -- I never said "experts" and many claimed this. Simply Google "Killian memos aged" for proof. And that excerpt off of Newcomer's site I used had this comment, "However, this might be an accident of the many levels of transformation from the original (wherever that is) and the photocopying, scanning, document conversion, and re-printing," basically claims that the memos were distorted through muliple processes. Indeed the first, original blog post that started the forgery bandwagon states (from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210662/posts):

Did you fail to complete your quote here? I did some browsing, but I have yet to find any expert who claimed the memos were "deliberately aged." Certainly I did not, and neither did Newcomer. - Thomas Phinney 11:49, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

?? This is a complete quote of what I wrote: "If you believe the forgery scenario, then the May 4th and Aug 1st memos were originally created in Word and then were deliberately distorted to make them look old." Did I mention "expert"? No. Was this a central part of the forgery claim? Yes -- from the original Buckhead comment: "I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old." Did I say that Newcomer also claimed this? No, but I pointed out that he justified using an oddboall point size, 11.5, to *supposedly* dupe a memo in Word (he of course didn't show his results, choosing only to just talk about them): "However, this might be an accident of the many levels of transformation from the original (wherever that is) and the photocopying, scanning, document conversion, and re-printing." And you -- are you an expert? -- I never brought you up in any of this.

You say that "the first original blog post... states (link):" and then you don't have a quote after the link and the colon. That's why I asked if something was left out.
And yes, I am an expert on typography. I gave a lecture on forensic typography at the 2002 international typographic conference in Rome, and a lecture on the typography of the Bush memos in particular at the 2004 St Bride conference in London (St Bride is a library dedicated to the history of printing). I'm writing this from Lisbon, where this year's international typographic conference (ATypI) is just wrapping up, and I did four talks in the "Type Tech" section, and one in the main conference. If you Google "Phinney Bush memos," follow the links to the Washington Post, CreativePro.com and Newsroom-l for coverage of my thoughts and quite detailed analysis of the spacing of the Bush memos. (I recommend the CreativePro article in particular, as it has the most detail.) I concluded it was some version of Times, with the 18-unit-to-the-em spacing that is not possible with any device so far suggested as having been available and plausible in 1972 (we're not counting actual phototypesetting or metal typesetting as plausible here). - Thomas Phinney 15:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


"Buckhead": To: Howlin

Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts. The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts. I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively."

The font used was neither Palatino nor Times New Roman, but Times Roman. http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2006/08/bush_guard_memo.html - Thomas Phinney 11:42, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I did not know Hailey had this second report, http://imrl.usu.edu/bush_memo_study/supporting_material/bush_memos.pdf!! This report independently comfirms some of the discrepencies I had long ago noted -- the memos *were* done on an impact device and that they were only "Roman like" and neither Times New Roman and very, VERY unlikely Times Roman as well (Macs use Times Roman and they have the same problems as Windows Word, so your contention that they were done in Times Roman is unconvincing without real life samples). And despite all the prior attacks and criticisms, Hailey still contends that some sort of impact printing device with platen was used. Hmmm, what impact printing device with a platen could print proportionally, I wonder...) To quote the first part of Hailey's conclusions:

No, Hailey is wrong about the typeface: it is Times Roman, as cited in my blog post above. There is not even a shred of doubt. Hailey is not a typographer, and the fact that he did not know about the two biggest versions of Times in the world and therefore look at both of them is evidence of that. (There's the Linotype/Adobe/Apple version, and the Monotype/Microsoft version). My post above explains exactly where he went wrong. I challenge you to find a typographer who will look at that evidence and disagree.


I believe the memos were typed for the following reasons:

1. They cannot have been done in Times New Roman, so the argument that they were done digitally has no logical support.

2. The evidence of character damage is no longer in question; the "t," "e," "a," "c," "R," "o," "M," and "N," are all clearly defective, and in each case the character has unique defects. Other characters not discussed also show signs of being defective.

3. I found good evidence that characters interacted with each other, something only possible with a typewriter or other device that produces characters one at a time and involves physical impact.

4. Spacing in the memos is consistent with using a platen and not consistent with Word or similar digital processes: spacing of the heading is not centered; headings do not align; fractional returns are consistent with adjusting with a platen; left edge of several memos appears to have drifted to the right causing characters to penetrate the left margin

I especially liked his bit about the centering bit, because as I had posted earlier, if you go here, http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/HeadersCompared.jpg, you will find the two upper samples were made from overlaying a Word-recreation of the letterheads over each of the two memo letterheads; and the lower sample is from overlaying the two memo letterheards over each other. Note how the upper samples don't align, while the bottom one does so precisely. If there were differences with how the centering was done between some 30 yr old mechanical device and a modern PC/Printer combo, this would be exactly the sort of discrepency you would expect.

I'm going to have to leave this merry little discussion for a while to look into a few more things, including revisting whether "HyType I" was just a low end daisywheel model incapable of the precision needed for proportional printing (this is another reference to the Adam Coleco and note the ribbon type: http://www.myoldcomputers.com/museum/comp/adam.htm) But I gathered some extremely useful stuff here. Thanks. -BC 209.6.203.244 13:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Please note all of the false claims about technology -- either "Buckhead" had no clue or was deliberately lying. But this misinformed nonsense is what got the forgery charges rolling.

Also demonstrably false and/or disengenuously misleading is your claim that, "As for the memos looking similar to each other, they all went through the same set of operations as far as photocopying, faxing, and being scanned into Adobe Acrobat. So it is perfectly reasonable that they would suffer the same kind of overall scaling distortion." If the memos were created in Word and then copied or faxed X amount of times, deliberately or not, if there any distortions at all, they would vary from copy to copy. You create documents A, B, C and so on, and then recopy and refax them enough times to noticeablely distort them from the originals, they're going to distort from each other just as much -- it's either a random process or else there is a defect in one of the devices that would introduce distortion on a particular area on the page. So if you start off with two identical letterheads, run each one through a series of copying/faxing/scanning operations and the final copies are still dead on perfectly aligned with each other, with no discernable ghosting or smearing, that means your equipment introduced no significant distortion.

No, you were right the second time with "or else there is a defect in one" (or more) "of the devices...." This is not unusual among faxes and photocopiers, and pretty well understood. - Thomas Phinney 11:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Also, distortion is not necessarily "on a particular area on the page." The more common distortions include non-square reproduction (causing very slight stretching or compression) and uneven skewing where the skew increases as the original is pulled into the machine's auto-sheet-feeder. - Thomas Phinney 08:05, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Now suppose after you do all that, someone hands you an original document with a very similar looking letterhead, and it's claimed that it was created on the same computer/printer combo that you used to create the documents you ran through all that processing on. Now, you're already determined that the processing introduced no significant distortion, so if the letterhead on that new document doesn't match up identically, then it was NOT created on the same computer/printer combo. And that's the case here: the memo letterheads line up with each other perfectly, with not even the slightest bit of discernable ghosting. The same letterhead created on Word will misalign and ghost in some area regardless of how much you adjust the scale and do your darndest to best fit them. There isn't a lot misalignment, but it's definitely there and very, very much like that shown in Charles Johnson's infamous CYA animated gif: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/Pictures/aug1873-pdf-animate.gif

If you take the non-forgery scenario where the documents were created on a very different device that used the same standard proportional spacing and a Roman-style font, and you then overlayed Word replicas and adjusted the scale and positioning for best fit, you should expect to get a reasonably good match but with some misalignment and ghosting at least. Which is what you would end up with if the memos had been created on daisywheel printer, with proportional mode turned on, and a little "th" character used on one of the extra printwheel spokes (and without an additional extra spoke for an "st").

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but it really sounds as if you think there is a single "standard proportional spacing." That is generally very untrue, whether it's typewriters or digital fonts we're talking about. With proportional typewriters of the era, each had its own system of possible letter widths that each font had to be adapted to fit to. In the case of the Selectric Composer, each particular letter had only a single possible width for, so every font was set to the same set of widths on that device. But all of the typewriter class devices for which I have specific information, which existed in 1972, were not capable of the 18-units-to-the-em system used for Times Roman in the memos - Thomas Phinney 12:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
The Diablo Systems Inc. Model 1200 HyType I Printer Maintenance Manual (Pub. No. 82003, 2nd ed., Nov. 1974) indicates that the printer supported a print line of "132 Columns @ 10 characters/in. (3.95 char/cm)" and "158 Columns @ 12 characters/in. (4.76 char/cm)" with column spacing of "60 Positions/in., 1/60th in./increment (23.6 pos./cm 152.4 mm/increment)" (Table 1-1, p. 1-1). The I/O interface included 11 data lines to carry BCD information representing carriage movement values. The high order bit represented the carriage movement direction. The ten low order bits represented the carriage movement distance, "in increments of 1/60th of an inch. Six increments equal 1 character column at 10 characters or columns per inch, while 5 increments equal 1 character column at 12 characters or columns per inch." (p. 4-2). This indicates that the Model 1200 HyType I printer was not capable of producing the 18-units-to-the-em system used for Times Roman in the memos. 71.212.31.95 20:11, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Great, thanks! So for 12 point type, that would be 10-units-to-the-em, which is not good enough, as you say. That would eliminate that particular device as being capable of producing the memos. Is this information from the manual available online somewhere that you can point to? - Thomas Phinney 00:52, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
A PDF of the manual can be found here: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/diablo/82003_Hytype1Maint_Nov74.pdf 71.212.31.95 01:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what that eliminates. Apparently Diablo made different daisywheel models, and the HyType I may actually have been just a low end model. All of the known Diablo code sheets indicate that at the very least most Diablo models can indeed do proportional printing in two ways: with with a simple ESP P command or via a much trickier character mapping using horizontal indexing and control -- see: http://www.nefec.org/upm/dblofrm.htm The web info is really sketchy on pre-Xerox Diablo stuff. What's needed is manuals for the OEM printers Diablo made for the likes of CPT. It can be verified, though, that by 1975, the dedicated word processing market was huge: 1975 Business Week Article Note the number of "Redactron" systems sold, and note also that Redactron models are also listed in the Swiss ribbon crossreference.

It eliminates the possibility that the Diablo HyType I daisywheel printing mechanism was used to produce the memos. Of course, you have never produced any evidence that any system using the HyType I was commercially available in 1972. Or that any such system supported proportional fonts. Or that any other system reasonably available to Killian at that date could have produced the proportional spacing exhibited in the memos. Your material concerning products from 1975 and later has no relevance. 71.212.31.95 16:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually it doesn't now. I just found two sites with further interesting info.

This tech document discusses the proportional print characteristics of old devices -- apparently unrelated to Killian stuff -- including Executive typewriters, (which had resolutions of 1/32" to 1/36") and how some daisywheel printers at least were proportionally printing with just the 1/60" resolution, which is the same as the HyType I: http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/propint.htm

The table near the end of the document clearly shows the difference between the 18 units-per-em spacing of Monotype Times New Roman and the 9 unit system of the Selectric Composer, the 5 unit system of the Executive, etc. You don't seem to understand the implications of this. It shows that these machines cannot reproduce the spacing of typeset-quality TNR. As already noted, the 60 positions per inch spacing capability of the HyType I mechanism would support only 10 units-per-em for 12-point type. (The 60 positions per inch spacing of the HyType was undoubtedly chosen because 60 is the LCM of 10 and 12 and therefore the smallest value that allows both 10- and 12-pitch monospacing to be expressed as an integeral number of units.) 71.212.31.95 20:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a belated response to that particular comment, but I've started looking more into the mechanics of having a daisywheel with either a 1/60" & 1/120" resolution printing specific proportional typefaces like Times Roman versus Times New Roman versus one that supposedly the Redactron model "Redactor II" used called just "Times". When I went to look up if just plain "Times" is a trademarked font, I found that it was, thereby stongly implying that the Redactor II would actually print it as such. So I thought to see how this "Times" compared to Times Roman and Times New Roman, and went to this site: http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/agfa/times/morelikethis.html This conveniently allows you type in text and see how it look in Times Roman, Times, and Times New Roman all at once. Cool. But I noticed something very curious right away: The "Times" and "Times New Roman" matched up rather closely, but not "Times Roman" -- its proportional spacing was a little wider. Hmmmm.... When I looked into that, it looks as though that the widths and such have been a bit conflated in recent decades for "Times Roman" and "Times New Roman", especially so with the introduction of TrueType on both Apple and Windows. But the plain old "Times" evidently has not been. What's especially curious it that the last modified date year for "Times New Roman" is 2000, while for plain old "Times," it's 1974! Yet they seem evidently identical enough to pass for each other, especially if, say, you only had some coarse copies to look at. My, my....

Two problems. First, just because somebody licenses a trademarked font name doesn't say anything about the spacing of the device it's going to be printed from. It may be an adaptation of some sort/degree. Indeed, around 1991 Monotype modified the spacing of their own Times New Roman to match Linotype's Times Roman.
Second, your on-screen comparison of widths may be messed up by the hinting of one or more of the fonts involved. High-end TrueType hinting, such as that used in the Microsoft/Monotype versions of Times New Roman to date, and older Apple/Linotype versions of Times Roman, can significantly distort character widths on screen. - Tphinney 15:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, one big truism about Microsoft is that they never innovate, especially when they can copy. Through the 70's and into the 80's up to the first generation of laser printers and 24pin dot matrix printers, the Diablo codeset became *the* standard for letter quality printing, including proportional printing. If there was indeed a "Times" font option for a 70's era word processor using a daisywheel print, that likely was the standard for all later fonts in terms of their spacing. Microsoft came of age when daisywheels were still ruling the office when nice printing is needed. So basically, if anything looks like anything, it would be a Word font resembling an ealier font. But that's surmising until I can get some clearer evidence. So far all the Diablo or Qume created documents I could find with proportional spacing are also right-justified, and it's unclear which proportional spacing type was being used. A centering sample may be more telling since the centering on the memos have the most mismatch to Word recreations. I am awaiting a little package in the mail that might help. We'll see. By the way, I may not be able to legally post any of the CBI stuff (that place with all those archived Redactron documents), but I'm trying to work out something. [PS - I guess I should mention that the first Apple LaserWriters also came with Diablo emulation. -BC 209.6.203.244 12:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)]

"If there was indeed a "Times" font option for a 70's era word processor using a daisywheel print, that likely was the standard for all later fonts in terms of their spacing." No, that's not what happened - not for Times, and as far as I know, not for any other typeface that didn't actually originate as a typewriter typeface. I guess you didn't read the material I pointed to. We *know* the exact lineage of the spacing of Times, and it has nothing to do with daisy wheel printers. Monotype and Linotype had their independent versions, with their own spacing, starting in the 1930s. The spacing of these hot metal versions carried over into the phototype versions of the 60s-80s. The phototype versions were the models for the digital versions in Type 1 format, again including copying the exact spacing of the earlier versions. The Linotype/Adobe version of 1985 was built into the Apple LaserWrtier and all subsequent PostScript printing devices. Because PostScript was overwhelmingly popular (in the desktop publishing world, Monotype refitted their digital Times New Roman onto the widths of Linotype's digital Times Roman (which was ironic, considering Monotype's was the original, and Linotype licensed the design from Monotype). Tphinney 18:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Here's what the LaserWriter Reference (1988) says about its Diablo 630 emulator: "In emulation mode, the LaserWriter interprets incoming data as text and Diablo 630 control codes, rather than as a PostScript program. With this capability, the LaserWriter can print simple text files genereated by software packages that don't support PostScript, but do support Diablo-630-compatible printers... The Diablo 630 emulator supports all standard LaserWriter typefaces. The default font is Courier, which is the fixed-pitch font most commonly used on daisy-wheel printers and the font most likely to give correct results for typical application programs that provide Diablo 630 emulation... Times Roman and Helvetica are narrow proportional fonts that may look squeezed if the word processor does not adjust the page width. Few non-Macintosh text-processing programs are capable of producing correctly formatted output by using proportionally spaced fonts like these." 71.212.31.95 16:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
The LaserWriter Reference also discusses the LaserJet+ emulator included with the LaserWriter IINTX. The H-P LaserJet+ was a popular mid-80s business-oriented (non-PostScript) laser printer. It had 300-dpi resolution and proportionally-spaced "Times Roman" was available on it. But as noted in the LaserWriter Reference: "The Times and Helvetica Postscript typefaces (licensed from Linotype Comapny) have the character metrics for which they were originally designed. The LaserJet+ apporximations of these typefaces, called Tms Rmn and Helv, respectively, have copied the glyphs, but have other metrics. In fact, several versions of Tms Rmn and Helv have different metrics, even for the same point size, and these metrics do not scale with the dimensions of the font. There are separate width tables for each point size of the typeface. As a result, applications that produce justified text in Helvetica or Times Roman do not have properly justified output when printed on the LaserJet+ emulator. In the somewhat limited sample of ragged Times Roman and Helvetica ouput that Adobe Systems has evaluated, the Postscript typeface widths are close enough so that the appearance of the right margin is not objectionable." Thus even fonts on these mid-80s 300-dpi office laser printers did not match the Linotype/LaserWriter/Linotronic character width standard.71.212.31.95 18:33, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The thing is that you have a word processing system from the mid-70's with a font or typeface called Times -- what was that, and what character spacing did it use? The Myfont site indicates that it's a dead ringer for Times New Roman, at least according to spacing. The fonts *called* Times Roman and Times New Roman use to be different then kind of merged in a muddy way, so what exactly are their current character spacings? And how "approximate" is "approximate"? -- bear in mind that the LGF Word CYA memo recreation, created on a Mac, does not line up nearly as well to the CYA memo as does the letterhead on two of the memos to each other. A Word recreation of either of the letterheads lines up even worse. If the Times Roman of the Mac Word recreations only "approximates" an earlier, mechanical rendition of a Times font, isn't this result *exactly* what you should expect?

I was able to dupe the relative line ending alignments shown in the CYA memo using CG Times Bold based solely as a best fit guess from looking at some sample printouts from those PC Magazine tests. Since mechanical systems like a daisywheel printer scale very little (10-12 point at best), but since Times Roman and its variants were common even during the 60's and 70's, it would be reasonable to expect something called "Times" to look and be spaced like a Times font, no? And if you then kind of enlarge/shrink and align one for the best possible fit to another "copy" then.... -BC 70.90.98.226 19:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I actually have a 1985 manual for the Canon LBP-8 A1/A2 laser printer. This uses the same "engine" that Canon supplied to HP and Apple used for their early laser printers. It also came with a Diablo mode which I presume would he identical to Apple's (HP didn't included Diablo compatibility in their version). Not only does the control set include commands for 1/120" horizonal spacing, 1/48" vertical spacing, half-line and reverse-half-line feeds (for full sub/superscripting), and a general proportional print mode, but it had what it calls the "virtual Diablo wheel feature" to select virtual print wheels with different spoke numbers, i.e., Diablo 88 metal, Diablo 92 metal, Xerox 96 metal, and so on. All interesting enough to show what a standard Diablo pinters and their plug-compatibles like Qume had become by the early 80's at least, but, alas, that's too far removed timewise from the target tech date of 1972 to be conclusive. For what it's worth, all references to to Qumes indicate that they at least could print at 1/120" horizontal increments, which is what you would need to print true Times X X at 11 point. That means that the year that the memos could be printed as shown is down to when the first Qumes appeared on the market, around 1973-74. Close, but I really need to see that 1/120" spec in an earlier Diablo model. But I'm working on it... -BC 209.6.203.244 13:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

In the meantime, I'm beginning to appreciate the value of a genuine, book-filled library. I was able to dig up 3 books on word processing dated 1974, 1976 and 1977. Unfortunately they were business oriented and did not get nearly enough into the tech details. The good news to me is that they clearly indicate that the word processing market started ramping up in the 60's primarily with IBM, with a flood of competitors coming into the market beginning in 1969 with Redactron and Diablo, and then a bunch more in 1970-1971, and with a fully developed market by 1972 when annual sales hit $1.2 billion. So basically by 1972, word processors were already common to have "word processing" magazines appear. The bad news to me is that there were a LOT more vendors and means of word processing, including connecting via a modem to a mainframe running a word processing program, than I had figured. Yet more stuff with no tech info about to consider. Also Diablo's came in all sorts of odd configurations judging from the pictures I've seen (with of course no indication if they were even HyType's). I'm also coming across more vendor/product names with nothing much more than just a name or maybe a not very informative picture and ribbon crossreference. Also the authors often call the daisywheel printers "typewriters" since many if not most of the early versions came with a keyboard that was meant for terminal access, but which made them look like typewriters.

What books specifically are you referring to? And which book was it that says Diablo had a word-processing printer on the market in 1969? 71.212.31.95 18:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, did I say that one of the books said that Diablo had a word-processing printer on the market in 1969? Nooo... I guess I didn't. You bad. Diablo and Redactron formed as companies in 1969. Whether they had products on the market in 1969 is a different thing. Redactron products started shipping in quantity by 1971, so presumably did Diablo's at the very latest. As far as the books go, they are: "Word Processing" by Thomas Johnston Anderson and William R. Trotter (1974); "Word processing" by Arnold Rosen and Rosemary Fielden (1977); and "Word Processing in the Modern Office" by Paula B. Cecil (1976). While a bit annoyingly short on tech detail, the Rosen/Fielden and Cecil books have a lot of interesting pictures showing that the mid-70's wasn't exactly all that backwards in terms of office tech: microcassette dictating recorders, full page video displays, color copiers, magnetic media, everyone modeming and "telecopying" stuff to each other, connecting to big mainframes. There were also concerned about paper use and thought this would all lead to a paperless office in no time (Hah!! if they knew then...) In house typesetting (proportional printing) is in fact mentioned as a way to "reduce the space required by as musch as 40% over typewritten copy. This in turn reduces other costs. The user also gains--at not additional cost--copy that is not only easier to read but attracts more attention. Other typographic nicecities, such as bold headings and italics, improve all kinds of communications." (from the Rosen/Fielden book.) FYI -BC 209.6.203.244 13:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

What you said is that the books "clearly indicate" that Diablo came "into the market" in 1969. Now you admit that they didn't say that.

Ah, you right-wingers -- the only thing you hate more than inconvenient facts is context: prefering to take 2 and 3 excerpts out of what someone writes or says, and then use those to construct an utterly bogus paraphrase. Do you guys, like, take a class in that or does it just come naturally. Here's my full quote in context: "The good news to me is that they clearly indicate that the word processing market started ramping up in the 60's primarily with IBM, with a flood of competitors coming into the market beginning in 1969 with Redactron and Diablo, and then a bunch more in 1970-1971, and with a fully developed market by 1972 when annual sales hit $1.2 billion."

Now *you* admit to deliberately trying to twist what I said by yanking things out of context. -BC 70.90.98.226 22:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. It hardly seemed necessary to quote your complete sentence when it appeared in full, in its original context, just above. And quoting it in full confirms rather than contradicts my statement. You did in fact say that the books "clearly indicate" that Diablo came "into the market" in 1969. How can you claim that pointing this out is twisting what you said? When questioned you said that Diablo formed as a company in 1969 and acknowledged that "whether they had products on the market in 1969 is a different thing". But what you originally said was that they came "into the market" in 1969. A company doesn't enter a market until it has something to sell. Earlier you said that Diablo daisywheel printers were "made since 1969". Like your statement that Diablo came "into the market" in 1969, this statement was made with the implication that printers from Diablo were commercially available and therefore could have been used by Killian. You never responded to my request for evidence to support that assertion. Was it also simply an unwarranted assumption by you based on the mere fact that the company was formed in 1969? 71.212.31.95 17:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC).


You should be very thankful that this isn't Usenet, where I'm a bit less polite and diplomatic when dealing with, um, "folks" like you. Let's put Diablo aside for the time being and look at Redactron, which has a clearer history, and which also was founded by Evelyn Berezin also in 1969. There's brief history of it here. To quote from the article, "Then she had her brainstorm. Wouldn't it be neat, she felt, to have a word processor that would be useful for everyday documents;even ordinary letters? Might not lots of secretaries find a word processor even more useful than their everyday typewriter?....Just a year later, in 1969, she founded Redactron, the first company devoted exclusively to word processors. Starting from scratch, she was able to use the latest technology. That involved 13 MOS chips, some of them designed by General Instrument, some designed by a young company, Standard Microsystems, and some designed by Redactron itself. One of the chips was actually a very simple microprocessor. The daddy of commercial microprocessors, Intel's 4004, was introduced in 1971, the year Redactron's word processor started shipping."

Now, did Redactron get "into the market" in 1969 when it became a company whose sole purpose was to make word processors (aside from, presumably, money), or was it 1971, when its first units shipped? And why are you deliberately trying to be a deliberate, um, buttocks on the matter? Le réalité et toi, vous ne vous entendez pas, n'est-ce pas? -BC 209.6.203.244 18:30, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Please try to maintain your composure. This isn't simply a matter of semantics. The issue here is the authenticity of the Killian documents. The specific question is whether Killian could have produced them on a typewriter or word-processing printer in 1972. To establish that you need at the least to show that there was a device that was capable of producing output with the typographical characteristics of the memos and that was commercially available in 1972. The meaning of "market" relevant to this question is "a place where goods are offered for sale". The date at which a device was in a business plan, or on a drawing board, or even working flawlessly at an engineering lab, doesn't matter. It had to be shipping to be available to Killian. In the case of Redactron, while you've shown that they had a product shipping in 1971, you haven't shown that this product had the proportional spacing capabilities necessary to produce the memos. If it didn't then it's irrelevant to the discussion. 71.212.31.95 21:29, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I have zero tolerance with the common right-wing tactic to construct bogus "quotes" by taking short excerpts, down to 2-word phrases, out of context, usually in an attempt to cast doubt on credibilty (i.e. "smear") and distract from the matters at hand, which is *exactly* what you did. You took "clearly indicate" and "into the market" out of context from a not very long quote of mine that in full went, "The good news to me is that they clearly indicate that the word processing market started ramping up in the 60's primarily with IBM, with a flood of competitors coming into the market beginning in 1969 with Redactron and Diablo, and then a bunch more in 1970-1971, and with a fully developed market by 1972 when annual sales hit $1.2 billion."

Your excuses for doing this don't fly very far, and again if this was Usenet, as some out there may know, I would *not* be so polite. But this is a Wikipedia discussion and I'm on my best behavior, but I'm not going to let any attempts at tactical smearing slide by at all. And all this stuff I'm doing and have done in regards to the memo business is strictly an annoyingly time-consuming civic service act on my part, and one that I'm only doing because nobody else seems to want to make the effort, even though it is rather important: not only does this say an awful lot about the character of our President, who has very carefully avoided any official comment on the credibility of the memos -- go look here White House Q&A for Dan Bartlett's response to a question from "Stephen, from Colorado Springs, CO"; but it also makes, if anything, a worst comment on the state of free press -- what good is a so-called free press if it more and more only just passes along supposed "news" items, political disagreements, and alleged scientific "controveries" (e.g. "global warming") uncritically with less and less investigation, as well as being easily intimidated by neo-mobs (e.g. the right-wing blogosphere) and having to answer to corporate, profit-minded masters (e.g. Viacom), as was/is both cases with (e.g.) CBS?

I really am a troll and I so would much rather just point out overlooked stuff for people to just look and them to ask themselves, "does this make any sense" especially in regards to widely circulated misinformation. The forgery "hypothesis" for the CBS Killian memos started with grossly misinformed, utter nonsense via bloggers like "Buckhead" about the state of technology in the 1970's and it still to this day remains the only real foundation for the forgery claims, and even that depends on ignoring way too much, logically contrary evidence regarding superscripting, the letterheads, contents and such. But some bits of misinformation get so imbedded that you need more of a crowbar than tweezers to remove. I've tried the tweezers, then the pliers, and now, with this delving in company records like with the CBI stuff, I'm getting at the crowbar level. I got other things a bit more fun I can do, but while I just a troll, for better or worse I'm a responsible one.

Getting back to Diablo, go check the bottom of this page under the "OT" section. And think very carefully about trying to "tactically" distract from the subject matter the next time you're tempted -- I'll only put so much effort into maintaining politeness when it's not that warranted. -BC 209.6.203.244 16:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Diablo may have formed as a company in 1969, but that doesn't indicate when they actually entered the market with a commercial product. And yes, it does make a difference: the memos weren't printed with a businesss plan or an engineering prototype. You say that "presumably" products from Diablo started shipping in quantity by 1971 "at the very latest". But that's only your presumption. You've offered no actual evidence to support it. 71.212.31.95 20:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I have pointed out again and again, there is this nifty Swiss ribbon crossference list of mostly long, LONG forgotten machines that used Diablo ribbons, and a whole bunch of them apparently date back to at least 1972, like the CPT 4200 and the AES 90 (there are a ton more that are apparently from around that time, like the AB Dick Magna 1, the Vydec 1000, the Videotype 1000 and so on, but no hard year dates can be found yet). But I am working on firmer dates and info, unlike others who are apparently a bit more interested in trying to catch me in a misstatement or such. -BC 70.90.98.226 22:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I posted some interesting scans of photocopies I made from the books: 1) A Grumman Aerospace brochure created on all IBM stuff -- Grumman Brochure; 2) a chart of the word processing market during the 60's and 70's -- 70's WP Market; and last but not least, even though it doesn't have anything useful to say about word processors or even the market then. When I saw this in the 1977 book, I thought it was the oddest, weirdest coincidence I'll see for a while, for, um, somewhat obvious reasons.... Very Weird -BC 209.6.203.244 04:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

But the librarian at www.cbi.umn.edu go back to me about the contents of that "Specifications for Redactor II Printer System" document dated 1973, but apparently the system was forthcoming at that point and not yet in producion. That pushes its manufacturing date back at least a year, and it was pointed out that the Business Week had mentioned that it was delayed for a year after it was announced, so we're probably looking at a 1975-76 manufacturing date at the earliest, darn it.

But...the libririan gave me other info that could be useful. Stay tuned.... -BC 209.6.203.244 18:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mention the issues with the font mechanics of using a daisywheel with 1/60" resolution or another with 1/120". I reluctantly agree that 1/60" would not be enough for a non-right justified line. For true 12-point Times text, you would need a resolution of 1/108" by my calculations. The standard Times XX width ratios could be fudged a bit with 1/60", but would be noticeably off on lines of non-justified text compared to a Word created lines of Times. With right justification, depending on the sophistication of the spacing algorithm, it may be passible given the coarse quality of the memo copies, as PC Magazine demonstrated with this comparison of a text created on an IBM Selctric Composer, which apparently had a resolution of 1/72", to a Word recreation: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1644869,00.asp

But a daisywheel with 1/120" resolution can obviously do 12 point Times accurately, but if you want to keep the math simple and deal with integer proportions, the typeface used by the Daisywheel would likely have an equivalent point size of 10.8, which may have been rounded off to 11 point. Which makes more sense since the IBM Selectric Composer, which used comparable typeface sizes, was cited as being in 11 point by this earlier cite of mine: http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/propint.htm

But unlike current digitized fonts, which spacing and size is automatically scaled, the type size wasn't tied in with the spacing setting on daisywheels -- if you selected "Times" spacing on your Redactron or whatever word processor, it'll proportionally print whatever printwheel you stick inm even if it's something like a Courier. FYI. -BC 209.6.203.244 13:46, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like we're making progress. You now understand why the 1/60" positioning of the HyType I is significant. You also understand that the "proportional spacing mode" built into later printers is different from true proportional spacing based on font-specific metrics. And you understand that in unjustified text (e.g. the Bush memos) discrepancies in character widths become readily apparent (even in copies too poor to identify the font from the glyph shapes) because they accumulate along the lines of text. This is all good. Also keep in mind that the Selectric Composer was not really a typewriter. It was a very sophisticated and expensive machine designed specifically for low-end typesetting applications. It is not a reasonable possibility that Killian would have used such a machine to produce the memos. And note that even with a daisywheel mechanism capable of 1/120" positioning, sophisticated controller electronics and/or software is needed to implement typeset-quality proportional spacing with such a device. That really only became feasible with the availability of microprocessors. 71.212.31.95 16:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking you could fake it a bit with the 1/60" resolution, depending on the sophistication of the computer coding, but realistically and practically, that was only a possibility with right justification, and even that would likely fail with close scrutiny of the high rez copies that Hailey is suppose to have in his possesion. The big question now is whether the HyType I, with its 1/60" resolution, or some immediate forebear prior to the Xerox acquistion, was the only daisywheel mechanism in wide use. If there was indeed 1/120" rez model as at least an option as well at that time included with word processing systems, then the forgery thing is dead. That Swiss ribbon site shows a huge number of Diablo models that I've never heard of, and I suspect that the bulk of those are pre-1980, so it's very, very likely there were indeed 1/120" rez models in common use around 1972. As far as printer control goes, that was not at all a primitive time techwise, and it doesn't exactly take a lot of memory and CPU power to map out character spacings. The CBI library has detailed specs on the Redactron Redactor II, and I'll get copies of that one way or the other, and that should confirm the capabilities. That should push back the date of when the memos could have been created as is to about 1976. While that's not 1972, it's definitely within striking distance now. All I would then need is a good reference to either an earlier Redactron model or one from a competing product with similar capabilities, but from 1972. Bear in mind that having the memos being able to be created on a circa 1972 device would completely fit in with all of the other evidence, including explaining away the superscripting and letterhead discrepencies, as well as the archaic document formatting, and so would thereby completely destroy the forgery hypothesis.

I'm also now getting a pretty good idea of what the office tech was like back then. It's a very intriguing, almost completely forgotten about era. The word processing market evidently took off like crazy in the very early 70's with lots of startup companies with very innovative products, and reached its peak about 1975-1976. But by the late 70's, it had quickly collapsed into a handful of large vendors, like IBM and Wang. There was probably also pressure from the surging PC market at that point from the lower end. I do remember a reference from a while back about how the CP/M-based word processing systems, and even the first IBM-PC based ones, were far less sophisticated and capable than the much more expensive (and apparently high maintenance) dedicated word processors that they replaced. The latter Wangs and IBM Displaywriters were used mostly as fancy electronic typewriters that could store full documents and apparently could do little of the typeset-type stuff that products like the who-ever-heard-of-it Redactor II could do.

Again, research, research.... I might have a cute, fun thing for you typographers to look at later. -BC 209.6.203.244 19:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, you still don't get it. Thre's no evidence that daisywheel printers were commercially available in 1972, much less in common use, even with 1/60" resolution. Here's a 1975 brochure on an early Wang word processor: http://www.wang2200.org/docs/Wang%20Word%20Processing.pdf And here's a 1974 product guide for a Wang office computer that supported word processing: http://www.wang2200.org/docs/System%202200%20General%20Product%20Guide.pdf Both systems used Selectrics for letter-quality output at that time, although Wang later introduced a daisywheel printer with 1/60" horizontal positioning. http://www.wang2200.org/docs/2281WC%20Printer-Plotter%20Data%20Sheet.pdf - 71.212.31.95 21:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Ummmm....I had already linked a 1972 CPT 4200 [Fixed typo -BC 209.6.203.244]to a Diablo ribbon and showed how a *later* model, a CPT Cassetype 4200 from apparently 1978, used a Selectric mechanism. And Wang wasn't even mentioned as a player in the word processing market in that 1975 Business Week article covering the word processing business then: 1975 Business Week Article And as I said, and as counter-intuitive as it might seem, the earlier word processing systems by the likes of Redactron evidently had much more sophisticated document creation functions than later devices like the Wang. Look at the description of the Redactor II, a machine that came out about 1976, here: Redactor II Description and compare it to what your Wang can do. Again as I said, later word processers like the Wang and the IBM Displaywriter functioned more like big electronic typewriters with full page storage. By contrast, the early word processors looked more to be meant as do-all composition machines.

But this is all surmising and such. What we really need is actual data and specs on those mysterious early 70's daisywheels. Which I'm working on (which means I should spend less times here.) Well, I'm glad at least someone else here is making use of the Internet for research.

What if I do, and I'm certain I will, find a circa 1972 word processor using a Diablo model with 1/120" horizontal resolution -- do I win then or will I still have to do more work? -BC 209.6.203.244 22:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

You are hopelessly confused. 71.212.31.95 23:06, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

http://www.bookrags.com/Word_processor http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/deisenbe/compartics/History_of_Word_Processing.pdf

From the "Bookrags" cite: "In the early 1970s Linolex, Lexitron and Vydec introduced pioneering word-processing systems with CRT display editing."

That "History of Word Processing" cite is just dumb: it discusses IBM stuff and then skips over to microcomputers and CP/M. Not very germane to the discussion, is it? (Not very good history, either.)

Since we're citing stuff, here's another one from me: http://blogs.msdn.com/murrays/default.aspx Around 1978 I got a Diablo daisy-wheel printer to go with my IMSAI Z80 microcomputer. Not only was it much faster than the Selectric, it had many daisies some of which were proportionally spaced and it was designed to work as a computer printer. I had gotten into microcomputing thinking that by computerizing my house I'd learn something about experimental physics, since a real physicist surely needs to know something about both experiment and theory. To handle the proportional spacing, I wrote a printer driver. My colleague Rick Shoemaker, another microcomputer addict, and I decided we'd write a book called Interfacing Microcomputers to the Real World, and we "typeset" it using my printer driver and a daisy wheel printer. Addison-Wesley published the book, just as it had published Laser Physics, but this time using our nice proportionally spaced camera-ready proofs.

A library near me still had that book, so I popped on over to take a look, he used a Diablo 1345A, which is a HyType II -- not bad, eh?

I now suspect HyType I's are 12xx models, while HyType II's are 13xx. The first model HyType II would then likely be the 1300. In between that and the 1978 1345A used to typeset the book and according to that nifty Swiss ribbon crossreference, there was the Diablo 1300, 1330, 1330 WP, 1334, 1334 WP, 1335, 1335 WP, 1340A, and the 1340 WP. Hmmm....

I may be many things, but confused is not of them (well, at least when it comes to science/geeky/logic stuff...) -BC 209.6.203.244 03:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I photocopied some pages out of that Sargent/Shoemaker book, scanned two of them into PNG/s and posted them here: http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/Murray.html FYI. -BC 209.6.203.244 13:33, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Your reference pertains to a Diablo 1345A printer from "around 1978". One of the book pages you scanned indicates that the printer had a built-in microprocessor. You don't seem to understand that microcomputer-related technology advanced rapidly during the 1970s, especially after microprocessors became available. You cannot infer the capabilities commercially available in 1972 from a device dated to 1978. 71.212.31.95 17:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

What I'm essentially trying to do is move backwards in time towards 1972 by using provable checkpoints in regards to what common office technology was capable in an given year. The Swiss ribbon crossreference indicates there were daisywheel printers in use back in 1972, but without much indication of specific model and capability. That 1977 description of the Redactron Redactor II made it sound very much like it could have created the memos, and that 1973 reference to it suggests it used technology available at least very close to the time of the memos, but that's not exactly hard proof either (although more info is forthcoming on that). Having a book typeset on a Diablo in 1978, with not only the specific model number of the Diablo used, but with actual pages to look at -- c'mon now, that wasn't such a bad catch for a troll, no? Did you catch the clean superscript? That was totally by accident -- I went skimming through the book (it was late, I had a hard time finding a parking spot, and it was an archived book that I had to wait to be retrieved) and I looked first for any Diablo references, and then for any superscripting. I didn't notice any superscripting and was getting antsy to leave, so I just made photocopies of the Diablo references. It wasn't until later when I was looking it over when I saw the little "tm" superscript. Cool.

What this does is bolster the Redactor II as being capable of doing the memos since that lawyer who describes it bought it around 1977, just one year before Sargent said he got his. And the Redactor II is linked to 1973 in some fashion at least. Also bear in mind that his IMSAI/Diablo combo was likely a much less powerful device, at least in regards to word processing, than the Redactron. That "Scroll Systems Retroscroller (tm) Text Output" controller sounds especially very intriguing, but there is no reference to it in Google. Was that a new gizmo then or an old one? All that lost info.... -BC 70.90.98.226 19:52, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

As I understood it, what you're trying to do is show that the memos could have been produced in 1972 using a word processor with a daisywheel printer. Thus far you have failed to offer any valid evidence to support that claim. You say that the Redactor II "is linked to 1973 in some fashion at least". Beyond the fact that 1973 is too late to support your claims, your "link" to 1973 is a specification document which according to CBI shows that the Redactor II was then not yet in production. This supports the 1977 Business Week article, which indicates that the Redactor II was not delivered until 1976-7. Moreover, that original version cited by Business Week could not be the one described in your "1977" reference, because it used magnetic tapes rather than floppy discs. Yet you continue to refer to this Redactor II as if it had some relevance to the issue of 1972 daisywheel printing technology. It doesn't. 71.212.31.95 18:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, but as I pointed out, 1972 is now within striking distance -- devices capable of replicating the memos were available around 1976 at least, and these were not at all, as had been claimed by the likes of Newcomer and Phinney, vanishingly improbable and/or ultra expensive typesetting machines. They were indeed actually regular office stuff that even lawyers in small firms were buying back then. Even though there is a lot more research and investigating to be done, and even though there is frustratingly hardly any records left of those fascinating early-mid 70's word processing systems, the bits and pieces of evidence that has popped up so far have all been undermining the fundamental assumptions and beliefs of the pro-forgery people, expert or not. And the vast bulk of the external evidence aside from the appearance issue very much points towards to the memos being real and created by some circa 1972 device.

You continue to make claims without evidence. You have offered no evidence that any office products capable of producing the memos were available in 1976. Much less 1972. You have not in any way undermined the expert conclusion that the memos are forgeries. 71.212.31.95 18:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess that depends on your definition of "evidence". Some people might consider a book proportionally typeset on a Diablo 1345A daisywheel bought in 1978 along with actual pages copied from that book, including a very nice full superscript sample, to be evidence for what you could do word processing-wise in the later 70's at least. After all, wasn't it claimed by certain people that you couldn't do any of this sort of stuff until well into the 80's at least, or that you would need at least very expensive, specialized typesetting equipment that would never, ever be used for creating just memos? Some other people, though, I imagine, might say, "Big whoop, what does that prove? 1978 is still not 1972." And some people might consider a description of a specific word processor model bought apparently in 1977, but referenced in 1973, as having a "proportional Times" print mode option as also being evidence, yet I guess some others might still say something like, "Eh, you still ain't got nuttin'. Thems docs wuz forged, I tell ya, thems wuz forged! Ya wastin' ya time, I tell ya, ya wastin' ya time!"

Whether something is valid evidence depends on what you're trying to prove. If all you're trying to prove is that in the late 70s or early 80s it was possible to print a document with some kind of "proportional spacing" , then you have provided evidence for that. What you haven't provided is any evidence that an office product commercially available in 1972 could print a document with the specific spacing characteristics exhibited by the memos. Thus you haven't offered any evidence to refute the expert conclusion that the memos are forgeries. 71.212.31.95 02:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Also I am but a smartalecky Internet troll, so what can I possibly do to truly undermine all those well-reasoned, expert conclusions? Really, seriously? But, as I said, we shall see, shan't we? ;) -BC 209.6.203.244 21:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the amount of effort you've devoted to promoting these claims on your website suggests you're not just a troll. But regardless, you (or anyone) could easily overturn the expert conclusions if you could provide evidence showing that some office product commercially available in 1972 could produce documents with the specific spacing characteristics exhibited by the memos. All you'd need to do is identify one 1972 document with those characteristics, or one 1972 product with those capabilities. If such technology was in common use, as you claim, some evidence should exist. But, as you said, we shall see. 71.212.31.95 02:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

While I've been pretty good at going public here rather quickly with stuff I find out about, there were a few things I've kept to myself, mostly because I need to know what they mean. For instance, I was informed that the 1973 document on the Redactor II compares that to three other competing word processing systems, presumably on or about to come on the market at that point, and each used either a Diablo or Qume daisywheel printer: NBI, OCI-Veritext, and the AB Dick Magna I. I'm not too sure to make of this tantalyzing info so far (some people at CBI are trying to get more detail, though). The "NBI" reference is too vague. A Google on "AB Dick Magna I" gets pieces of a pay-to-read reference that starts off as, This unit was an AB Dick Magna I automatic "daisywheel" typewriter that is compatible with IBM Mag Card II equipment. We equipped the Magna I with an... And all I can find out about the "OCI-Veritext" so far is that it used a HyType II(!)/Qume ribbon. Very tantalyzing, but some more detail is absolutely needed. There's a good chance, though, I can push the memo-capable tech back to 1973 within a week. And then....well, we'll see, shan't we? -BC 209.6.203.244 23:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you overestimate your chances. But I encourage you to continue your research, because I think the early history of word processing technology is very interesting, and not well documented. 71.212.31.95 18:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I believe your AB Dick Magna I pay-to-read reference is: Sprowl, James A. & Staudt, Ronald W. (1981) "Computerizing Client Services in the Law School Teaching Clinic: An Experiment in Law Office Automation", Law & Social Inquiry 6 (3), 699-751. Note that the publication date is 1981. 71.212.31.95 18:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I was able to figure out how to access the article without paying for it. It wasn't very informative, though: it's heavily footnoted but very poorly written. It's about a project linking a legal clinic to a big old time-sharing CDC mainframe at Northwestern University in order to test out an experimental computerized system for creating wills and trusts and such. It's vague when they exactly started on the project, but it looks as though it was 1976 and was continued for some years thereafter. The equipment at the clinic was referred to in passing and mostly in the footnotes. The AB Dick Magna I was actually already at the clinic when the project started with no indication of how long it was there. It's described as a "magnetic card-controlled typewriter" in the main article and as an "A.B. Dick Magna I automatic daisywheel typewriter" in the footnote. For the project it was equipped with some sort of communications module an dial-up modem to communicate with the CDC mainframe -- it was essentially converted into a network printer controlled by the experimental legal software running on the CDC. They also purchased and added: an Anderson Jacobson daisywheel printer/terminal with tractor feed; a Teletype 42 comm unit with a built-in dot matrix printer; and two Teleray 1061 video terminals. From the description, the Magna I seems like it used one of the "KSR" Diablo models that had a built-in keyboard, which made it look like a typewriter, and it used IBM-type magnetic cards for document storage. That's something I guess, but not exactly too helpful with proportional printing business. FYI. -BC 209.6.203.244 01:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


Just before heading out the door, I found a passing reference to the OCI-Veritext, but while it doesn't say much about it other than to make it seem more like a smart typewriter, the article it appears in gives some more insights into early word processing tech: 1984 Creative Computing Article -BC 209.6.203.244 00:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


The second indicates that at least some of the Diablo models from the 70's had a HyPlot *option" which doubled the resolution to 1/120" http://gopher.quux.org:70/Archives/usenet-a-news/FA.printers/81.08.11_ucbvax.2620_fa.printers.txt

This is from 1981. It has no relevance to the capabilities of products commercially available in 1972. 71.212.31.95 20:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More OT discussion about authenticity

The basic question it whether just 1/60" resolution for proportional spacing would be sufficient to dupe the memos at least as well as the Word recreations. Bear in mind that the Word recreations only approxtimate the memos and are not at all identical, most noticeably with the two Killian memos with letterheads. I know that some of the typography experts think a higher resolution would be needed, but even an appoximate match by circa early 70's device should be enough to severely undercut the forgery claim since there really isn't anything else supporting it in a verifiable way. -BC 209.6.203.244 18:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

And the basic answer is no, as already explained. You just don't understand the technical issue. 71.212.31.95 20:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The fundamental problem is that are dealing with technology that was obsolete and scrapped so many years ago that very, very little evidence is remaining for even their ever existing, nevermind nice think manuals filled conveniently with specs and codes. As I think I demonstrated enough, the "created by Word" scenario has too many easily demonstrable discrepencies and issues to be taken seriously, especially so when the contents issue is factored in.

The fundamental problem is that your claims concerning the technology available in 1972 are based on uninformed speculation unsupported by any evidence. 71.212.31.95 16:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course life would be much easier if Bush had simply fessed up to whether the memos were true or not. His not commenting is more support for the memos being genuine.

There is one more test I'm looking at that looks promising: PC Magazine use to have (or maybe they still do) annual printer issues where they tested and rated different printers, and they included print samples. I can get my hands on some early-mid-80's issues that had daisywheel tests that had samples of proportional print mode in addition to Pica and Elite. Since Pica and Elite are fixed pitch, they can be used as a reference for the type of proportional spacing used in the daisywheels, most of which were Diablo compatibles and had identical proportional print modes. If the proportional mode of the Diablo-compatible daisywheel matches the spacing shown in the memos, would that be sufficient to at least kill the forgery charges? It may not completely clear up the origin of the memos, but it would be nice to finally put the always very, very dubious forgery claims to rest. -BC 209.6.203.244 05:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

It is very doubtful that printer evaluations from PC Magazine in the 1980s would have any relevance to this issue. 71.212.31.95 16:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I came across this, but I'm not too sure what to think of it yet: https://secure.fixyourownprinter.com/?search=cr&q=HyType But it looks as though the HyType I was indeed the low-end model since the Coleco Adam used it and the Coleco wasn't made until 1983: http://oldcomputers.net/adam.html So I may have been mistaken in thinking that HyType I was the early version of the HyType II -- they may instead have been contemporaneous models, with one being cheap and the other deluxe. My bad. -BC 209.6.203.244 05:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

You're now claiming that the HyType II was available in 1972? And that the HyType II was capable of producing the proportional spacing exhibited in the memos? What evidence do you have to support this claim? None, of course. 71.212.31.95 16:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Nooo....if you have been paying attention, what I've done is establish via a printer ribbon cross-reference that there were indeed word processing systems in 1972 that used HyType I daisywheel ribbons. So evidently there were word processing systems using Diablo-manufactured daisywheel printers at the time of the memos. What's murky now is what models they were and what exactly were they capable of. Like I said, at that time Diablo was strictlyan OEM printer supplier to word processor makers like CPT and Redactron, and so any documentation would have been provided by them and would refer to the printer by their model numbers and very likely not Diablo's (think Toyota Matrix versus the Pontiac Vibe, which is also a Matrix). There is some documentation after Xerox took over regarding the HyType I Model 1200, and I had been thinking that the Model 1300 HyType II replaced it a couple of years later, but apparently now the HyType I may have been around in one form or the other until the early 80's. So this to be looked further into. The important thing is that we now have word processing systems in place with some model of Diablo daisywheel printer at the time of the memos. That's something, no? -BC 209.6.203.244 18:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

No. As noted above, the HyType I mechanism could not have produced the proportional spacing in the memos. And what evidence do you have for the claim that there were word processing systems available in 1972 that used HyType 1 ribbons? 71.212.31.95 20:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
"...daisywheel tests that had samples of proportional print mode in addition to Pica and Elite..." This makes the assumption that there was only one system of proportional widths available to the HyType I. Although this is possible (the Selectric Composer had this limitation), there is no reason to assume it's true without more evidence. A single sample that doesn't match would not prove anything. However, knowing that the HyType's horizontal advance was in units of 1/60 of an inch does (though I'd still like to know where that manual was found, so I can verify it myself). [edit: Oops, that link was given earlier, sorry.]
"PC Magazine... annual printer issues... If the proportional mode of the Diablo-compatible daisywheel...." The Diablo 630 daisywheel printer was introduced in 1983. The term "Diablo compatible" apparently referred to the Diablo 630 in particular. Although the HyType I was still in use as a super-low-end printer at this time, there isn't much reason to assume that it had the same level of proportional spacing capability as a model introduced a decade later. (Perhaps it did, but that would certainly need some evidence.) -Tphinney

In other words, some more research needs to be done. Your viewpoint is that of a typographer, but at a computer firm, Adobe Systems, so you are familiar with computer fonts, but not so much with old printers and their capabilities, including type characteristics. By your own admission, you've only recently concluded that the memo fonts are not Times New Roman. Hailey's expertise is in document authentication and the type characteristics of old devices, apparently primarily typewriters. I make no claims to expertise (but nor do I claim I have none), but I have looked carefully at the methodologies that you two and others have use and found some flaws.

You don't provide nearly enough samples to convincingly demonstrate your point that the fonts are Times Roman when individual memo characters are evidently not. You seem sincere, but you should have spent more time doing more word-to-word, character-to-character comparisons between the memmos and Wrod recreations and then demonstrated how this supports your conclusion. Your pdf "samples" are grossly insufficient by any scientific research standard.

Hailey has does far more sampling and had demonstrated his results much more extensively than any of the other supposed experts involved in this, so he get more brownie points towards his expertise level. He seems, though, to have no idea about daisywheel printers -- instead he extensively describes a strange typewriter-like device with a platen that can print proportionally in a font that sort of looks like Times New Roman, but isn't (perhaps he should have looked at these: http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/Printwheel3A.jpg and http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/Printwheel2A.jpg.)

And obviously my interest is in debunking this forgery nonsense, and it is nonsense -- you put *all* the pieces on the table -- fonts, contents, DoD docs and so on -- throw out all the easily refuted bogus bits, and then when you put all them all together, forgery is not at all what you end up with. If anything, what you do end up with is far worse. -BC (this really will be my last say on the matter until I have more concrete info to share) 209.6.203.244 16:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

"As I think I demonstrated enough, the "created by Word" scenario has too many easily demonstrable discrepencies and issues to be taken seriously, especially so when the contents issue is factored in." I do not think your concerns demonstrate that, nor do most other experts who've been looking at the documents (nor most of the typographers who've brought it up with me in the last couple of days at the annual international typography conference, running in Lisbon right now - and being a random selection of international folks, most of them can't stand Bush any more than I can). I for one take no stand on the truth or falsehood of the contents; not my area of expertise. But the typography (font and formatting) is so incredibly improbable that until/unless a machine is found that could do such a thing, I will continue to consider the memos almost certainly forgeries.

- Thomas Phinney 07:45, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you do your homework better. You alleged experts have not helped at all to clear up matters here. You, like Newcomer, have offered a lot of opinion but with very little in the way of demonstration to back it up. You claim now that the memos are in Times Roman font (MAC) and not Times New Roman (Windows), but you haven't demonstrated that with any real sampling either. By comparison, I took all 3 instances of the word "Harris" from the "CYA" memo and compared them to a Word-created one -- the characters don't match up that well. In your interview with Creative Pro, http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/21939.html, you make the statement:

"So, every letter is different. The baseline wavers a bit. That's no surprise. We're not looking at an original printed directly from a computer. This is an effect of the image degradation from being scanned twice at low resolution. This is why many of the arguments based on letter shape are pretty dubious.

If you want to test it, type a memo in Times New Roman. Fax it to yourself (make sure the fax guides are loose enough that the paper can twist just ever so slightly). Get it scanned back into a computer, and then drop the resolution to 120 dpi on the final image. It will look a heck of a lot like the CBS memo at this point. Absolutely no need to use a typewriter (or a degraded font) up front!"

But as I pointed out to you, there was a guy did that with a Word-created CYA copy, http://www.poweroftheindividual.org/blog/2004/09/fauhxed-bush-memos.html, and I again took out his 3 instances of "Harris" and compared those to Word-created one. While the three Harris's are much more distorted than the CYA memo ones, they still match up better to their Word origin than the CYA ones. Also in regards to the baseline wavering, the the deliberately distored Word-created one wavers in groups of letters, and *not* individually as show in the CYA memo, which would be the case with an impact printer. And I made the effort to actually demonstrate this: http://www.aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/CBSBushMemos.html#FunWithFonts.

Have fun in Lisbon. ;) -BC 209.6.203.244 21:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


Veritas vincit. -BC 209.6.203.244 18:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

What's the evidence for your claim that a daisywheel printer with proportional spacing was available to Killian in 1972? 71.212.31.95 05:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

That was already covered: this is a Swiss HyType ribbon crossreference listing the CPT model 4200: http://onlineshop.jpd.ch/sp/farbband-multistrike/qume-1145-farbband-multistrike-original-schwarz.asp

This is a computer timeline mentioning the CPT model 4200 word processor as being introduced in 1972: http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/01HISTORYCD-Chrono1.htm (That's only one example, but I had referenced a Business Week article from June, 1975 showing that the word processor market was in full bloom by then.) As far as whether this was available to Killian, that's like asking if a 1972 Chevelle was available to him -- that's a pointless question. The thing that started the forgery charge in the first place was the claim by "Buckhead" that there were no such devices in 1972 that could proportionally print, and then Charles Johnson did his little, cute, and highly misleading CYA/Word animation and so "Rathergate" was born, and truth and journalism took a holiday. All the other claims of evidence for forgery have turned out to be utter nonsense, so it's really back to figuring out what device printed out the memos. If the best evidence is that is was indeed a daisywheel, then not only is the forgery claim dead and buried, but it also demonstrates the risk of relying on the very sketchy blogosphere for real information, how deplorably lazy and sloppy the mainstream media has become, and what sort of a man George Bush is, since he could have put this to rest a long time ago, sparing the long, drawn-out, and often vicious smear campaign aimed at Rather, CBS and Mapes, if he had any integrity whatsoever. -BC 209.6.203.244 21:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The original CPT 4200 word processor used a modified Selectric typewriter: http://www.compmuseum.org/index.php?title=CPT_Cassetype_4200 It could not possibly have produced the typography exhibited by the Killian memos. You really have no idea what you're talking about. Your claims cannot be taken seriously. 71.212.31.95 22:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I've produced a ribbon cross-reference showing the CPT 4200 used a HyType ribbon, which does not fit a Selectric -- maybe CPT offered each as an option. We don't know for sure because the bulk of this stuff, including what would have been very helpful manuals, has been long ago obsolete and trashed. As I've mentioned before, it's very murky about what the technology was like back then. All that's known for sure is that the word processing market was in full bloom by 1975 with many venders now long since gone; Diablo was making daisywheel printers from about 1969 and they had to have been selling enough of them to get Xerox to buy the company for $28 million in 1972; there more than a few problems with the "created by Word" scenario; and that the more you look into it, the more the memos don't look like they were forged. -BC 209.6.203.244 23:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

As I said, you really have no idea what you're talking about. (You obviously didn't look at the CPT 4200 documentation at the link I provided.) Phinney has shown conclusively that the memos are forgeries. You just don't understand his (fairly simple) technical analysis, which clearly excludes the daisywheel printing technology available in 1972. 71.212.31.95 01:31, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
"Phinney has shown conclusively that the memos are forgeries." I would not say that, myself. I just think I've shown that none of the non-typesetting devices I know to have been available in 1972 could have created the memos. The "pro-memo" folks have had a couple of years to come up with something, and nobody has as yet. I think it's "possible," just really really unlikely. Enough so that I'd bet money on it. Tphinney 15:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Of course nothing can be proved conclusively in an absolute philosophical sense. Perhaps I should have said "convincingly", although I suppose that depends on whom one is trying to convince. No one has identified a non-typesetting machine available in 1972 that could have created the memos. Nor has anyone produced a single non-typeset document from 1972 that exhibits the relevant font characteristics found in the memos. If such a machine existed, it would not only have to be presently unknown (as many obscure machines of that era undoubtedly are), but would have to have been a machine with capabilites exceeding those of the most advanced known machines of its day. It is highly unlikely that such a machine would have left no trace in the historical record if it had received any significant use at the time. Of course the existence of a magical mystery machine capable of producing the memos is not impossible, in the sense that it would not defy the laws of physics. But the likelihood that Killian used such a machine is vanishingly small. 71.212.31.95 19:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Gawd...let me type this really slow so you can understand. The CPT 4200 is referenced, along with an awful lot of long forgotten word processors in this ribbon cross-reference for HyType ribbons: http://onlineshop.jpd.ch/sp/farbband-multistrike/qume-1145-farbband-multistrike-original-schwarz.asp Go look, it's there. I didn't make this up. Now as far as the CPT 4200 in your link, that now looks to be a different 4200, the model 4200-i. Why? Go here: http://www.tonsoftoner.com/products/cpt/3044128519.htm That uses a Selectric ribbon. So I was right to suggest that the CPT 4200's came with either a Selectric or HyType option, which trashes whatever point you were trying to make. In regards to Mr. Phinney, I can only point out that, unlike Hailey, Phinney has shown very little in the way of demonstrable evidence to support his claims, the current one being that the font shown in the memos is Times Roman (which is what Macs use) and not Times New Roman (which is what Windows uses). It isn't enough to say something like, "I'm an expert, these are my credentials, therefore you must believe this opinion of mine" without going into at least some verifiable and demonstrable detail at how that opinion was reached.

The CPT 4200 described in the link I provided is the original CPT 4200. The one that was introduced in 1972. The one that was referenced in the chronology you cited. That's the only model that's relevant to the issue. Your ribbon cross-reference website (hardly an authoritative source) may simply be in error, or it may refer to a different machine with a similar name of later date. Since it gives no date, it does not support your claim that a word processing system using the HyType mechanism was available in 1972. With regard to Mr. Phinney, see below. 71.212.31.95 15:19, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

You might want to consider using this rather useful Internet search site called "Google.com". Perhaps you may have heard of it. Let's say you were curious about, oh say, the ribbon an old CPT mode 4200-i word processor used. You think it might use a Selectric ribbon, but you're not sure. To find out, all you need to do is do a Google search on: CPT 4200-i Selectric and you will get results like http://onlinecomputersareus.stores.yahoo.net/ibmseiirit3.html, http://www.intimecatalog.com/supplies/details/RIBBON_DATAPRODUCTS_DATA_PRODUCTS_R5180.phtml?camp=Froogle&subcamp=DATAPRODUCTSDATA_PRODUCTS_R5180 and so on.

Now that you've confirmed that it was indeed the CPT Model 4200-i that used a Selectric ribbon, the next question may well be, what came first: a model called simply the 4200 (which used a different ribbon type), or one called the 4200-i. Hmmm.... -BC 209.6.203.244 19:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's see. Since the museum webpage about the Selectric-based CPT 4200 that I gave you the link to above says: "It was the first product manufactured by the CPT Corporation", I guess that answers your question. Evidently it was too much trouble for you to look at that page and read as far as the second sentence. Yeah, Google is great, but you have to actually read the references it turns up. 71.212.31.95 21:05, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

And maybe you should have read the date on the last page of the "Training Manual" for that CPT model: http://compmuseum.org/upload/cpt%204200%20series%20manual.pdf Sorry, but ribbon manufacturing cross-references are very, very specific on models, and all of them have a HyType ribbon listed for the plain CPT 4600, and a Selectric ribbon for the CPT 4600-i.

Actually, I did read the date (2/78). What do you think it proves? That's presumably the date on which the manual was printed. It may well be later than the date on which the device was introduced. Or perhaps your chronology was wrong about the 1972 date. Remember, you're the one claiming that a word processor with proportional spacing was available in 1972, not me. You've provided no evidence that a CPT machine using a HyType ribbon was available in 1972, or that any such machine supported proportional spacing. But please keep trying. 71.212.31.95 01:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

If you don't like my CPT reference, you're going to hate my Redactron one: http://eet.com/special/special_issues/millennium/milestones/berezin.html According to this, Redactron started selling its first word proccesser in 1971. And According to that June, 1975 Business Week article I referenced earlier, Redactron had at that time sold its 10,000th word processing system. And that same Swiss HyType ribbon reference that has the CPT models also has *12* Redactron models listed.

My only problem with your Redactron reference is that, like your CPT one, it provides no support for your claim that a word processor with proportional spacing was available in 1972. This article says that Redactron's word processor started shipping in 1971. It goes on to say "Later machines, which included monitors, could do most of the important things—like arranging columns and margins and moving copy around—that were routine in later-day word processors." Please note the use of the word "later". And the article makes no reference whatever to proportional spacing. 71.212.31.95 01:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

But this is all still indirect evidence. I think I may have a lead on something slightly more direct, but we'll see. What's more certain is that these always foolish forgery claims are finally going to meet a way, WAY overdue, ignoble ending. -BC 209.6.203.244 22:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

When you can offer some real evidence for your claim that a word processor which could have produced the Killian memos was available in 1972, I'll be very interested to see it. 71.212.31.95 01:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Some research in Redactron led to this page: http://www.cbi.umn.edu/collections/inv/burros/cbi00090-077.html Apparently the company folded up in 1977 after having been purchased by Borroughs a couple of years before then. There is a reference to the "Redactor II" word processor dated 1973, 8 lines down from the "Company Records" section. That wonderful Swiss ribbon crossreference site has the "Redactor II" using a HyType ribbon. 1973 is not 1972, but it's firmer evidence for there being word processing systems using daisywheel printers. By the way, you and others lurking out there my find it interesting to go to the search page on that Swiss ribbon site, http://onlineshop.jpd.ch/suchen.asp, and in the "Druckermodell" search field, put in "Diablo" then click on "Suchen". You should end up with the most comprehensive list of Diablo printer models you'll ever see. Since the Hytype I was also the model 1200 and the HyType II was also the model 1300, that list implies that they were contemporaneous models along with many variations. And logically, if you had a single initial product, you wouldn't put an "I" after it right away at least. In Diablo's case, it would be just the "HyType" if that was its first daisywheel printer. That there were a HyType I and II, and apparently existing at the same time, most likely means that the HyType II was a beefier, more expensive model, and not a sucessor.

But that's just guess work. Getting back to the "Redactor II" model, I also found this http://216.218.211.127/~forums/showthread.php?t=65765&page=13 To quote: "Burroughs bought out Redactor corporation (or at least its computer line from them), and sold a dedicated word processor with a large full letter size screen (portrait, not landscape) with dual floppy disk drives (RAM on a disc instead of linear on tape - HUGE time-saving improvement), for about $13,000. They gave me and another attorney a $3,000 discount if we would turn in a Redactor I so they could literally junk it at the city dump - they did not want to service them even for a $500 per year service contract. My buddy had one, and so we purchased a Redactor II (R-2) (which we promptly renamed R2-D2, of StarWars fame) for a mere $10,000. It used a Qume daisy wheel printer which had blinding speed that blew away the IBM Selectric, and we could attach different wheels for different fonts and sizes ranging from 10 pica to 12 elite to 15 fine print (great for attorneys ), Courier, Letter Gothic, and even "proportional spacing" Times (OMG!) print. It was almost like owning a print shop and having a sophisticated type composer machine. We could do anything...except graphics."

Now, you may note that the "Star Wars" reference puts the purchase at 1977, which also was apparently the last year that any Redactron model was sold. So the Redactor II apparently came out in 1973 with a Qume daisywheel printer (remember Qume was formed in 1973), was sold until 1977, and there is a reference to this system being able to proportionally print in a "Times" font, which is probably either what the Redactron manual said it was or else what the printhead was labeled as.

Your CBI reference says Redactron was acquired by Burroughs in 1976. Business Week (11/21/77) says: "Being acquired by Burroughs has not helped Redactron all that much either. 'You can hear the fizzle,' says the president of one competitor. Despite the Detroit computer maker's financial resources and years of related experience, Redactron delivered its first Redactor II, a display-screen text editor, a full year after the product was announced. It took longer than originally expected, explains President Berezin, to develop the new system." This indicates that the Redactor II was first delivered by Redactron after the acquisition by Burroughs, sometime in 1976-7, not in 1973 as you claim. 71.212.31.95 01:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

You go back to here, http://www.cbi.umn.edu/collections/inv/burros/cbi00090-077.html, and there is this reference: "Redactor II & Printer Specifications, Book 3," 1973. (Box 3, folder 13-14)

That's 1973, and not 1976-77. 1977 is apparently when Redactron went out of business. Also bear in mind that these were not PC's with model changeovers every several months or so -- something that came out in 1973 would be sold for the few years at least, with maybe some incremental enhancements every year or so.

While this doesn't place the system at 1972, it's awfully darn close and says a lot about the office tech around that time, and that "Times" font reference is at least intriguing, no? -BC 209.6.203.244 20:16, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

No. A reference to "proportional spacing" Times in 1977 is meaningless. Here's a pertinent extract from Desktop Publishing Skills (Felici and Nace, Addison-Wesley, 1987):
"Typewriter type and most impact printer type is handicapped by its monospacing -- the letters are designed so that each one takes up an equal amount of horizontal space on the page... The first efforts in the word processing world to reduce this problem resulted in proportional-spacing impact printers. These printers divide the letters of the alphabet into a small number of groups according to their widths. A typical proportional-spacing scheme may provide three units of escapement for every one on a monospaced machine. A wide character like an M would be accorded a width of three units, a narrower e would be accorded two, and an i would be measured as one unit wide." (pp. 22-24)
If you think the crude kind of "proportional spacing" provided by these early impact printers could have produced the spacing exhibited by the memos, it's simply a further demonstration that you don't know what you're talking about. 71.212.31.95 21:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but a typewriter reference (it sounds like it's talking about the IBM Executive) has absolutely no bearing in a discussion of daisywheel printers. And that 1977 cite was to a particular word processing system evidently introduced in 1973, and the Swiss ribbon crossreference confirms that it did indeed used a daisywheel printer, probably a Qume (the first Qumes at least were meant to be completely plug-compatible with Diablo's.) And as far as "crude" goes, the daisywheel printers then were precision devices, as I had already provided reference for via this pdf file, http://www.tinaja.com/glib/atg1.pdf, beginning on page 14. The only real issue is the question about what the horizontal resolution is for the different models at that time, which can be either 1/120" or 1/60". Some of the "em"-ty headed typographers (sorry...) have claimed that 1/60" is not enough for Times Roman, but we're talking about the memos and their coarse resolution may make this a moot point.

In any case, I guess I should mention that the good people here, http://www.cbi.umn.edu, are apparently going to look for references to daisywheel printers in their considerable collection of Redactron documents they conveniently have archived. I may be a troll, but I am a thorough one. ;) -BC 209.6.203.244 22:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Where did you get the idea that the statements I quoted about proportional-spacing impact printers developed for the word processing world are a typewriter reference? And how could it be talking about the IBM Executive, which long predated word processing and employed a 5-unit system of character widths? And why do you think the reference you provided, which refers to the capabilities of an enhanced version of the Diablo 630 from the 1980s, is relevant to the question of the technology available in 1972? 71.212.31.95 01:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yet More OT discussion about authenticity

???? You don't seem to be following the thread very well. Grant it, it's messy, so let me summarize: 1) Daisywheel printers existed from about 1969 and were certainly common enough by 1972; 2) All references indicate that those printers could proportionally print, either via a simple "proportional mode" command (Esc P) or through computer control of the characters mapping and spacing, with the horizontal spacing resolution of these printers was either 1/60" or 1/120" depending on the model (it's murky so far which models outside of the HyType I and a handful of latter models could do which); 3) Qume, a plug-compatible Diablo rival, began making its daisywheel printers around 1973; 4) around that time there were also computer-like devices called "dedicated word processors" that used both daisywheel printers and modified IBM Selectric printers, and the market for these, according to a Business Week article from that year, was flourishing by 1975 with many vendors, manufacturers and products, most of which long since gone and forgotten about; 5) Both Diablo and evidently Qume were primarily OEM suppliers at that time, so the references to the printers they made are mostly masked by the model numbers of the dedicated word processor manufacturers; 6) However, by using a *very* comprehensive ribbon crossreferences like this, http://onlineshop.jpd.ch/suchen.asp, one can link daisywheel printer ribbons to specific word processor models; 7) By Googling those word processor models using daisywheel printer ribbons, one can some dated references to those models, hence establishing a least a rough timeline despite the paucity of info even via Google since we are dealing with long, long obsolete and discarded technology; 8) There is a CPT word processor, the mode "4200" that evidently came out in 1972 and it's only ribbon reference is for a Diablo ribbon. There was another, presumably latter model, the "4200-i" listed as using a Selectric ribbon. This was objected to via a reference to a computer museum claiming that a "CPT Cassetype 4200" in their posession, which used a Selectric printer, was the first CPT word processor. However the training manual for this model, which is on their site in PDF format, is clearly dated as being printed in February, 1978, which is several years after CPT began making word processors. There is a Business Week article from 1977 that states some of the word processor vendors were "trying to sell compatible products into the giant IBM product base", which would suggests, given the date on the training manual, that the "Cassetype 4200" was only meant as a lower lost alternative to IBM's Mag Card Selectric; 9) There was a word processing company called "Redactron" that was started in 1969, was a market leader in 1975 when it sold its 10,000th word processor, was bought by Burroughs in 1976, and then apparently was folded in 1977. There are daisywheel ribbon references to at least 12 Redactron models, one of which is the "Redactor II". There are two other key references to the "Redactor II" found on the web -- one in an archived Redactron document dated 1973, and another from 1977 stating rather specifically that "It used a Qume daisy wheel printer which had blinding speed that blew away the IBM Selectric, and we could attach different wheels for different fonts and sizes ranging from 10 pica to 12 elite to 15 fine print (great for attorneys ), Courier, Letter Gothic, and even "proportional spacing" Times (OMG!) print. It was almost like owning a print shop and having a sophisticated type composer machine. We could do anything...except graphics."; 10) I asked the research librarians at the place where the Redactron files are archived, http://www.cbi.umn.edu, if they could look for dates and references in regards to daisywheel printers in the 1969-1974 time period, and I got a reply that they will.

And that's the status so far. Now are you up to speed? Also, have you ever thought about maybe being part of the solution? -BC 209.6.203.244 13:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


You tell me which of these shows more effort and research: http://imrl.usu.edu/bush_memo_study/supporting_material/bush_memos.pdf or http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/bush/TNR%20vs%20TR.pdf Hailey makes a very strong case for the memos having been created on some sort of impact printer and he concluded that the "Shape and proportion of key characters (e.g., "F,""L," "g," "5") do not fit Times New Roman or any other digital typeface I have yet found."

Hailey is not an expert. Phinney is. Unfortunately, you're unable to tell the difference. 71.212.31.95 15:19, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
This has descended to a really silly level of ad hominem attacks. I will merely point out that, as pointed out in my blog post (with supporting graphics), all of those key characters cited by Hailey are among the few that differ significantly between Times Roman (Linotype) and Times New Roman (Microsoft/Monotype). Given that the character widths are also demonstrably identical to both versions of Times, Hailey has simply proved that the typeface is Times Roman and not Times New Roman, and that he didn't know enough about the subject to test both versions. Given that Times Roman is a system font on the Mac OS (and has been since at least the early 90s), and that Times Roman is also built into every PostScript printer ever made (since the original LaserWriter in 1985), this is a pretty major oversight.
Note however that I have never claimed that the document was not produced on a typewriter or dedicated word processor. It seems unlikely to me, but I'm not making that as a claim. I'm just saying what the typeface is, and what devices couldn't have done it. Yes, it's a narrow focus, but you only need one conclusive chunk of evidence to disprove that a given device could have printed the memos. - Tphinney 15:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response -- this is a messy page to follow (I've been sort of guilty of contributing). There was nothing ad hominem about my complaints -- I merely pointed out the difference in the level of research between what Hailey and done, and, um, certain typographers. If the things I cited aren't representative, feel free to correct me. Also, I'm getting a bit curious about how exactly Times Roman and Times New Roman changed over the past several years to explaing the discrepencies that show up here when you type in anything, and what exactly are the true unit spacing proportions these days. I did some manual measurements using the units for Times New Roman located at the bottom this page I cited before, http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/propint.htm, and found that they don't match up with what I found with a test I did in Word -- for instance "f" was wider than "t" and "J" did not all belong in its grouping. Is it because that older Monotype Times New Roman is not at all the same as the current version? Not exactly a trivial point (so to speak) considering that we're dealing with 34 yr old typeset standards. -BC 209.6.203.244 16:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Really? I was under the impression that they were both experts, one in computer typography and the other in document authentication. No matter -- in science, the guy with the more extensive research and presentation of work and evidence wins. I Googled Phinney's "work" and this is the best I could find: http://www.creativepro.com/printerfriendly/story/21939.html That's hardly at all comparable in quality and depth to Hailey's work. Instead of spinning your wheels with easily dismissable, unsupported opinion, why don't you try some real science instead, like say confirming (or maybe even refuting) some of the stuff in Hailey's report. He gives a nice recipe on page 4 on to show some serious issues with trying to recreate the August 1, 1972 memo in Word. If you have a scanner, it should be easy (print on mylar sheets if you're no comfortable with Photoshop/Paintshop type programs. You do something like that and then you'll have something finally useful to contribute to this discussion. -BC 209.6.203.244 20:31, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

You may try to argue that this one expert's opinion versus another, but in science, homework counts, especially in showing how you reached your conclusions. Hailey shows his homework in detail, whereas Phinney has not. -BC 66.251.53.50 12:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Phinney has explained his analysis quite clearly. The problem is that you are apparently unable to understand it. That's not Phinney's fault. You just aren't sufficiently well informed about typography and printing technology to understand what he's saying. For example, when Phinney refers to the 18 units-per-em system used by Times Roman, do you have any idea what he's talking about? Or does that just go right over your head? 71.212.31.95 15:19, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Whoosh! 71.212.31.95 00:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
In general, I am quite willing to take the blame for not explaining myself clearly enough if somebody doesn't understand my work. However, as in most technical areas, I'm more trusting of peer review than of a dismissal from somebody outside the field. Nobody with an extensive typographic background has either (1) disputed my initial analysis, or (2) disputed my finding that the typeface is Times Roman.
As for both Hailey and I being experts, I'm sure we both are experts in something, but Hailey does not appear to be an expert in document authentication, as far as is apparent from his [1]. He's got a Ph.D. in English. He's a communication professor in an English department. Maybe he has some previous track record in this area that is not apparent from his bio, but it hasn't come up anywhere that I've seen.

Your Hailey link is broken, it's this: http://english.usu.edu/Document/index.asp?Parent=632 Note the number of peer-reviewed articles he's authored and grants he's received -- that gives him some creds as a genuine researcher. His experience with archiving old documents and his handy stay in the military also give him some more brownie points. You evidently know digital typography, but he knows how old document look. If anything, both skills compliment each other, but since we're dealing with old documents (or ones purportedly old), and since he's obviously has done more research, I have to give him the nod. -BC 209.6.203.244 16:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Hailey's original analysis of the Bush memos was taken down because it was full of egregious errors. His newer analysis is much better, but still has some major errors. I have not yet posted all my analysis of said errors, and may not have time to do so before Christmas - just too many conferences and other speaking engagements, and then I have to finish the typeface I'm designing.

Well, I can totally understand what Hailey was doing. He looked at the memos, saw telltale signs that they were created with an impact device, which he assumed (incorrectly) had to have been a typewriter since what else would be around in 1972 that could do that? He then tried to build his case by artificially copying and pasting typewriter fonts using faux proportional spacing to show how much they end up looking like the memo characters. That was a very naive approach that completely ignored the issue of what device could have printed proportionally like that in 1972.

Bear in mind that when you two look at the memos, your prejudices and/or experiences cause you to "see" different things: his experience is with old documents so he immediately notices all the characteristics of old documents, therefore the memos are old and not forged; your experience is with digital typography and fonts so you immediately notice all the characteristics of current Times Roman spacing like that shown in Word, therefore the memos are new and forged.

I see two guys who apparently mean well, but neither didn't actually take a look at what the level of tech and document creation was back in 1972, thereby kind of blinding both of you to the complete picture. But since the memos look very much like they could have easily been created with on early 70's tech, Hailey wins on a technicality. -BC 209.6.203.244 16:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Finally, sheer length of analysis and showing lots of work is not generally how one convinces fellow scientists that your conclusions are correct. The content of the analysis has to hold up to scrutiny as well. Sometimes relatively short proofs can be highly convincing. So far, my work from the same period as Hailey's original analysis has held up, unlike Hailey's work from the same period, extremely lengthy though it was. Hailey's more recent work has been after the main furor died down, which is why we haven't seen more commentary on it (either positive or negative). However, I've demonstrated that one of his main conclusions ("it's not Times") is based on incorrect information, and that his claimed research in that area is lacking.- Thomas Phinney 13:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, that whole business with Times Roman versus Times New Roman versus "Times" or whatever they had back in the 70's needs to be examined. Saying that they look like they created on a Mac isn't quite sufficient. -BC 209.6.203.244 16:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Oooo...I'm hurt. I don't pretend to be anything other than a troll, but let me put on this here thinkin' cap I have handy and turn its big ol' knob to 11.... Oh, yeah, when Phinney talks about "18 units-per-em system used by Times Roman", he's talking about digital typefaces that have nothing to do with the memos. The memos are of poor quality, meaning that their inherent coarseness makes such fine unit measurements laughably inappropriate. Also digital typefaces by their very nature are just digitized approximations of traditional typefaces -- they are to real type what MP3 encoding is to analog music. If he or anyone else wanted to really wanted to determine the true typeface used in the memos, a bunch of "A's" should be taken from all the memos and their characteristics averaged out, and then the same done for "B's," "C's," and so on. And then you compare these the defined characteristics of known/standard typefaces. I don't believe he's done anything like that, has he? But Hailey has, so again that gives him more credibility as a researcher and expert. Just pointing out "gosh, that's a narrow "E" -- it just gotta be Times Roman" is *not* sufficient. Sorry.

My head hurts now so I have to take my thinkin' cap off and maybe watch Fox News or somethin' like it to compensate. -BC 209.6.203.244 01:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the "Whoosh!". It was only meant to encourage you to respond to the question. But your response confirms my perception that you simply do not understand the technical basis of Phinney's analysis. If all you know (or think you know, and all you seemingly care to know) is that "he's talking about digital typefaces that have nothing to do with the memos", you are obviously in no position to objectively evaluate his analysis. The units-per-em character spacing is not an absolute measure but a relative one. It pertains to the positioning of the characters, not their appearance. And it applies not simply to a single character, but to an entire line of characters. So fine measurements are not involved. And, most importantly, the problem with the memos is not that they fail to match typeset-quality spacing, but that they match closely. This could not have been achieved with 1972 typewriter technology, nor could it be the result of degradation caused by copying and scanning. It therefore precludes the possibility that the memos are genuine. This is not really very difficult to understand. 71.212.31.95 03:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
That's a good summary of my argument, if not my conclusion. Let's look at the widths argument from a statistical POV. Wven a minute difference in widths, say 1/20 of an em, will accumulate to a large and noticeable difference over an entire line of ragged-right text, as in the memos. Let's say that the average letter is only off by 1/20th of an em. Further, the letters may be off in either a positive or negative direction. If there are 100 letters per line, and one flips a coin for each to determine whether it's off in a positive or negative direction, you'll find that it won't even out - on average you'll be off by about three times your standard error. A noticeable portion of the time you'll be off by twice that or a bit more. But 6/20ths of an em is about the width of a typical space cahracter, and almost the width of an average lowercase letter. Even a difference of 3/20ths of an em would be visible in that the average line would be noticeably off. We didn't see that difference versus the Times spacing in any of the memos. (Note that I am using some round numbers here, but the argument holds even if there are, say, 80 characters per line and you're talking a finer gradation.) - Thomas Phinney 14:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

That's all nice and good, but there is a slight flaw with this reasoning: the actual memos only "approximately" line up with Word recreations on average when you do a best fit, some worse that others. As you would expect, the shorter memos do better, but then you have, as Hailey clearly demonstrated, a big discrepency with the letterheads. You just can't say, "Well, the alignment spacing here matches up pretty well, but not so much there, hmmm....I'll just disregard that second bit because it doesn't fit in with what I'm thinking." No. Everything has to fit and make sense.

Also think this through: let's suppose Diablos and their compatibles were in common use and in fact dominated the business and government market right up until, say, 3 years ago, and they had a font called "Times" that was very popular. But then cheap laser printers came on the market and businesses rapidly switched over to the point that today that virtually all the daisywheel printers have been scrapped or stuck in a back room. People still like their "Times" font, though, so the PC makers and the laser printer makers made sure there was something "just like it" at least for their customers. Well, that's what essentially happened in mid-80's

And, Duh, I know about the ems and stuff, but were talking about transitioning from a mechanical system that used a well defined font that's been around decades before the first daisywheels to a digital system that creates the font essentially as a picture, one that is suppose look like the same font on paper. Why should they screw that much with an established font? Postscript is no more than a way to describe the font as it should appear on the paper, with characters shaped and sized this way and spaced out that way, and if you want to do kerning, blah, blah, blah, but again, the whole purpose of this is to make the font look the way it's suppose to. If you have a daisywheel printer with a horizontal resolution of 1/120" and you use a printwheel of standard Times characters of about an 11 point size, and the word processing system is set to use "Times" character spacing map for it, there is no reason why the output should not be virtually identical to a digital system that is "suppose" to replicate that same font at that point size. Duh. The only real issue is the variant of the "Times" being used. According to MyFonts, the "Times" font hasn't been changed since 1974, whereas "Times New Roman" was changed in 2000, yet they look virtually identical, certainly enough so that if one created a memo around 1974 with Times and overlaid it with a memo recreated in 1974 with Times New Roman in the same point size, they should match up very well at the very least. Just as is the real-life case with the memos. The centering issue is not directly font-related so you might expect a greater variance there, and indeed you do get that with the memos when compared to their Word recreations.

Important note With all that said, I got some photocopies of a couple of Redactron documents sent to me by CBI. I can't post them, but I can say they are good news/bad news to me. The good news is that they confirm Diablo System was indeed making customizable OEM daisywheel printers in 1972. One is a single handwritten sheet dated 1/14/72 describing approval for a new design that very explicitly had proportional printing. The bad news is that the demo unit for whatever model they're talking about (it's referred to cryptically as "T 2L" ironically enough) wasn't suppose to be ready until October 1972, and apparently mass production wasn't scheduled util April of 1973. Grrrrr....everything described is about a year too late to be useful, darn it. But it doesn't indicate which model they were talking about. There is a second typewritten memo, though, dated Sept. 25, 1972, with some interesting Xerox tibits: there was "pressure" from the primarily the Marketing department to "discontinue OEMing the printer" but with, of course, no indication which printer they were talking about; some curious bullet points that go "a. If Xerox (Diablo) doesn't capture the new-non-mechanical printer market someone else will; b. If so, it might well be even present Diablo people. We agreed that the patents could be gotten around."

Yeah, I know....tantalyzing but not too useful.

Also on the first page are references to print wheels: "They have two new print wheels (Pica = 10 p and Elite = 12 p) in addition to the original Courier 72 which they expect to re-do. I have print samples of both, using a brand new film ribbon (interchangeable with the cloth; available November) They do not expect to tool new fonts (at least for OEM) right now but will do for $10k plus 50X artwork. There have been about 150 ECOS since our printer (Serial #0002) was built. We will buy a new pinter. Ed Lau please order. Comstock indicates around a 60 day delivery."

On the 2nd page of the same documents there are two items of note: "We went through our troubles with our old machine, they were all familiar and there were a few we didn't get. (Including a W printing after CR if the ribbon line was cycled electrically.)"; "Printer shipments to date 300-400."

It's unclear what that "300-400" refers to: printers to date after Xerox acquired Diablo, or total printers to date by Diablo.

While all of this this absolutely confirms that Diablo daisywheel printers were being sold by 1972 at least, things seem like they are all just one year too late for the memos, especially in regards to the proportional spacing. Hmmm....I feel like I'm overlooking something.... At the very least, I have to get more info from those CBI files. So close..... FYI. -BC 209.6.203.244 20:48, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

This documentation is actually very useful, as it clearly seems to exclude the possibility that the memos were produced in 1972 on a Redactron word-processing system with a Diablo daisywheel printer. Good work! 71.212.31.95 19:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Now, now.... I strongly suspected over a week ago that I would be able to show that the memos could be created in 1973, by the time of CYA memo, on common office equipment (as least common in law offices at that time), but 1972 would be hard. The typographers are still doubtful, but I think I have their number. One part of my best-fit scenario is that Killian went to seek legal counsel in regards to what to do about the pressure he and Harris were facing in regards to filling Bush's rating report covering May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973. That was the period where Bush was "Not observed" in Alabama. The official DoD records indicate this completely outside of the infamous CYA memo on the matter. What CYA memo did was add a few details, like: mentioning former base commander, retired General Staudt (what, you didn't know he retired as a general?) wanting to "sugar coat" it; and that Killian would "backdate but won't rate" (the CYA memo is dated Aug. 18, 1973, the rating report was dated May 2nd, 1973, just after the rating period, which would be logical for a backdate since his prior full rating reports were all dated much later in the month -- go to DoD PDF, pages 33-38 as numbered in a PDF reader. The "Not Observed" business and the stonewalling an official Air Force inquiry into the missing rating are on pages 39-44, but out of sequence for some reason). If you are a responsible Air National Guard officer with a no-show pilot under your command who's also the son of some big shot with big connections (Bush's dad was Chairman of the Republican National Committee at that time) and you're being pressured to basically fib on an official evaluation report, what would you do? Get advice maybe? If so, from whom? So the idea that Killian would seek legal advice under those circumstance is hardly a stretch.

Now, it appears that Killian might have had reason to seek counsel in 1972 when he suspended Bush, but there are some key records missing regarding the suspension that should have been included in the DoD records (kudos to Gerald Lechliter: AFM 35-13 PDF) so it's hard to tell. That the suspension was signed off and recorded through normal channels strongly suggest that it was not that big of an issue for Killian since there really was no option -- missing the mandatory physical meant a mandatory suspension, and that would likely have been very hard to get around. The 1973 rating report, though, was a different issue -- that's a judgement call, although I imagine the Air Force (who was the higher authority for all pilots) wouldn't be happy to learn of a completely falsified report. So if Killian was indeed being pressured to rate someone who was not at all observed on duty, making up even a "below average" rating report would still be completely falsifying, and perhaps not exactly good news for Killian and Harris if that was found out later by AF officials. So getting some sort of legal advice or counsel would seem to be the most prudent thing to do for someone in Killian's predicament. Now what do lawyers generally ask you to bring when you go to seek counsel on a specific matter? See where I'm going here, yet? That would explain where those Bush-related would have kept all this time while all of Killian's other memos were destroyed (Knox is on record describing Killian as being a "stickler for rules" and "was having trouble keeping Bush in line")

So conceivably all the memos Killian brought with him would be cleaned up or transcribed for clarity. Bear in mind that the AF guide for such memos indicate that they function as journals of meetings and decisions that could be very useful down the road if there are any questions about why certain orders were given and decisions made (tinyurl dot com slash 7zdmr is a link to an AF writing guide covering this -- check out "Scenario 5). So transcribing a memo for clarity or record keeping would be completetely OK since it's not an "official" record.

What this all means is that *all* of the memos could have been transcribed on the same day in 1973. Obviously this would be very hard to prove, except for one thing: all impact printing devices like typewriters and daisywheel printers tend to have unique wear and strike characteristics especially after they've been used for any length of time. So if one was to have very clean, hi rez copies of the memos, and if there are certain characters that show the same strike and wear throughout all the memos, well....go check page 8 of Hailey's 2nd report: Hailey excerpt. The thing with daisywheel printers is that since they were designed for heavy duty printing, they would evidently wear out their printwheels pretty quickly, but since the printwheels were so easy to replace, it was not big of a deal. If the memos had been printed out a year or do apart, there was a good chance the printwheel would have been changed in the meantime, which would have changed the wear characteristics. But if they were all printed within an hour or even a day or so of each other, then they would have the same characteristics.

But all that stuff is for later. I still have to have to firm up exactly what the 1972 and 1973 word processing systems could and could not do in terms of proportional spacing and in what font (Reactron wasn't the only player in 1972). Not exactly a trivial matter, but I think I can nail that in a week or so. If I can confirm that at least the 1973 word processors can dupe the memos, then Hailey's stuff becomes really important. I want to be done with this murky, complicated mess ideally about a week before the mid-terms for obvious reasons, and they aren't that far off. Ugh. -BC 209.6.203.244 02:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

You're saying you think the 1972 memos were faked in 1973 by a lawyer? 71.212.31.95 04:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

That's not even romotely close to what I said. Might I suggest you try rereading what I posted unintoxicated and without a TV show or movie featuring leaping cars running in the background? -BC 209.6.203.244 16:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I am dazzled by your clever retort. But did you not suggest that "*all* of the memos" (presumably including those dated as 1972) could have been produced "on the same day in 1973"? 71.212.31.95 16:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Transcriptions are not fakes, especially for things like those memos, which are not "official" documents and are instead more more like notes, and the Air Force encourages them to to be written as sort of a journal of decisions, discussions, meetings and such -- see AF Writing Guide Excerpts. I had already explained all this, so your "You're saying you think the 1972 memos were faked in 1973 by a lawyer?" was fully deserving of whatever slapdown I saw fit to deliver. Just be thankful this isn't Usenet, where I'm a teeny bit less polite.

A document that was actually created in 1973 but was signed and dated to give the appearance that it was created in 1972 is not a transcription. It is a falsification. Any lawyer or military officer would know that. It is preposterous for you to suggest, without a shred of evidence, that Killian would have done this. Your "theory" is nothing more than a desperate and foolish attempt to explain away the inconvenient facts which show the memos to be forgeries. It simply cannot be taken seriously. 71.212.31.95 17:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you being deliberately dense? Let's say you write up a note to yourself, dated today, that goes, oh: "Oct. 18 2006 -- 1. Mailed check for $5,000 to Dr Okon in Nigeria to help him move $21,320,000, of which I am suppose to receive 20%. 2. Posted something really dumb on the Wikipedia regarding the Killian memos, which are forged of course, because, well, um, everyone says they are"

A year later you find yourself in a lawyer's office and you were asked to bring all documents you have regarding this Dr. Okon and the Nigerian deal. One of the docs is the Oct. 18, 2006 note. It's handwritten and scribbly so the lawyer has that and some other dated notes you made typed up more clearly and then filed away. Nothing is changed during the retyping -- what's being "faked" oh anonymous person of dubious character and even more dubious logic skills? -BC 70.90.98.226 20:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand very well what you're trying to claim. And I'm sure it seems perfectly logical to you. That's because you don't know what you're talking about. You are no better informed about administrative and legal documentation practices than you are about the capabilities of office printing technology in the early 1970s. You obviously do not understand the difference between a scribbled note and a memorandum for record. And you are oblivious to the fact that one of the memos is addressed, not to the file, but to Lt. Bush. Your claim that the memos are later law-office "transcriptions", like your claim that there were typeset quality office printers in the early 1970s, is not based on any evidence, but only on your need to explain away the clear typographical evidence that the memos are not authentic. 71.212.31.95 18:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I still need to nail this completely, but apparently there were indeed systems widely available by 1973 at the latest that could dupe the memos as seen. The Redactron docs I got from The Charles Babbage Institute show that daisywheel printers were being made in quantity at least as early as 1972 by Xerox's Diablo unit and that Redactron had at least one proportional printing system scheduled for mass production beginning in April 1973. And Redactron was just one of many vendors coming out with word processing systems right around that time. This info by itself contradicts virtually every single claim by the pro-forgery people in regards to 70's tech. And if you people are completely wrong on points 1,2,3 and 4, chances are awfully good that you're just as wrong on points 5, 6, 7 and so on.

Speaking of points, the typographers here keep talking about needing 18 units/em to do the proportional spacing at shown in the memos, with "em" simply meaning the point size. Essentially what this means is that in order to accurately render a font at a specific size, say 12 points, you would supposedly need a resolution of 1/18th that size. So to do a 12 point font correctly, you need a resolution of 18/12-points, and since a "point" is currently defined as being 1/72", a little bit of math gets you 1/108" as being the horizontal resolution needed to conventionally render 12 point text. Daisywheel printers use to do either 1/60" or 1/120" horizontal increments. 1/120" is too fine for conventional 12 point, but if you use a printwheel with a 10.8 point size fonts characters, the 1/120" resolution would be perfect. 10.8 corresponds awfully close to the 11 point size apparently most commonly used on IBM Selectric Composers, which would make sense since daisywheel printwheel characters in turn corresponded in size to those in the Selectric "golfball" printheads.

What this all means is that the capacity for printing in Times Roman or something awfully close to it, like just plain "Times", was available at the absolute latest by 1974, and most probably by 1973. We'll see.

But I recently got drawn away from the printing issue back to the contents issue by a little phrase in the June 24, 1973 "fake" memo that USA Today used but not CBS: "His recent activity is outside the rating period." That's opened up a whole can of worms once I culled through all the DoD docs to see exactly what was meant by this. For supposedly forged documents, the Killian memos have been awfully handy in figuring out some seemingly odd DoD discrepencies, which again points out how ludicrous the forgery charges have always been.

Keep an eye out on the bottom of this page, in the "Not Observed" section, for forthcoming enlightenment. -BC 209.6.203.244 20:34, 22 October 2006 (UTC) -BC Fixed Typos 70.90.98.226 18:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm actually being a little bit dense (by my definition of "dense") here -- despite my research, I keep forgetting that office tech was already pretty mature by the early 70's: everyone had things like copiers, dictating equipments, even dial-up terminal access, and *all* the word processors had magnetic storage of some type, tape or card. Things really were not all that different from a modern office if you swap in Mag-Selectrics & dedicated word processors w/daisywheel printers for PC's & Macs w/laser printers, messy copier toner for cartridges, mainframe access instead local server networking, cassette-based dictating machines instead of microcassete-based ones, and so on. Email was definitely missing though. In other words, the memos could have been dictated at one point and printed out at another, and even stored and printed out again at another point, very much like today. This would seemingly make sorting out when things were actually printed more complicated, but it probably doesn't. If you accept the well-supported premise that Bush essentially disappeared in terms of duty and performance when he went to Alabama, which would have put Killian in a very awkward spot given Bush's family connections, then it isn't just the memos that logically fall into place once you figure out the timelines from the DoD docs, aided by the memos. We shall see, though....-BC 209.6.203.244 00:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC) Cleared up -BC 209.6.203.244 12:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Fundamentally, though, any explanation for the memos, supporting that they are forgeries or real, has to be complete. That means that you just can't say, "They were forged" because evidence A, B and C supports this, while ignoring or not logically explaining away evidence D, E and F that doesn't support this. You have to accommodate A-F and beyond in terms of all evidence regardless if you're pro-forgery or anti-forgery. In my case, I'm absolutely sure the forgery claims are nonsensical, but I still have to be complete. So what if there was readily available office equipment back in 1973 or 1972 (I haven't given up that it might still be earlier than 1973) -- how would the memos end up being created on that? It's already been demonstrated that people's memory of the office tech in those is too hazy and fuzzy to be helpful. It looks as though the early WP systems by the likes of Redactron and AB Dick used the Diablo daisywheel printer models with the integrated terminal keyboards, which would make them look exactly like typewriters -- it's likely nobody at the time had a clue about the difference unless he or she had to know. Still, you would think someone like pool secretary like Knox would remember stuff like that. Law firms, though, were already big users of the more expensive and more primitive IBM Mag-Card and Mag-Tape word processors by the late 60's, so they would be, and apparently were, very quick and early adopters of the more advance non-IBM WP systems. when they came out.

The law firm would explain two things: how Killian would have access to one of the new WP systems; and where would those memos be kept all of this time when his on-base stuff was trashed decades ago. That of course leads to the next question: why would Killian seek legal counsel in regards to Bush? Well, even if you don't factor in the memos at all, the DoD docs by themselves clearly indicate that there was a big issue with Bush's OETR rating period ending April 30, 1973: there was Killian and Harris's "Not Observed" report dated May 2nd, 1973, an inquiry by the Air Force on June 29, 1973 with very specific requests for forms to filled out to explain this, and then a big gap before the next DoD docs on the matter, which came out in Nov 12-15, none of which technically satisfied the AF requests, and which were apparently suppose to involve the "Senior Rater," which was Killian, and apparently some info about Alabama, where Bush has been transferred to, but which wasn't even mentioned.

So there was obviously some funky stuff going on then involving Bush not satisfying some sort of duty, and then when you finally add in the August 18, 1973 "CYA" memo, you then go, "Ahh, OK, that explains the screwy DoD stuff." Bush had shirked his duty and his immediate superiors, including of course Killian and Harris, were getting pressured to go easy on him to the point of being essentially asked to falsify a rating report. It costs the Air Force a bunch of money and a lot of time and resources to train a combat pilot, so apparently they kind of take things like OETR's rather seriously and would probably frown on made-up stuff. While Bush was in the "Guard" of sorts, the Air Force evidently was the final authority on pilots like him. So the business with the missing rating report was not a trivial matter, so neither would be falsify the information in one.

OK, so now we have a pretty damn good incentive for Killian to get some advice on what to do. And most if not all lawyers would have asked Killian to bring along as much documentation as he could regarding the situation. Voila! By just using what the normal behavior and procedures would be for someone in Killian's circumstances, we've assembled all the memos at a place that would not only likely have had an up to date word processor, but would have filed away or transcribed copies of the memos to boot, hence also explaining where they would have been all this time, as well as the potential liability for whoever it was that took or copied those files. And all of a sudden, without any tortured bits of logic and ignored evidence, you have a complete explanation. If you try something similar with the pro-forgery hypothesis, you will very quickly have to resort to tortured logic and extremely unlikely circumstances to even begin to make any similar headway for a truly "complete" explanation that accounts for the contents issue, the superscript and letterhead discrepencies, and so on.

Simple, no? -BC 209.6.203.244 21:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Nooo....I had come up to speed enough on typography and type design topics way back (I do my homework). And I actually had a feeling that not mentioning spacing in my response would provoke some attempt at a gotcha, but it was not worth the revision. If the memos were created with an impact printer -- a daisywheel -- using a "Roman style" font and Times Roman spacing -- which appears to be awful close to the default spacing of "proportional mode" in Diablo-compatible printers -- then you would need a certain resolultion to say with genuine certainty that these letters and their spacing are without a doubt this particular font. Now if your only experience, as appears to be the case with Phinney, is with digitized fonts and the fine differences between patented fonts like Times Roman versus Times New Roman, and maybe how best to accurately display them and print them out on with current technology, he would be completely out his area of expertise when presented with documents of uneven, coarse resolution using Times Roman-*like* spacing and fonts. His natural instinct would be to look for a best fit for things he knows about -- like digitized Times Roman and Times New Roman fonts. But both of those fonts are based on old typefaces that were characterized and created very differently way back when, including during the 70's. And when you also stir in all these Roman-like fonts that were evidently common at the time, then you really need to do some research and show your work to justify your opinion and conclusion in the face of reasonable skepticism. Neither Phinney, Newcomer, or any other self-proclaimed typography experts claiming forgery has so far come even remotely close to what would be considered a sufficiently detailed scientific examination justifying their claims. It's so far been just one little spotty bit here, another spotty bit there, and lots of confused logic. That's not exactly enough. I personally pulled out repeating words from the memos to look for common characteristics and then compared them to Word recreations and found the same consistent discrepancies that Hailey did. What I did was hardly comprehensive, but it was still far more than what I've seen done by any of the so called typography experts.

As a matter of fact, I owned a daisywheel typewriter in the mid 80s. We had daisywheel printers (on dedicated word processors and PCs) in the office I worked at in the late 70s and early 80s. I have copies of the PC Magazine printer review special issues you were so excited about. (They don't help your cause.) So your idea that I am unfamiliar with this technology is completely bogus. 71.212.31.95 21:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
To attack my argument on the grounds that I only found what I was looking for does not address the content of my argument. Further, your ad hominem argument that I was looking for digital tech and therefore found it is incorrect; digital fonts today are designed with widths systems at a resolution of 1000 units to the em, or more. The fact that I looked at the widths of the currently-used Times Roman and Times New Roman typefaces and noted that they all fell into the same cruder 18-unit widths system used in the Monotype typesetting machines for over a century clearly disproves that. As it happens, my MS in printing included working with a wide range of historical devices, going back to hand-set type that predates even the century-old automated typesetting machines. My personal experience goes back to the early 80s and includes fancy typewriters, dedicated word processors, and daisy wheel and dot matrix printers. - Thomas Phinney 14:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, I apologize for noticing this comment earlier. True, the typographers here were discussing Times Roman spacing in terms of 18 units/em, and not really something like TrueType at 2048 units/em, but this still excuse not apparently recognizing this meant that many if not most daisywheel printers were then fully capable of *exactly* doing a Times font using 18 units/em by the mid-70's. And the last I checked, the mid-70's were not so far removed from the early 70's so that a 1972/73 system capable of duping the memo spacing was not exactly beyond the realm of possibility. And if you were truly all so knowledgeble about historical devices, you shouldn't depend on an Internet troll to show that there were indeed many devices in the 70's fully Times capable. Sorry if I sound harsh, but there was no good excuse for how this whole "thems wuz forged" Killian memo thing blew up much to Bush's advantage when all there needed was a little bit of research by the news media and all the supposed experts that came out of the woodwork. -BC 209.6.203.244 01:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Was I talking about you or was I talking about Phinney in regards to old tech? Or are you Phinney with an anonymous IP? And didn't I mention something about justifying claims with some sort of proof? I'm glad you had a daisywheel printer in the mid-80's, worked at an office in the late 70's and early 80's that had dedicated word processors, and have some copies of the printer review issues of PC Magazine. Now, are you going to do something constructive with this info, or....? By the way, did you see my further up posts about the Redactron "Redactor II" word processor? Neat, eh? -BC 209.6.203.244 00:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

And in dealing with a real-life issue of document forensics, the font is still only part of the equation -- Phinney made a fundamental mistake in only discussing the font aspects of Hailey's research but not other key issues Hailey noted and discussed, like the poor centering of the letterheads and the evidence for impact printing and wear. In my case I'm looking at *all* of these aspects together with what the official DoD records support and show, what people who should know what the truth is have said (or mostly not said), combined with some research into what exactly was the capabilities of the word processing technology available at the time the memos were allegedly written. And when you do bother to do all this, the forgery claim becomes laughably inane. The absolute worst thing that the memos can be are faithful transcriptions of handwritten notes made within just a few years of the dates appearing on them. Which even then precludes them from being "forgeries" or fakes in any meaningful way.

So instead of you or anyone else glibly saying that I don't understand stuff like FUnits and em squares, you would be a bit more productive and have slightly greater credibility if you spent less time making clueless comments here and more time producing research and results that actually support and back up even a little bit of your claims. -BC 209.6.203.244 13:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC) 209.6.203.244 15:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

"Phinney made a fundamental mistake in only discussing the font aspects of Hailey's research...." Why is that a mistake? I think focusing on what I have the greatest expertise on is very sensible; people who go outside of their expertise are much more likely to make mistakes, as we have seen with Dr. Hailey. My approach to analysis allowed me to completely discount every specific machine that was known to be available in 1972, which somebody suggested could have done the memos.
But now you are changing topics entirely, when you argue that the content of the memos is accurate regardless of when exactly they were produced. That may be so, but it is a quite separate issue from the question at hand, which is "could these physical memos have been produced on the dates given on the memos themselves." If they could not have been produced on those dates, I don't think it matters whether the earliest they could have been produced is one year later or fifteen years later.

Well, the thing is that if you had focused on your greatest expertise, then you would have identified the spacing apparently used and left it at that. The poor quality of the memos made font identification too murky, and even you didn't really come down on the "Times Roman, not Times New Roman" side until pretty recently. So you didn't address the centering issue, the archaic formatting, the high degree of content matchup with office records, and excused the very odd superscripting with a very, very unlikely explanation -- that didn't stop you from jumping on the pro-forgery bandwagon. I'm sure you meant well, but that was really inappropriate, especially since is very, very clear that you did not know "about every specific machine that was known to be available in 1972" and hence could not have discounted them. I've already located an entire textbook typeset in 1978 using a Diablo printer and showing full proportional printing and superscripting. Indeed any daisywheel printer capable of 1/120" horizontal spacing can dupe the memos as is. Apparently all Qume daisywheels can do this, which pushes the date for memo-capable devices down to about 1973-74. Find one Diablo printer model circa 1972 with the 1/120" spacing ability, and that's it for the forgery nonsense. The memos with the matching letterheads were printed on pre-printed letterhead sheets, likely also created on a daisywheel, as was done commonly in pre-laser printer days. The printwheel, like Knox's Olimpia typewriter, had a small superscript "th" spoke but not an "st" one, and you still had to remember to select it since it was a manual operation, as with Knox's typewriter. The wear characteristics that Hailey noted? There they are. The archaic documant formatting? There you are as well. And of course there is no need for some convoluted and very unlikely explanation for the matchup of the content to official records, because, well again, there they are. Simple and all the other pieces fit. -BC 209.6.203.244 16:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

In any case, you are kicking up a lot of dust by using this odd approach of trying to identify any old-ish device that could have done the memos and then pushing that idea before verifying that the machine in question was actually available in 1972. If we go down that path, I can propose hundreds, probably thousands of devices that could have done the memos. Proof of availability in 1972 should be a filter before you seriously propose the device, else it's a waste of time. --Tphinney 14:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on it ;) -BC 209.6.203.244 16:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

To be more specific, you claim that daisywheel printers based on technology developed at Diablo Systems were "made since 1969" and were "evidently common by 1972". What is your evidence for that? You also appear to be claiming that these devices were capable of the proportional spacing exhibited in the Killian documents. What is your evidence for that? 71.212.31.95 18:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

It's possible that Xerox was interested in Diablo System's disc drive business. --htom 01:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Or maybe not. Xerox claims that the first Diablo printer released was the 1200, in 1973 (scroll way down, find "Diablo".) http://www.xerox.com/go/xrx/template/019d.jsp?view=Factbook&id=MajorProdCat&Xcntry=USA&Xlang=en_US

Not a thing likely to show up in a TexANG office. A Pentagon office, maybe. --htom 06:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


Talk about missing the obvious. The fired producer of the CBS Killian memos piece, Mary Mapes, wrote a book basically defending herself called "Truth and Duty". I'm not exactly fond of her -- when the right wing blogosphere started atttacking the memos story on the basis of the proportional printing/superscripting shown in the memos, Mapes and her crew basically just folded up without any sort of real counterattack, like, oh, maybe undercutting the charges with a little research into early 70's tech. I really think CBS could have perhaps brought more resources to bear on gathering the necessary info than some random Internet troll. In any case, I had no interest in Mapes's book, but I came across this much more interesting page on her website for the book: http://www.truthandduty.com/documents.htm

In it are descriptions of the memos and her attempt at "meshing" the memos to the DoD docs -- she got some of the matchups but not all -- but most interesting are the links to the PDF documents at the bottom under "SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS". These are Texas Air National Guard docs from about 1969 to the early 70's, but not related to Bush. What I noticed when I went through them all is that 7 of them are proportionally printed! I kid you not. It looks to my eye like they were done on an IBM Executive, but still. Mapes only mentions that one "appears to demonstrate proportional spacing" but says nothing about the rest. All but one are from the Adjutant General's office with the other being from the Governor's office. Go look: Doc1, Doc2, Doc6, Doc7, Doc9 (Resignation), Doc10, and Doc12 FYI -BC 209.6.203.244 23:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC) Fixed typos -BC 209.6.203.244 23:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Not Observed"

I do not think that this particular phrase means what you think it does, when used in the context of a military fitness report. Notice that the phrase can be found in Kerry's records, too; his fitness report covering 17 Dec 66 to 10 Mar 67, on lines 16, and 17, and 18, and 20. Quoting ... Paragraphs 15 and 16 are not completed as this officer was observed only as a student ...

It's also used on the report covering 22 Mar 67 to 14 Apr 67 and probably others.

Records examined at http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/jkerry/ftnsrpts.pdf

And in some parts of some of the records it's a box to be checked. --htom 06:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC) --htom 06:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but there is no comparison here with Bush's situation at the time. The DoD records clearly show that there was an official Air Force inquiry into the missing rating report by a Sargeant Daniel Harkness. Please review the links and pages I gave: DoD PDF pages 39-44, and please note the stonewalling by TANG officers Rufus Martin and Charles C. Shoemake. If it was not a big deal, the Air Force would not have made an inquiry and a couple of majors wouldn't have to had to intervene -- Killian and Harris technically were the officers who should have answered Harkness's inquiry. -BC 209.6.203.244 16:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Having looked, again, at the indicated pages, I see nothing but someone saying "where's the paperwork for this period of time" and a reply saying "we didn't file paperwork because we knew he'd gone elsewhere". "Official inquiry" would require sworn testimony, at least as I understand the term. This record is the equivilent of the check for $0.00 sent to a company dunning you for a debt in that amount. There is a legitimate point in that someone should have rated him for that period, but complaining that a particular someone didn't rate him because they thought he was at a different command is silly; they obviously think that they are not supposed to rate him, and are (quietly) pointing out that someone's -- perhaps Bush's, perhaps his former or current units' -- records are goofed up. Record mixups happen all of the time; the really suspicious thing is when someone's records are perfect. My own guess is that either someone did rate him (and the record is simply misfiled) or that no one was told to rate him (and so he went unrated) and since he then left, without a review for further promotion, the hole was not discovered, then, and was at that time unimportant -- and it remained unimportant until he ran for public office. There are lots of things to worry about in a military organization, and filling the holes in the paperwork of people who've left is a very low priority item. You seem to want to imagine that there is some rating that shows Bush in a bad light, and it's being concealed; this is entirely possible, just as it's entirely possible that Kerry's complete records would show an other-than-honorable discharge that was later upgraded. --htom 16:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


Really? You see all that, eh? Funny, I just see a missing performance report because Bush's immediate commanders wouldn't rate him because he wasn't "observed", and then I see an official inquiry by an Air Force sargeant as to why the performance report is missing and a request to comply with specific regulations contained in "AFM 36-10," but the only response is some stonewalling by two majors. What is "AFM 36-10"? Well, apparently it's been long replaced by AFI 36-2406, but check out "Chapter 4" where Form 77 is mentioned and how it is suppose to be used. Although Harkness referred to Form 77A, ARPCI 36-3203 explicitly mentions that 77A was merged into 77. Unless I'm reading things wrong, only the "Senior Rater", which would have been Killian, was suppose to have responded to Harness's request, and he clearly didn't -- otherwise, this would have been indicated or at least referred to in the responses by Majors Martin and Shoemake. There's nothing to indicate missing paperwork -- Killian and Harris refused to rate Bush and it was left up to a couple of majors to blow off the Air Force inquiry.
AFM 36-10 is also referred to and described in a legal document at Findlaw involving other people, but it again it refers explicitly to the "Senior Rater" -- PDF Reference
This all points up a recurring problem with the forgery hypothesis: you keeping running into things that don't make any sense regardless of how convoluted you make the explanation. However, if you accept the memos at face value, things tend to snap into place. The CYA memo says that the May 72 - April 73 rating report was backdated and sure enough it has a May 2nd date while the prior reports were dated towards the end of May. The "Not Observed" rating report mentions that Bush "cleared" the base on May 15th, 1972 -- compare that to the contents of the "forged" memo dated

May 4th, 1972 in regards to when Bush was ordered to take his physical. It's these match-ups that make the forgery alternative explanation ludicrous. But I still need to nail down at least one commonly available word processor from no later than 1973 that can dupe the memos as is to really start driving nails into the forgery coffin. We shall see.... -BC 70.90.98.226 21:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you mean no later than 1972, don't you? 71.212.31.95 17:53, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually I now don't think I need a 1972 word processor. 1973, yes, but not necessarily one from 1972. The thing is that if I did find particular brand of word processor that was common in 1972 capable of printing the memos as is, that would have been absolutely cutting edge tech for that year and unlikely to be found on an Air Guard base. So there would still be the issue of how Killian would have had access to something like that. Also there is the issue of where did the memos come from. Those types of memos are not archived by the DoD and would have been trashed and/or destroyed at some point unless there was some special reason to save them. From all accounts, Killian was a "stickler" for rules and regulations, and was big on memo writing. So at some point there were all these filed away memos which were trashed or destroyed after he left the service, yet the only ones that crop up 30 yrs later all involve Bush in some way. They had to have been filed away together like that for a reason somewhere off base. As I demonstated down further, the issue with the Bush's 1972-73 rating report was apparently a big deal that stretched out for several months and ended up involving the Adjutant General, who is commander in chief of the Texas National Guard and oversees all activities of the Texas National Guard, the Texas Air National Guard, and the Texas State Guard. The Air Force, while a separate military branch, has authority over the Air National Guard. The Air Force wanted a corrected rating report by the "Senior Rater" -- Killian in Bush's case -- and was not getting it. According to both the "Not observed" rating report and the CYA memo, Bush evidently didn't show up for his duties in Alabama and hence could not be rated.

As I pointed out elsewhere, the issue with the rating report looked very much like the sort of thing that Killian would have been prudent to get legal advice on, since he and Harris apparently were evidently being pressured to write something up that would be tantamount to falsifying an official Air Force record. From my research, law offices were heavy users of word processors since the first IBM Mag Selectrics came out in th 60's and were very quick adopters of the more sophisticated next generation word processors from the likes of Redactron in the early 70's. That's how Killian would have access to one. And what do lawyers usually ask you to bring when you have a particular issue of concern to discuss? One thing logically follows the other. Some of the memos at least may well be transcriptions of notes, both typed and handwritten, made and filed away at the law firm. The evidence for this would be in Hailey's high resolution copies of the memos has has. In his second, much more thorough study of them, he noted some recurring wear characteristics on some of the letters, which would indicate an impact printer. The thing is, though, is that a daisywheel would wear out its printwheels pretty quickly at high use, so in a year's interval, it would be very unlikely that the same printwheel would be in place and having the same wear pattern. Having all the memos transcribed nice and neatly together to be filed away would give the the characters the same wear pattern.

This is a bit of extrapolation, but a logical one given the evidential circumstances. If you accept the premise, supported by the DoD docs, that Bush's 1972-73 rating period was causing a lot of problems for at least Killian, then everything basically comes together if you simply put yourself in his place and figure out what steps you would have taken under those circumstance. -BC 70.90.98.226 14:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought I would compile the dates the all the rating reports, including who signed when, for a little game of "One of these is not like the others":

Rating period ending April 30, 1971 Harris May 26, 1971; Killian May 27, 1971; Hodges (additional endorsement) May 27, 1971

Rating period ending April 30, 1972 Harris May 26, 1972; Killian May 26, 1972; Hodges (additional endorsement) May 26, 1972

Rating period ending April 30, 1973 Harris May 2, 1973; Killian May 2, 1973; No Hodges FYI -BC 209.6.203.244 03:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I was in neither the Air Force or the Air Force Reserve, so I have little memory of their paperwork at that time. I do know how military paperwork works in the U.S. military, however, from my time in the USMC and later in VA hospitals, and I think that you're trying to read the records as if they're written in English, but they are actually written in AirForceBabble, a particular language that's different than NavyBabble or USMCBabble or ArmyBabble, each of which has their own particular special meanings for obvious words. It's like trying to read a British legal document with a Webster's American dictionary. The words look the same, but they have different meanings. Lost or misplaced records of an F-102 pilot who was going to be leaving don't really require much explanation, because those running the TexANG at the time had more to do than time to do it (the usual situtation in any guard unit) and letting paperwork slide that wasn't going to be needed or referenced is one of the first things that gets slopped up. To me, as I said, this looks like the MSG noticed a paper missing, asked for it, and was eventually told that he couldn't have it because there were not people who could (legally) create it. Not hard to understand at all. --htom 04:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The records could simply have been lost or misplaced, you say? Hmmm.... Well, I was lying in this bed this morning thinking about what was the latest I could get up and still get the trash out to the curb in time when something completely different occurred to me.... Important Note #2 In my renewed recent quest for a smoking gun word processor, I neglected to spend more time looking for more matchups by DoD docs to the memos, and anything funky in the DoD docs. And I guess this could lead to overlooking the obvious (well, my idea of "obvious"). When I compiled those rating report sign-off dates above, I puzzled briefly over Harkness's request for the "missing" report -- but isn't a "Not Observed" rating report still a rating report? This morning, though, I thought maybe I ought to compile another collection of who-signed-what's. Let me know what you think:

April 30, 1973 End of Bush's rating period for 1972-73

May 2, 1973 The date on the "Not Observed" rating report

June 24, 1973 (One of the USA Today Killian memos I almost forgot about -BC 209.6.203.244 15:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)): 1. I got a call from your staff concerning the evaluation of 1 st Lt. Bush due this month. His rater is Lt. Colonel Harris; 2. Neither Lt. Colonel Harris or I feel we can rate 1 st Lt. Bush since he was not training with 111 F.I.S. since April, 1972. His recent activity is outside the rating period; 3. Advise me how we are suppose to handle this.

June 29, 1973 Notice of Missing or Correction of Officer Effectiveness/Training Report. Signed off apparently on July 10, 1973 by Master Sargeant Daniel P. Harkness of the USAF, Selection Boards Branch. It asks about Bush's missing rating report. It notes that, ""Ratings must be entered on this officer in Sections V & VI, An AF Fm 77a should be requested from the training unit so that this officer can be rated in the position he held. This officer should have been reassigned in May 1972 since he no longer is training in his AFSC or with his unit of assignment."

August 18, 1973 The infamous CYA memo where Killian complains of Staudt pressuring Hodges about Bush, about how he didn't "have any feedback from 187th in Alabama" and how Harris took a phone call from "Grp" that day about Bush's missing rating report (the "OETR" aka the "Officer Effectivieness/Training Report"). Killian mentions he'll backdate the report but not rate.

Nov 12, 1973 Major Rufus Martin signs off on an AF Form 77a record saying Bush was "Not rated for the period 1 May 72 through 30 Apr 73 Report for this period not available for administrative reasons."

Nov 13, 1973 The date stamped on a record signed off by Martin "For the commander" that simply says "Basic communication complied with"

Nov 15, 1973 Major Charles K. Shoemake, for "The Adjutant General of Texas" in regards to to Harkness's June 29, 1973 inquiry, signs off a record that also just says "Basic communication complied with"

Is it my imagination or does there seem to be a big gap in paperwork between the CYA memo and the next DoD record on the matter? And where is Alabama in all of this -- weren't they suppose to supply the AF Fm 77a that Harkness referred to since that's where Bush was transferred to, and not Martin and Shoemake? Hmmm.... -BC 209.6.203.244 13:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC) Fixed typos -BC 209.6.203.244 19:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty then....

I took that "fake" June 24, 1973 Killian memo (one of USA Today's) at face value and checked out the validity of this comment in regards to Bush: "His recent activity is outside the rating period." Unsurprisingly (to me at least), this was a dead-on observation, although not so obviously so because there are actually two different yearly periods involving Bush's military service:

Rating Period for Evaluation: May 1 - April 30

Reporting Period for Service and Training Points: May 27 - May 26 (Note that this period is based on Bush's enlistment date of May 27, 1968)

I rummaged through all the DoD records several times over and noted that there are 3 apparently separate types of recordkeeping for Bush's service: The "ARF Statement of Points Earned," which I'll call ARF; The "USAF Reserve Personnel Record Card" that's filled in by hand, and which I'll call AFPRC; and the payroll records, which I'll just call Payroll. I've listed each month from April 1972 to December 1973 and noted the dates of the days with entries. Some records could be missing, but the payroll records cover all of 1972 and 1973. I'm not too sure what to make of payroll entries with 31st dates, since obviously certain months like February, April and June were never 31 days long, even way back in the dark, misty days of the early 70's.

Some things to note: May 1973, was obviously indeed a busy month for Bush, but it really was outside of the rating period as the "forged" memo noted; also that month has a very peculiar entry for the AFPRC -- a lump amount of 41 points for the entire rating period plus 15 gratuitous as well instead of individual daily entries like for the other reporting periods. Go see page 47 of this and compare that to how the points were recorded in prior periods on pages 33-38 and 43-44 (fixed typo 209.6.203.244 12:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)); and for the entire May 1972 - April 1973 "Not Observed" rating period, there is only a smattering of random entries.

It's kinda obvious that once Bush "cleared" Ellington supposedly for Alabama on May 15, 1972, he really did disappear until at least the end of October, where a couple of days are noted by the ARF, but he really didn't return to serious duty until May, 1973. In addition to working on the Alabama Senate campaign of Winton Blount, which was the reason given by Bush for wanting the transfer, it was a presidential election year so Bush also likely joined his father at the August Republican Convention in Miami. For some strange reason, those few random check-in's didn't quite add up to being "observed" for purposes of an AF Form 77 "Company Grade Officer Effectiveness Report," and unfortunately for Bush, his return to real duty about a full year later in May 1973 was a wee bit too late even though the records show that he put in a pretty full month then.

Now, you can see how this might put Killian in an awkward position: while the the rating period ended at the end of April, he had until at least May 26 to actually fill out the report. And by May 26, Bush had apparently put in some serious make-up time. So what do you do if you're in Killian's position? Evidently for Killian himself, it was simple: all that May activity was nice, but it was still a month too late -- too bad. But apparently some others disagreed with that decision. Rufus Martin on May 26 gave Bush 56 ARF points (41+15), which is just over the minimal of 50, even though that's iffy legally -- you need to put in a full duty year to get 15 gratuitous points. For instance Bush only got 5 gratuitous points for the May 27, 1973 - May 26 1974 period because he left for Harvard in the fall of 1973. I bet the specific pressure put on Killian and Harris was to fold Bush's May activity into the rating report, but that would have been, well, wrong.

Some more surmising on my part, but here are some hard numbers and dates to chew on:

Apr 1972 ARF: AFPRC: 4,6,10-12,15-16; Payroll 4,6,10-12,15-16,31 (corrected 209.6.203.244 12:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC))

May 1972 ARF: AFPRC: 26 (15 Gratuitous Pts added for 5/27/72-5/26/73) Payroll: No pay

Jun 1972 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Jul 1972 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Aug 1972 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Sep 1972 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Oct 1972 ARF: 28-29; AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Nov 1972 ARF: 11-14; AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Dec 1972 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Jan 1973 ARF: 4-6,8-10; AFPRC: Payroll: 4-6,8-10

Feb 1973 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll 31

Mar 1973 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Apr 1973 ARF: 7-8; AFPRC: Payroll: 7-8,31

May 1973 ARF: 1-3,8-10,19-20,22-24,29-31; AFPRC: 26 (41 points + 15 gratuitous added); Payroll: 1-3,8-10,19-20,22-24,29-31

Jun 1973 ARF: 5-7,23-24; AFPRC: Payroll: 5-7,23-24,31

Jul 1973 ARF: 2-3,5,9-12,21-22,23-27,30; AFPRC: Payroll: 2-3,5,9-12,16-19,21-27,30

Aug 1973 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Sep 1973 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: 31

Oct 1973 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

Nov 1973 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: 31

Dec 1973 ARF: AFPRC: Payroll: No pay

-BC 209.6.203.244 04:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC) Fixed Wiki oddity with carriage returns. -BC 70.90.98.226 12:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)70.90.98.226 13:06, 23 October 2006 (UTC)209.6.203.244 13:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, the above pretty much confirms that the May 2nd "Not Observed" rating report was indeed backdated just as the CYA memo says it was. While culling for date info, I noted that with the exception of payroll, yearly reports including things like ARF and AFPRC are all dated on or about May 26, which is based on the May 27 - May 26 reporting period for Bush, which in turn makes that May 2nd date for the 1972-1973 rating report extremely odd and out of place -- unless, of course, it was backdated just as the CYA said it was. -BC 70.90.98.226 18:38, 23 October 2006 (UTC)Fixed more typos and did some minor cleanups -BC 209.6.203.244 03:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC) 209.6.203.244 03:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I should mention a few notable discrepencies I came across while culling the DoD records aside from Rufus Martin giving all those points to Bush in one lump sum on May 26, 1973. These aren't really directly related to the Killian memos per se, but....well, whoever's out there can decide if they are significant or not.

1) The flight records have two evidently bogus entries at the very end of Bush's last military flights, which ended in 1972: "8/25" and "5/27". Not only are these completely out of sequence from the ones before them, but Bush had "cleared" Ellington for Alabama on 5/15 according to the "Not Observed" rating report and he was suspended from flying on August 1, 1972. See: Last Bush Flights

2) There should have been specific forms and records following up on Bush's flight suspension, but every single one is missing. These are Air Force requirements and not so much Guard. The "AFM 35-13" cited in Bush's suspension very clearly states: "All rated officers on flying status must accomplish a medical examination annually or biannually (flight surgeons) as prescribed by AFM 160-1. Failure to accomplish a required medical examination disqualifies the officer for flying duty and he will be suspended effective the first day of the month following his birthmonth, citing this paragraph as authority. (1) The local commander who has authority to convene a Flying Evaluation Board or forward through command channels a detailed report of the circumstances which resulted in the officer's failure to accomplish a medical examination, along with a recommendation that the suspension be removed. (2) The individual's major command will forward the report along with the command recommendation to USAFMPC/DPMAJD, Randolph AFB TX 78148, for final determination." See: AFM 35-13 and AFM 35-13 Excerpt

Note: I got the AFM 35-13 info from http://www.glcq.com/regs

3) There are literally no DoD records at all regarding Alabama from when Bush was suppose to be there doing "equivalent duty" with the 187th Tactical Recon Group. This Sept. 15, 1972 record shows that Bush was suppose to put in 2 full days on Oct 7-8, 1972 and then again two more on Nov 4-5, but these dates don't show up in the points or the payroll records, indicating Bush also didn't show up. So where is the paperwork regarding this and all other 187th matters? The DoD records indicate that forms and reports get CC'd (or "Cy'd") quite a bit and to different locations, so it's extremely, extremely unlikely that they and all their copies could would have been coincidently lost while other DoD docs for that period are readily found. Indeed it appears that the next time after that Sept. 15, 1972 that "Alabama" even gets mentioned in any official DoD doc is in the backdated "Not Observed" rating report in 1973.

Item #1 is just odd and I have no idea what it could mean (backdating maybe).

Note: this discrepency was also noted, among many others, in an analysis done by the AP, which got the records via FOIA, here: AP Analysis of Bush Flight Records.

And I guess I should mention there seems to be a tenuous connection between all this and one of the memos, the Feb 2, 1972 USA Today one where Killian simply asks Harris to "Update me as soon as possible on flight certifications. Specifically — Bath and Bush." If you go to Bush's Flight Records, page 9, you'll see a double entry for Feb 10, the first one showing Bush having to make 2 passes in order to land (look towards the end of the line ) -- the first time indicated in all of his records. Also, on line 7, there is either Feb 19 or Feb 09 (it's smeared) date for a T-33 ("TO33A"), a training jet that he should have outgrown, and right after that there's anout-of-sequence entry for an "SMF102A," apparently an F102A simulator. This seems to indicate some sort of new and growing problem with flying, especially when you look at the following month, March, where Bush is not only flies a T-33 several times, but as only the co-pilot in about half of those. Now what would cause Killian back at the beginning of February to be apparently concerned that this sort of stuff would happen? Another hmmm.... -BC 209.6.203.244 05:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Items #2 & #3, though, give much support to Bill Burkett's claim that 1997 there was a purge of embarrassing documents from Bush's military files involving Joe Allbaugh (Bush's chief of staff while governor of Texas) and Maj. Gen. Daniel James III, the Adjutant General of Texas from Nov 1995 - June 2002 before Mr. Bush promoted him to head the National Guard in Washington. (General Ross Ayers was the Adjutant General in 1972-73). Go see: Dallas Morning News Piece

All this detective work is intriguing, but it's not really a job an Internet troll should be doing. It's unfortunate that Bush's commanders at the time, William Harris and Jerry Killian, aren't around to answer some obvious questions about Bush's guard duty that Bush himself has overtly avoided. However Bobby Hodges and Rufus Martin are still around, though, and they should have been grilled much more than they have been so far over Bush's Air National Guard history. Bush Sr. was already a big shot at the time and then only several years later ran for President during the Republican primaries before becoming Vice-President to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Of course Bush Jr. became Governor of Texas in 1995 and the US President in 2000. So it's extremely unlikely that Martin and Hodges would have forgotten about Bush when he was a junior officer at their base, especially the time he was suspended from flying, which was apparently not so common a thing judging from the DoD records.

Indeed, Hodges and Martin are on record evidently fibbing to the grossly incompetent Thornburgh-Boccardi report panel when they both told the panel that Bush's flight suspension recorded by the DoD as the "Verbal orders of the Comdr on 1 Aug 72" (see Suspension Notice) was a reference to Hodges, although Hodges says he couldn't specifically remember issuing the verbal order "over 30 years ago." See CBS Panel Report, page 154

This is very much explicit BS since other DoD records clearly show that Killian was the Squadron Commander and therefore Bush's direct superior and the one who would have issued such a verbal order in the chain of command, and that Hodges simply signed off on the order over a month later on Sept, 5, 1972. See Hodges's Suspension Sign-off

Update: Actually, after rereading AFM 35-13, it does very much appear that Hodges and Martin lied to the Thornburgh-Boccardi panel. According to the AFM 35-13, there's apparently at least a 30-day grace period of sorts before written orders are "published," thereby making the suspension official. So the timeline for Bush's suspension is: Aug 1, 1972 - Killian verbally suspends Bush from flying; Sept 5, 1972 - Hodges signs off and "publishes" the order; Sept 19, 1972 -- date stamped on the order apparently by Martin, when the suspension order was forwarded to the Adjunct General (AGTEX/APO); Sept 29, 1972 - Aeronautical Orders Number 87 by the National Guard Bureau officially recording the suspension.

Note: Another apparent discrepency shows up when you look at another pilot who was Bush's friend at the time and future business partner, James Bath, the only other pilot suspended in Aeronautical Orders Number 87 but whose name is redacted (his entry follows Bush's). His suspension is identical to Bush's aside from the date, Sept 1, 1972 -- exactly a month after Bush's. But the date on the order is the 29th, not quite a 30 day grace period, odd considering that it took almost twice the time for Bush's verbal suspension to become official. Hmmm.... -BC 209.6.203.244 00:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)209.6.203.244 04:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)209.6.203.244 14:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Therefore it's my very strong feeling that if either Hodges or Martin were to be put under oath and asked about the memos and Bush's real military history, there would be little need for all this tedious detective work into early 1970's tech and all this painfully detailed assembly of supporting DoD evidence. Ya think? -BC 209.6.203.244 17:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC) 209.6.203.244 22:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the gap in updates. But I had a little side project to update for election day: http://aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/CBSBushMemos.html

The typographers out there might get a chuckle at what happened when I extrapolated the default proportional spacing for a Diablo-type daisywheel printer from an old PC Magazine print sample. Fun stuff indeed. Enjoy -BC 209.6.203.244 08:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blogs

Blogs written by someguy are not reliable sources. Do not use them as such. JBKramer 21:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Seeing as though it was "blogs written by some guy" which exposed these memos as the forged items they were and led directly to Rather's exit and CBS's climbdown, I don't see how you can reasonably remove blog links because they're not reliable. They broke the story, they're intrinsically linked to it! Trying to provide information on what happened without linking to blogs is like trying to report on a newspaper issue by referring only to TV news broadcasts. What you are doing makes no sense, please justify your removals on a more substantial basis, else we should get started on reverting your changes. — Impi 22:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Blogs are not reliable sources, per WP:RS. Find a newspaper talking about a blog, and cite that. Do not cite the blog. Blogs are rarely acceptable citations. JBKramer 01:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
In this particular case, the blogs are the reliable source regarding what the blogs said at that time. It is silly to use a tertiary source, describing what someone else says the blog said, when the primary source is available. Indeed, such a tertiary source would be someone self-publishing original research, and hence not allowable either. If you're concerned that the blogs quoted might in the future edit the pages linked, there's a mechanism to preserve the current state of the quoted link. I suggest that you make those copies and revert your attempts at excessive purity. htom 06:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Here's a reliable source[2] that solves a lot problems for this article.--RWR8189 08:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
This article[3] from the Columbia Journalism Review also has a lot of verifiable information about the controversy.--RWR8189 09:27, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

JBKramer is evidently confused, as WP:RS doesn't apply to the vast majority of links that were removed. Simply put, WP:RS is a policy that defines what sort of citations are acceptable; not links and not mentions. In other words, any facts stated or claims repeated in the article have to be backed up by reliable sources such as newspapers and not blogs (unless there's a very good reason to do so), but there's no restriction on mentioning blogs or linking to them if they're relevant. In this case, it's impossible to argue that the blogs are not relevant, since they were the ones who broke the story and did the initial research. They are primary sources and as such are important, even though their claims are not considered reliable until backed up by reliable tertiary sources. You can't describe this issue with sufficient depth unless you link to the primary sources that started it. — Impi 09:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Sure you can. Newspaper articles are perfect. JBKramer 12:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Again, you miss the point. Newspaper articles are perfect for citing facts and claims, but they are not primary sources. For example, let's refer back to the Muhammed cartoons controversy. In that case, all facts and claims surrounding the controversy were cited to reliable sources, yet Wikipedia ALSO provided a link to the cartoons themselves as a primary source. Now naturally, the cartoons are not a reliable source, seeing as they are neither objective nor accurate about their subject matter, but that didn't prevent them being displayed as a source nonetheless. The situation with regards to this article is little different, so that providing information about the Killian documents without linking to the blogs that were at the heart of the issue is just as silly as it would have been for Wikipedia to not link to the Muhammed cartoons. — Impi 14:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Cartoons were printed in a newspaper. When the blogs are quoted in a newspaper, link the quotes. Blogs cannot be used as sources. JBKramer 15:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
The cartoons themselves were linked to, not merely newspaper reports of them. Please explain, in more than just two sentences, why it supposedly violates Wikipedia's guidelines to link to blogs. You've been decidedly less than convincing thus far. — Impi 16:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
WP:EL. The cartoons were published in a RS. They were also the subject of the article. JBKramer 21:10, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Don't get stuck on the cartoons, they were an analogy and not the basis of the discussion. The important thing to understand here is the difference between primary sources (even though biased) and reliable tertiary sources such as newspaper articles. Oh, and are you actually capable of using more than just two sentences to respond? It's awfully frustrating trying to understand your position if you keep refusing to adequately articulate it. — Impi 22:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
(Wikipedia needs some syntax like :+ or :> to indent to a single greater level and := or :| to the current level.) Anyway, statements made in blogs can indeed be primary sources; there is no better source than a primary source. The blogger says "I did X" or "I do X"; anyone else reporting it is either saying "He did X", if they observed it, or "He claims to have done X" if they didn't. Someone quoting the blog's statement is a secondary source. Someone quoting that secondary source is a tertiary source. A newspaper is almost always going to be at least one step more removed from a blog post than the blog post itself (some newspaper publication is on blogs!), and hence the newspaper is considered to be the less reliable source, not the more reliable one. The cynic in me wonders if JBKramer is trying to increase newspaper sales, or at least newspaper sites' hits. htom 00:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Review WP:RS. Wikipedia prefers secondary sources to primary sources. JBKramer 11:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
My patience is beginning to wear thin. WP:RS does not apply because we are not using blogs as citations for facts or claims. And you evidently didn't read through WP:EL, as it makes it clear that linking to websites is perfectly acceptable when they are the subject of the article. As the various blogs involved in this issue (such as LGF) are indivisibly intertwined with the Killian memos and the controversy surrounding them, we are obliged to link to them as primary sources. And if you continue to refuse to supply adequate reasoning in defence of your position, then I feel we will have little choice but to revert your changes on the assumption that you can't, in fact, defend them. We've been patient and polite thus far while you've just jerked us around; it can't last. — Impi 13:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The subject of this article is not blogs. It is "Killian documents." The links are not to "Killian documents," they are to "blogs which discuss Killian documents." Please remain WP:CIVIL. We are not obliged to link to anything.JBKramer 13:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
You seem to think -- and claim -- that we are obliged to link to newspapers. The article itself could more properly be titled "Alleged Killian documents controversy" One could reduce the article to the statement that CBS produced documents claiming to come from Killian, called the Killian document, see Killian_documents_authenticity_issues but there is more involved in the controversy than the actual authenticity or lack thereof of the documents; one of the facts of the controvsrsy is that the newspapers did not discover the story and then did not cover the story for several days. htom 18:02, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Au contraire, the subject of this article is both the Killian documents AND their unmasking as forgeries. The blogs were the first to spot the evidence of forgery and continued to drive it until the major news media caught hold of it. Thus they are an intrinsic part of the subject and we are indeed obliged to link to them. — Impi 14:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

That does not fit the exception in WP:EL, which reads "Links normally to be avoided: 8. Links to blogs, except those written by a recognized authority." None of the people discussed are recognized authorities. JBKramer 15:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I suspect that several parts of policy and recommendation are going to have to be re-written to properly cope with the problem of blogs as sources. Until that's done, we struggle on. Your removal of primary sources, in this particular case, where the customary secondary sources did not cover the controvery, in my opinion, does not help the reader understand either the documents or the controversy. I understand that you want a "better" article; your means produce a "worse" article. htom 18:02, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
If no reliable source has covered something, we can not have an article on it. Are you saying this article is unverifiable? JBKramer 18:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
No, no, no! A thousand times no. You fail to see the difference between cited sources (which must be reliable) and subject sources. If an article is about a document, we link to that document if possible, even though the document in question is not reliable or objective. Where an article is about a website, we link to that website even though it may not be reliable or objective, and so on. We do this because we are obliged to provide the most amount of information to readers as is reasonably possible, while we ensure credibility by backing up the article's facts and claims with citations to reliable sources. The blogs involved in this controversy are part of the subject: You cannot fairly cover the issue of the fraudulent Killian memos without discussing the blogs that discovered the forgery. As such, they are part of the article's subject and we link to them as a way of providing information to the reader. This article is poorer if a reader is not directed to the original links and original analyses, so as to view first hand the process that led to the unmasking of these forgeries. Why are you unable to see that? — Impi 20:13, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Sure we can. Newspaper articles talked about it - the current article uses only reliable sources. We are not a web directory - we are an encyclopedia. If reliable sources didn't care to say something, it didn't happen. JBKramer 00:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Orwellian. http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/4/ htom 14:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

JBKramer, this article about the Killian documents and controversy makes reference to blog entries that played perhaps the central role in this subject. They are not for the most part being cited as authoritative sources of fact but as noted above as primary sources of the events noted in the article. I'm not sure how removing them improves the article or its treatment of the controversy. I think you are misapplying the reliability standard here. Kaisershatner 17:10, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

My 2 cents (earlier offered in response to authenticity issues):

  1. If it can be established by citation to reliable sources that a specific individual blog post is independently notable and of historic importance in its own right, I would have no problem linking to it directly in addition to the RS accounts. (In this case, that probably just means the original Buckhead post, which got plenty of media coverage. Even the Charles Johnson gifs, while they got plenty of RS coverage, aren't historically significant as primary sources, IMHO). However, this use of "historically notable blog posts as primary sources" would appear to contradict the letter of WP:RS and WP:V, so I wouldn't include them without consensus.
  2. The rest of the posts, as interesting as they are, clearly violate WP:V and WP:RS unless they are posts written by a participant (e.g., Mapes or Burkett) or by an acknowledged expert writing within his or her field).

Thanks, TheronJ 19:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


In an article like this where blogs, which seem to be unreliable sources are a main subject of the article and the controversy, need to be included to improve the article and Wikipedia as a whole, it may be prudent to ignore all rules and add it anyways.--RWR8189 23:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The blogs are an integral part of the story. Where the events being cited themselves occurred in blog postings, that is the blog is the primary source, only citing independent news media reports is just silly. Removing the blog references has the effect of vandalism to the article (albeit with much better intentions than the usual vandalism, to be sure). -- Tphinney 07:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Bouffard example

Here is an example of a blog as an authoratative source that you just put back in the article - "Bouffard claims that further study left him "more convinced" that the memos were forgeries and that he was quoted out of context by the Boston Globe." If anything a blog says is relevent, it will be commented on by a reliable source. Blogs are not appropriate as sources or as links, per WP:RS and WP:EL. JBKramer 17:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I just bulk reverted your removals. (What I mean is, I simply undid all of your changes. Some of your removals might make sense). Some of the blog links, such as the one you cite above, might be appropriate to remove, but let's consider them on a case-by-case basis, shall we? Kaisershatner 17:35, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
So, looking into this example: if you google "Bouffard Globe misquoted" you'll see that the bulk of the links are blogs. The major news outlets didn't generally cover this, with the exception of the retraction in the Globe (which I have added as a cite). Are you taking the position that because it wasn't printed in a "reputable" print source, that it never happened? Or do you think that Bouffard actually did claim to have been misquoted, but that coverage of this facet of the story was lacking in the major newspapers of the day? Seems to me to be clear that it did occur, but the only available citations are blogs. Now what? Kaisershatner 17:59, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
If it wasn't reported in a reliable source, we can't say it. JBKramer 18:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFC: Use of blogs as citations

This dispute is about whether blogs can be cited as reliable sources in this article.

Statements by editors involved in the dispute:

  • WP:V and WP:RS indicate quite clearly that personal websites are not considered reliable sources. WP:IAR as a principle suggests there may be exceptions to the rules. In this particular example, blogs played a central role in the controversy regarding the Killian documents and, as noted in the "Bouffard" example above, may be the ONLY sources of certain information regarding this topic. Is it reasonable to use them as sources? Kaisershatner 16:07, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • If the only way to verify something happened is a link to a blog, no reliable source has stated that the thing has happened, and we cannot mention it. If it was notable enough to be relevant, a reliable source would have said it. JBKramer 07:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Indeed, this was the point I was attempting to get across earlier. For general facts and claims, such as statements attributed to Dan Rather or the conclusions of the Thornburgh-Boccardi report, blogs are clearly not reliable sources and should not be used. But when mentioning something that occurred on a blog, such as Charles Johnson's GIF, it makes sense to provide a link to the blog page in question as a primary source. I believe this to be the same principle as linking to copies of documents, pictures or videos that are at the centre of issues or controversies, even though as primary sources they are seldom objective or particularly reliable. In other words, we're treating the blog pages not as traditional sources to be used when citing facts, but rather as objects. In addition to this, Wikipedia's guidelines do allow the use of websites as sources in certain circumstances, such as postings by notable people. ie, if Billy Corgan announces on his personal website that the Smashing Pumpkins are working on a new album, it's certainly ok to report what Corgan said, using his site as a source. I would argue that the same principle applies to some extent here, since certain bloggers became notable and connected to the memos by virtue of their actions in disproving them as fraudulent. But regardless of which justification one goes for, I don't think it can be denied that certain blogs played a major role in this issue, and that to ignore them because they don't fulfill some guideline would be a denial of the truth and antethetical to Wikipedia's core principles. — Impi 19:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Ahh, the light dawns. Here is where to comment on the RFC! There is a problem with linking to a blog -- indeed, to anywhere -- because there is no way of constraining the changing of the text (we'll assume) that the editor wished to cite. Bloggers mostly seem to deal with this by doing screen captures of the page image that they wish to use (and then pounding those who do such stealty edits with the screen capture image.) We don't need to do that, of course, but perhaps some mechanism of capturing should be used (note that not all changes are either intentional or "bad", they may be due to any number of internet or hardware woes, and the change may be an elaboration by the author.) htom 01:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose general citation of blogs in this context: As I've said above, I would have no objection to the citation of (1) specific blog posts that have received non-trivial media coverage cited in the article, on the grounds that those blog posts are themselves historically notable. (In this context, that probably means just the Buckhead post, but if there was enough coverage of it, maybe Charles Johnson's gif post would qualify to) or (2) blog posts by acknowledged experts, posting within their field. However, most of the challenged posts are random posts from Kos or whereever discussing factual questions like the characteristics of 1970s typewriters. In that context, I'm opposed to the use of general, non-expert, non-historically notable blog posts. TheronJ 14:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments

  • As sources to claims on what different blogs said, then yes. As other sources, no. That is, if you want to say "Mr X posted a document on his blog" then evidently the blog in question is good source for that. If you want to say that "Mr A told Mr B that..." then Mr Xs blog is not a good source. But Mr As or Mr Bs blogs could be. --Regebro 18:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with Users Impi and Regebro. Basically Blogs alone cannot be used to backup POV statements. But if the subject of discussion is the blog itself, then the blog can be used for supplementary information. Another case (although I don't think it applies here) is when a very notable person post something on a blog (in a verifiable fashion). In that case, also, the blog can be used as a source for that person's statement. Zarbat 09:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Ditto - what Impi, Regebro, OtterSmith and others have said. In circumstances such as this one where the story is in large part *about* content that was posted first and even exclusively on blogs, linking to the specified blogs is not only acceptable, but practically a requirement. Deleting such links does severe damage to the article. Thomas Phinney 11:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I came here after an attempt to alter the verifiability policy to open the floodgates to blog-based stuff. Claims on blogs are usually pretty useless. An exception is when a blog-based claim is later verified by sources that actually do fact-checking, and the role of the blog was reported. In that case, the blog becomes a primary source, like any other, and I don't see that being self-published makes it worse than being unpublished. I wouldn't use it for anything else, however. Robert A.West (Talk) 03:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Blogs generally are not good (nor allowable) secondary sources, but they can be useful and allowable primary sources. For example, to document in an article about Joe Blow that "Joe Blow claimed on his blog on (date) that he had nude pictures of Dick Cheney", as long as authorship can be verified without doubt. Or "BlogX posted nude pictures of Dick Cheney on (date)", with a link to the nude picture of him on the blog, in the BlogX article. (Obviously this is hypothetical, no one wants to see nudes of Dick.) While I have not examined the sources in question within the context of this article, I am familiar with the subject, and find it hard to imagine a complete article on the subject without citing at least a couple of blog posts. But the allowable uses are very narrow, and well documented in WP:RS and WP:V discussions on "self-published sources". I waver back and forth on whether or not the rules about blogs are too strict. But in an exceptional case, if a blog post is really appropriate to use as a source, even if the rules don't "allow" it, there is always the option to invoke WP:IGNORE. It's a matter of common sense. - Crockspot 18:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm taking a research break regarding the Killian forgery charges (I have a daisywheel printer now and a HyType I compatible PS printwheel to go along with it -- I'll hopefully have test results to post next week), but this issue with citing blogs as sources is pretty important and central to things like the Killian memos and that LGF bit on the manipulated Rueters photos. If you look at the contents of the original blog posts by Buckhead and his ilk, it was factually nearly all nonsense. But this, along with Charles Johnson's very misleading CYA animation and the pumped-up, supposed outrage at the liberal media by the right blogosphere as a group, is what drove the forgey claim, with the mainstream media ending up essentially being wagged by the tail.
  • As a class, the blogosphere is like a bunch of people talking at a bar or in a coffee shop. While there may be folks there who know what they're talking about, the bulk of the conversations is sure to be filled with just rumors, twisted and confused facts, fuzzy-headed logic, highly biased and unsupported opinions, and just plain, utter BS, and there is no easy way for the average "eavesdropper" to be able to sort out the bits of genuinely good info. The quality of journalism in the mainstream media is in tough shape these days, but there are still some standards for fact-checking and research in place. For all of CBS's faults in the memos mess, Mary Mapes and her crew did make some attempt at fact-checking -- it was certainly insufficient, especially in hindsight, but at least an attempt was made. By comparison, the right wing blogosphere for the most part, to say the least, just flung whatever nonsense was handy in their attacks on CBS, Mary Mapes and especially Dan Rather. There was laughably and ironically far, FAR more of the malicious bias in these attacks than what CBS was accused of.
  • Personally I strongly feel that blogs are not in any way credible news sources and can never be cited as such. Their role seems to be primarily of the modern Agent Provocateur, stirring up a fuss that may or may not (probably) be legitimate, but is newsworthy nevertheless in the effect it produces. Perhaps the best solution for handling the blogs -- as well as deliberately provocative "commentators" like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly -- in general is to just explicitly label them as "Agents Provocateurs" if they don't otherwise meet any sort of journalistic standard for news reporters, but are the driving force behind a given news story. Just my 10 cents for what 10 cents is worth these days. -BC 209.6.203.244 14:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Your solution would appear to advocate the insertion of POV language. Just curious, would you also include Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, and Al Franken in the category of "Agents Provocateurs"? - Crockspot 18:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Sure. While liberal/leftist commentators like Al Franken nowadays tend to be reactive to the provocations of the right, they are still non-journalists making opinionated commentaries with the intent to mock, persuade or provoke. If you want to quote something pithy or clever said by someone like this, that's one thing, but to quote in terms of an informational cite, no. Al Franken for one is a really bright guy, but....he's still not a legitimate, citable source. -BC 209.6.203.244 04:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
      • On a secondary note, I've been thinking that what the public could very much use now is some sort of "credibility index" for rating news sources, from traditional newspapers to blogs and everything in between. In regards to blogs, the better progessive sites like Common Dreams, Raw Story, and Media Matters are very meticulous and research oriented and tend to be far more reliable than even the best conservative news media like The National Review and The Weekly Standard, which in contrast tend to be overwhelmingly commentary-heavy with apparently little fact checking. I had used a link above to a Weekly Standard article regarding the right wing blogoshere's role in the Killian memos saga to try to give a conservative source. But even here, while it started off straightforward as much as conservative sources tend to be, it then became less and less factual as it went along. And how best can you categorize good old Fox News? Their entire news day starts with a memo essentially describing how to spin a given story throughout that entire day. Its prime time lineup is almost all commentary and interviews with just slivers of news, often just wire stuff, inserted here and there. Wouldn't it be cool if someone actually tallied up the percentages of time and/or words of, say, the top 100 news sources given to: 1) news meeting journalistic standards for fact checking; 2) commentary and analysis based on cited and footnoted sources; 3) editorial opinions based on verified stories; 4) opinions and commentary based on unverified stories and rumors; 5) stories and commentaries based on a misrepresentation of facts; and 6) mocking and insulting remarks based solely on the personal biases of the commentators. Then tally all this up and give some sort of numeric score that can serve as a guide for people wanting to know how many grains of salt to take when viewing or reading a given news source. I think that would be really cool, but probably too much to ask for.... -BC 209.6.203.244 17:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rathergate

Why the superscript th in Rathergate? The article doesn't explain and I'm not American, so I don't know myself. It seems odd that there'd be something visually odd in the article with no apparent justification… — OwenBlacker 18:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

One of the key indicators that the documents were forgeries was a superscripted 'th' on the unit names - something which was rare on typewriters (and even on typesetting machines) of the late 60s and early 70s, but something which Microsoft Word does pretty much automatically. That hint led Charles Johnson (and others) to attempt to recreate the documents in Word, leading to an exact match. Αργυριου (talk) 18:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Yup. Few typewriters of the time had a th glyph. Those that did frequently had the characters shaped so that they did not protrude above the height of a capital letter, which the memo's th does. As Mr. Rather's name contains a th, once it was called 'Rathergate', someone took a dig at him with it, and it spread like wildfire. htom 18:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Aaah, that makes sense. Someone should include that in the article, I think — Αργυριου's explanation here could almost certainly just be added straight to the article, imho. — OwenBlacker 10:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, I've added a short explanation as a footnote. Please treat my edit as a first draft. Cheers, CWC 09:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks good to me; thanks!  :o) — OwenBlacker 17:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] R.I.P. Rathergate

Heading added by CWC 13:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC) and made more appropriate by "BC" ...No this is better. Andyvphil 08:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC) Rather than RIP for Rathergate, this seems more appropriate (I assume that CJ is not going to consider it actionable.) htom 19:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)Until someone shows me to be wrong somewhere, anywhere, that's the accurate title. -BC

Ummm...I know this is only a discussion, but let's try actually using some facts -- this is suppose to be an encyclopedia after all and not just a collection of beloved urban myths.

1) Superscripting and subscripting Full superscripting and subscripting are simply half line feeds, respective down and up. Any typewriter or old impact printer like a "daisywheel" or I/O Selectric (a different beast from a Selectric typewriter, and obsoleted shortly after daisywheel printers came on the market).

2) Small super/subscripts like th's WERE NOT rare back then. Factless assertions otherwise have come from people with no clue about past common office technology. Indeed the typewriter the IBM Selectric mostly replaced was an earlier IBM model called the Executive that had been made since the 1940's in one form or the other. That had interchangeable typebars with a large variety of special characters. Additionally it came with several different typeface options and could proportionally print as well in all of them. Check out this IBM ad from 1954. And this is a short excerpt from an old technical manual created with an IBM Model "C" Executive, which was introduced in 1959. Note how the excerpt has a fully superscripted small "05" and a normal one.

In the DoD database of Bush's military records, there is one proportionally printed document that was included in a belated Sept. 24, 2004 release of additional records, the only such one in all of Bush's records -- and very suspiciously released not until just a few days after CBS had backed away from the memos on Sept. 22nd, and weeks after they should have been included with a Sept. 7th release of records resulting from an AP FOIA lawsuit -- and another showing full, clear small th superscripting that was obviously done on some typewriter or impact printer.

3) It's recently come to light that Charles Johnson's widely circulated little bit of "proof" of forgery is apparently fraudulent. CBS had used 4 memos, proportedly written by Killian in their report. Johnson used the shortest and simplest one to demonstrate his overlay trick on, stating under the title "Bush Guard Documents: Forged" that:

I opened Microsoft Word, set the font to Microsoft's Times New Roman, tabbed over to the default tab stop to enter the date "18 August 1973," then typed the rest of the document purportedly from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian.

And my Microsoft Word version, typed in 2004, is an exact match for the documents trumpeted by CBS News as "authentic."

But what about the other 3 memos, the ones dated, May 4th, 1972, May 19th, 1972 and Aug. 1st, 1972? If it was so easy to get an "exact match" with one, and if the "documents" -- plural -- were forged with Microsoft Word as charged, surely the overlay experiment will produce similar results with all 4 memos, no?

No. Any overlay "experiment" with the longer more complicated memos, especially the May 4th and Aug. 1st ones, will fail not only miserably, but would point out that a modern word processor was very likely not used. The much maligned (by right wing blog sites, that is) Dr. David Hailey obtained some high resolution copies of the memos from Mary Mapes and tried Johnson's overlay trick with with Aug. 1st memo and got this result.

Even with the also relatively simple May 19th memo, Johnson went only so far as to print out a Word recreation of it and just "discuss" its similarity to the original. See this and note this telling comment at the bottom:

If you look closely at the CBS "original" you can see that there’s quite a bit of distortion and shearing, probably caused by whatever technique was used to artificially "age" the document. So the overlay technique is not as effective with this one; but if you overlay them and nudge one of them by single pixels from side to side, words and lines come into exact focus in different parts of the image.

And even with his CYA overlay, if you look carefully at an enlargement of his (in)famous animated GIF, there are serious problems. Watch it for a little bit and note how when the original memo seems to "squeeze in somehow in the middle area when it appears. What Johnson did was resize one or the other to align the dots on the left and right sides. Since the proportional spacing in Times Roman (Mac, what Johnson used) and Times New Roman (Windows) is highly derivative of the proportional spacing used by the early word processing systems -- especially ones using Diablo and Diablo compatible daisywheel printers, which were the standard for about a dozen years prior to the first laser printers -- you would actually expect some sort of rough match-up on a shorter memo like the CYA one, but not so much with more complicated and/or longer ones. Which is the exact situation we have here.

But does this necessarily mean Johnson deliberately perpetrated a fraud? Couldn't he have been just a rank amateur who got this interesting result from a test, reached a snap, poorly thought out conclusion and just couldn't wait to post it all? Possible in theory, but extremely, EXTREMELY unlikely. He made a number of postings from Sept. 9, 2004 through the 13th in regards to the memos, and spent considerable time futzing only with the CYA memo. In one of those posts, though, he discusses his qualifications -- or "bona fides" -- in regards to his tests and conclusions, stating:

I’ve been involved with desktop publishing software and scalable software fonts (as opposed to hot lead type) almost since their inception. I’m a former West Coast editor of a popular computer magazine for a now-orphaned computer, the Atari ST/TT.

I also co-owned a software publishing firm, CodeHead Technologies, for whom I designed and laid out packaging and manuals for more than a dozen products (in addition to developing most of those products, using 680x0 assembly language). We used a combination of DTP and traditional typesetting techniques for these jobs, and I cut my teeth on some of the first serious DTP software ever created for personal computers—including Aldus Pagemaker and Aldus Freehand on the Mac, and less recognizable titles available for Atari computers (anyone still using Calamus or Pagestream out there?).

My software company also marketed a word processing program (Calligrapher, written by a developer in Britain) that had the ability to import and use Postscript Type 1 fonts. And I had early experience with some of the dinosaur-like dedicated word processors that were available in the 70s/80s.

I’m not boasting like this just to pump up my lizardoid ego; it’s to let you know that I have an extensive background in these subjects—and when I tell you that there’s no way the CBS News documents were created on any machine available in 1972/1973, I ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.

All of which makes it highly improbable in the extreme that he didn't at some point type up Word recreations of all 4 memos, and then proceeded to deliberately ignore the overt discrepencies in the other three, most especially the May 4th and Aug. 1st memos, in order to go forward with his claim that all the documents were forged. He even admitted to having problems with overaying the also simple May 19th memo and did not display his results, resorting to just describing the similarities and casually dismissing his problems with overlaying. Such deliberate cherry picking of data to support a hypothesis is considered outright fraud in the scientific community, and it should be no less the case here.

Even though this little subsection is ostensibly about the superscripting "issue" in the memos, I should probably point out that there really isn't and never was any good evidence supporting the forgery charge. The initial Free Republic post by "Buckhead" was laughably wrong and confused in every way, Charles Johnson's follow up "proof" was also wrong and evidently fraudulent, and all the other bits "evidence" offered as proof were even more nonsensical. The US mainstream press did little or nothing to sort things out, and so here we are years later and "Rathergate" is now virtually etched in stone as the blogosphere's finest moment of triumph and the beginning of the "new media" supplanting the old.

But....it was never more than a field of dreams, one in reality that was filled only with scraggly grass and lots and lots of these brown, stinkin' pies.... -BC 65.78.25.69 15:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC) Cleaned it up a little bit and added more to the Charles Johnson section. -BC 65.78.25.69 14:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll be blunt: someone is indeed "laughably wrong and confused in every way", but it's not "Buckhead". Remember that:
  • Ordinary photocopiers, like those Bill Burkett used, introduce non-obvious but significant amounts of distortion.

Really? Ya think? You've got the evidence and cites to back this up or are you just making methane? Here, bright eyes, if you have access to a computer and a photocopier, however beat-up, try this little experiment: create something in Word and print out two copies of it; take the first copy and use the photocopier machine to make, oh say, a 15th generation copy of it and use thin paper for the last copy; do likewise with the 2nd printout you made with Word and then compare by overlaying the two 15th generation copies to each other and to both of the original print outs but holding them up against a light or scannning them into Photoshop or whatever. Think you're going to see "non-obvious but significant amounts of distortion"?

Better yet, if you are good with Photoshop or such, scan in the May 4th, 1972 and Aug. 1st, 1972 memos and overlay their letterheads. Guess what you'll find? A dead-on, perfect match with no distortion. But how can that be if they started off as two individual Word printouts and each was fed separately into a photocopier that introduced "introduce non-obvious but significant amounts of distortion" along the way. But if there wasn't such distortion created, then.... Tricky, ain't it?

  • Even the really expensive typewriters with proportional fonts had escapements of 1/3 of an em at best, which is much coarser than the character widths and spacings in the memos.

Ummm, are we still talking about Buckhead's post or did you just changed the subject? Let's first discuss what "Buckhead" posted: In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts. The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts.

True or not true? Well, as I already pointed out, IBM Executive typewriters were around since the 40's and they could proportionally space and superscript with all sort of little characters. And not only that, I happen to know that Texas Air National Guard had 'em, courtesy of this PDF file I ripped off from Mary Mapes' site without permission -- go check pages 3 & 5. So he's dead wrong on that. As far as his other comments about what was common office technology back then? Well, I did a wee bit of actual, well, research back in the late fall and this is what I found. So hard evidence (which I'm kind of fond of, sorry) clearly demonstrates that he indeed was "laughably wrong and confused in every way". And since you foolishly claimed otherwise, obviously without the slightest bit of fact checking, that appears to make you likewise "laughably wrong and confused in every way" just as much, don't it? Your likewise clueless Even the really expensive typewriters with proportional fonts had escapements of 1/3 of an em at best, which is much coarser than the character widths and spacings in the memos comment confirms it.

  • Until the 1980s, daisy-wheel printers were only used with expensive word-processing systems and minicomputers that supported multiple users. Wang's first system, shipped in 1975, still used an IBM golf-ball typewriter for output. Some daisy-wheels had finer escapements (down to 0.1em, IIRC) but still much coarser than whatever produced the memos.

My, my, you really don't have a clue about anything at all about early office technology even though you clearly had been to info-packed my site, do you? And, please, em me no em -- I had already calculated a while back somewhere up on this page that if you accept the claims by the typographers that you needed a printer with "18 unit" character spacing, then by the mid-70's *at the latest* there were daisywheel printers that could do that: their 1/120" horizontal resolution meant that they could do 18 unit spacing at 10.8 points, which is close enough to round to 11 points (unlike modern word processors, the point size didn't have to be in perfect scale with the unit spacing), which in turn was a typical size for both Selectric and daisywheel printheads. If you know nothing else about me, you should realize that I'm not that dumb.

  • The memos use pseudo-kerning and glyphs that exactly match Microsoft's version of Times New Roman and Microsoft Word's default layout. It is basically impossible for any other font to do that (even another Times New Roman!).

Sorry, but I really have to invoke that "laughably wrong and confused in every way" description again for that comment. They don't "exactly match" in any way, shape or form, literally, and I can easily show this in a rather (so to speak) ironical way: not quite expert, Joseph M. Newcomer, Phd, one of the most widely quoted forgery proponents, has a nice graphic comparing the word "from" from one the memos to that of a Word recreation. When aligned horizontally, the differences are pretty stark and obvious.

  • Dr Hailey's test on the "01 August 1972" memo therefore proves that the memo was produced with Microsoft Word.

Noooo....but your comment is further indication of that "laughably wrong and confused in every way" kick you're on.

  • There is plenty of "good evidence supporting the forgery charge", in Wikipedia:Reliable Sources such as the Washington Post and CBS's own Thorn-Baccardi Report, and it's conclusive enough to convince even this guy. The people who believe the documents to be genuine are reduced to arguing might-have-beens on their own websites and anyone-can-edit pages like this.

Nope. Been there, analyzed them, pointed out their shortcomings, and demonstrated their overall uselessness in sorting out fact from even utter nonsense. Everything coming from the right wing blog sites and then later the conservative news media, as with the case with Buckhead, was never more than malicious, laughable nonsense. The mainstream media never bothered to do any real research into 70's office technology, or even checked much if at all into the accuracy of the memos' contents versus the official DoD records, and they just in general made a colossal, collective botch of their journalistic responsibilities. The Thornburgh-Boccardi panel was a joke as an investigative probe, especially in passing up a golden opportunity to press Bobby Hodges and especially Rufus Martin about not only the memos, but also about certain big discrepencies in the DoD records regarding Bush's service. As it was, Hodges and Martin were allowed to disengenuously evade even answering who it was that verbally suspended Bush. Although it was obviously just an exercise in scapegoating, one bit of information in it turned out to be extremely useful recently: how CBS obtained 2 of the memos from Burkett on Sept. 2nd, 2004 and the rest on Sept. 5th. You'll see a little further down why this info was so useful.

As far as Phinney goes, I had already bumped heads with him, especially in regards to the quality of his "research" into the forgery claim compared to Hailey's. Expertise doesn't really count unless actually do some real research.

More importantly, the silly claim that it is "extremely, EXTREMELY" likely that "Johnson deliberately perpetrated a fraud", based only on some dizzyingly circular reasoning, is a misuse of Wikipedia resources to attack a living person for idealogical motives. I probably should have deleted the relevant paragraphs per WP:BLP; in fact, absent convincing argument from experienced Wikipedians, I will do so in a day or two.

Hmmm....let's see now.... go here and see how the Wikipedia defines "falsification" in terms of scientific misconduct and fraud: manipulation of research data and processes or omitting critical data or results.

OK, we got that?

Now let's look at the Charles Johnson situation: there were 4 one-page memos at the center of forgery charges originating in the right wing blogosphere, which by common definition includes Johnson's site, Little Green Footballs. Johnson takes one of the memos, the August 18th, 1973 "CYA" one, which happens to be the shortest and simplest of all the memos, and overlays that with a Word recreation and then publicly claims Bush Guard Documents: Forged on Sept. 9th, 2004. Notice that he claims all of the documents to be forged, and not just the one he did his overlay experiment on. But there were only 4 memos in total, so what about the other three -- did he test those as well before making the rather (again, so to speak) serious charge of forgery? Seemingly not, since a few days later, on Sept. 11, he posts how he did Another Document Experiment on the May 19th, 1972 memo. In this case, he only discusses the similarities of that memo to a Word recreation, and claims, in boldface, that the Word recreation was an exact matchto the CBS News original. But, at the bottom of page he mentions he had tried an overlay that apparently didn't work, but which explained away with: If you look closely at the CBS "original" you can see that there’s quite a bit of distortion and shearing, probably caused by whatever technique was used to artificially "age" the document. So the overlay technique is not as effective with this one; but if you overlay them and nudge one of them by single pixels from side to side, words and lines come into exact focus in different parts of the image.

Ok now, so Johnson demonstrated an overlay experiment on just one of the four CBS memos and used that to claim all of the memos forged on Sept. 9th, 2004. And despite Johnson's claim to the contrary, that overlay was not an exact match since if you look closely at an enlargment, you see a lot shifting, especially in the middle since it's obvious Johnson had aligned the dots and periods on the right and left sides for the best fit. A couple of days later on the 11th, he makes a similar claim for another memo despite admitting that overlaying didn't work at all that time. That still left two other memos, which happened to be longest and most complicated ones, including identical letterheads and an odd pattern of superscripting, as shown in the May 4th, 1972 one, so what about them? We don't know -- he never mentions them. Did he just ignore them completely? Did he "experiment" with them and, not liking the result, chose to not discuss the results since they conflicted with his forgery claim? It was only four memos and he made such a point about how simple it was to create the CYA overlay -- why not all of them, then? He certainly spent enough time posting about all this stuff, so what was his excuse not be slightly more thorough?

In scientific terms, Johnson had 4 sources of data to work with, and only used only the experimental resultes of one to justify a conclusion -- he got mixed results at best on one other and he completely ignored two altogether, fully half of all the data sources available. That's not competent research by any definition. Well...maybe he was just another Buckhead -- a clueless loudmouth with no reason for anyone to take seriously....but, wait -- didn't Johnson claim to be an expert in a way relevant to all this? Yes, he did.

To summarize, we basically have a guy claiming to be an expert has four documents at hand that were claimed to be forged. He runs an overlay experiment on one and very publicly posts his conclusion that they were all forged. His experiment and his conclusion get very widely distributed, including even being featured on a Wikipedia entry on the matter. He only then runs the overlay experiment on a second document a couple of days later, but that doesn't work by his own admission, and he offers up only a highly speculative explanation for why it didn't work. The remaining two documents are never discussed.

The bottom line appears to be, and feel totally free to disagree here, that Johnson either: A) is utterly incompetent, thereby making his claims of being an expert fraudulent; or B) is a competent expert, but that he deliberately omitted half of his data and/or results in order to reach a desired conclusion, making him guilty of falsification, which is also fraudulent.

And that's my case for labeling Charles Johnson a fraud.

Corrected Addendum -- I had a "Duh" moment for not noticing that Johnson did not type up the PC Magazine sample -- he simply overlaid what PC Magazine had created. But a more serious "Duh" moment was in not noticing immediately that the right margin in the Word recreation was not set to match that of the Selectric Composer sample. Since the Composer was set for right justification, this would rather skew an overlay of a Word recreation, making Johnson's "experiment" rather bogus even if he wasn't the one to create the Word semi-copy. Hmmm.... (By the way, I'm not suggesting in any way that the complicated Composer was used to create the memos, but its proportional spacing capabilities were incorporated in later everyday word processing systems like the popular IBM "MC/ET" introduced in April, 1972.) Callmebc 00:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC) Callmebc 00:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: The "aheckofa.com guy" has since left an even longer message on Talk:Killian documents authenticity issues; see here.

Yeah, I didn't find out until fairly recently that there was another Wiki page regarding the Killian entries. That a slightly newer and more comprehensive posting that includes one rather (again, so to speak, sorry) important addition to what I had posted here: proof that the memos could not have been forged, period. That is, if you're not willing to add time traveling to the already amazing abilities of the hypothetical forger.

This involves a very short memo dated Feb, 2nd, 1972, that CBS had but didn't use. It's from Killian to Harris and simply goes Update me as soon as possible on flight certifications. Specifically - Bath and Bush. The Bath reference is very interesting, but not relevant here. It's the "flight certifications" mention that's the killer. Since the contents of the memos have consistently proven to be supported by official records to a very fine degree, I thought to look to see if there was anything in Bush's flight records indicating why Killian would be so concerned about Bush's (and Bath's) flight certification.

If you look through the raw flight logs, they are a mess: out of order, hard to read at places, and including some apparently impossible entries. The only way to make sense of them was to enter the pertinent info into something like a spreadsheet, which I did. After sorting and summing and separating out regular flights from simulator runs and training flights, I then did some graphing and ended up with this. It shows a lot funky pattern beginning about mid-January, including a sharp rise in training flights beginning about mid-February, placing the date of the memo squarely in the middle of it all, yet again showing more correlation between the contents on the memos and official, and in this case, one that was not at all obvious until you put a lot of work entering data and then processing it. I had initially used this as yet another example of how utterly ludicrous the forgery claim was -- who would go through all the trouble to analyze the flight records, surmise that the odd activity in January and Feburary of 1972 meant that Bush had trouble meeting flight certification, and was confident enough to make this a passing reference in a very short memo that also included a reference to Bush's future business partner and co-suspendee, James Bath? Seriously, would any forger do something like this?

But that was before a nagging feeling got me to check when those flight records were released -- Sept. 7th, 1972, which was days after CBS received the memos from Burkett, Sept. 2nd & 5th as reported in Thornburgh-Boccardi panel report I referred to earlier. The flight records were only thing any would be forger, however brilliant, could have used to create the info in that memo.

Before you even think of suggesting that maybe, perhaps, even if this is all true, this would only apply to that one particular memo. No. That memo shows the exact same characteristics of the other memos, and since the entire forgery hypothesis spins around the appearance issue, if you take that away, there's nothing left, amounting to a defacto authentication of all the memos. Either they are all forged, or none are forged.

CWC 13:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
"The 'aheckofa.com guy'" (why are you still IP-posting, BC?) seems to have given up on the idea that the memos were produced on anything but a very rare (in 1972 or 1973) machine, namely as "transcriptions" of lost original (handwritten? why not simply photocopied?) memos on a hypothetical brand spanking new near-protype daisywheel word processing system in some unidentified lawyer's office. Where escape sequences for superscripting or a special key for the 'th' glyph were sometimes selected and sometimes not (not under control of the WP software)... so why he's still nattering on about how you can make a superscript by hand-moving the platen is beyond me. (I inherited a Diablo II with the optional keyboard when the office equipment company I worked for went belly up -- still have it, non functional, somewhere -- it was extremely awkward to use as a typewriter.) He has some interesting criticisms of the alternate theories, but his own are not much better than little green men. The big picture is that Rather and Mapes and even CBS (per Thornburg) still claim that the memos could be exactly the originals they purport to be, and they can't -- even BC has given up on that. (Do I have that right, BC?) Andyvphil 14:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC) minor revisions performed Andyvphil 01:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you got absolutely nothing right, surprise, surprise. If you know anything at all about me, you that: A) I'm very thorough and back up everything I claim with relevant cites and research; and B) I suffer malicious fools very poorly. You know full well that I had put in plenty of research that clearly showed that despite widespread idiotic disinformation to the contrary, devices capable of creating the memos as is were quite common by the mid-70's. Not such a small thing, is it, bright eyes? The only issue was that while I found tantalyzing references to a huge number of long, LONG obsolete word processing sysetems dating from 1972 and even earlier, getting hard info on what they could do, especially in terms of printing, was very, very difficult since even the manuals for them were likely have been scrapped decades ago. With what I could find at the Charles Babbage Institute, the largest respository of such tech docs in the country, and even then only for a small fraction of the word processing systems being available, I was able to place the mass production of one daisywheel-based system made by one company, Redactron, beginning in 1973. By that time, magnetic tape and card storage of documents, spearheaded by widely sold IBM word processing systems dating back to the mid-60's, were well in place, especially in law offices. In other words, people then were creating and saving documents to be printed out later pretty much as they do now. And I have all this extremely well-documented. In addition to my research in 70's office tech, I kept culling through the DoD records looking for something equivalent to a logical smoking gun -- something that would not only show that that the forgery idea was ludicrously improbable, but actually impossible. And I do believe I succeeded.

And what have you done lately except to take moronic snipes regarding things you have absolutely no clue about? Well? And by the way, do you like my title change? Appropriate, no? -BC 65.78.25.69 01:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No. There might be a few pearls in your collection, but they're buried in so much crap that it discourages looking for them. Whether it was a 1973 Redactron or a phototypesetter that Killean DIDN'T have in his bedroom or office is irrelevant -- the point is that he didn't, in 1972, type the memos Rather produced before the camera. The fact that you suggest the Rather memos could instead have been 1973 transcriptions from 1972 originals by the man who didn't type suggests that you've given up on the idea that the Rather memos are the 1972 originals they purport to be. True or false? Try to keep your answer short and to the point. Andyvphil 08:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Short and to the point, eh? Did I not just thoroughly squash every single objection to my original post? If you disagree with my evidence and logic at any point, please feel free to mention where and why. And don't forget to source your info.

And what is this "crap" you speak of? I've certainly collected a lot of info and analyzed it on my site, but what parts are "crap" in your opinion? All the source material regarding the memos, the forgery charges, the DoD records, and 70's office technology? The print samples and scans? The timelines? The links to primary and originating sources? The culling and analysis of the DoD records? So what parts constitute "crap" exactly? It is a bit messy, but since I'm going up against a lot of firmly held ignorance, I do have to be pretty darn thorough in addressing all current and possible objections, don't you think?

I'm also curious about your assertion, Whether it was a 1973 Redactron or a phototypesetter that Killean DIDN'T have in his bedroom or office is irrelevant -- the point is that he didn't, in 1972, type the memos Rather produced before the camera. Where did I say he had a "Redactron or a phototypesetter" in his "bedroom or office"? I don't seem to recall claiming this for some strange reason.

Also you wrote, The fact that you suggest the Rather memos could instead have been 1973 transcriptions from 1972 originals by the man who didn't type suggests that you've given up on the idea that the Rather memos are the 1972 originals they purport to be. True or false? False. Actually I have long maintained that, and this is an exact quote from my web site: At the absolute worse, they had to have been accurate transcriptions, and even then they would have had to have been printed out within a year or so of their date for reasons described further down.

The problem is that people have been able to store documents to magnetic media (tapes and cards) since the mid-60's, and pretty much the same way they do today, which makes the print dates problematic. Still, though, the formatting of the memos have enough archaic features and drift far enough from current standards to indicate that that they were likely printed at least very near their stated dates. Also for documents with such a wide date range to be collected together based solely their mention of Bush, indicate that they came from a file on the matter. As I have already stated elsewhere, any explanation regarding the memos should be "complete" -- that is, you show support in their contents and dates, how they reasonably and logically might have been created, why they reasonably and logically might have been created, where they reasonably and logically were all these years, and how they ended up in Burkett's hands.

And also don't forget that my efforts have really focused on debunking the forgery charges, which is not exactly the same thing as authenticating the memos. As I pretty clearly have shown -- that is if you somehow wade through all my "crap" -- the forgery charges have always been based on laughably confused, if not outright deliberate disinformation that depended solely on widespread ignorance of 70's technology, starting with Buckhead's original post. As I inarguably demonstrated, even the Texas Air National Guard itself was merrily proportionally printing by the late 60's at the latest, rendering everyone claiming that such a thing wasn't common or even possible until the 80's or 90's either a fool or a fraud.

The only remaining semi-serious argument for a forgery is by some typographers, but they too are on shaky ground the further I look into their work and reasoning, especially in regards to their Johnson-like experiments with the May 4th & Aug 1st, 1972 memos. All of the overlay experiments, including ones by Thomas Phinney (I came across them accidently on the web, but they are not easily findable), fail rather badly with those memos in particular, and with no reasonable explanation offered. Also there now seems to be issues with their 18 unit em spacing contention since a CG Times Bold recreation of the CYA memo lines up rather nicely despite the a marked difference in the unit ratios of that when compared to Times Roman and Times New Roman. (I've actually thought of another own cute experiment in regards to this.)

And lastly, there is the not so small matter of how the short February 2nd, 1972 memo could not have been forged, period -- for it to have been forged, key contents in it was dependent on DoD records not available anywhere until after CBS had obtained all of the memos from Burkett. Combine this with the lack of real evidence and outright disinformation surrounding the memos, and you really do have an end to the confused Rathergate saga. Ya think? Callmebc 16:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Update -- I re-found the Phinney overlay experiment I was thinking of. And for poops and grins, compare what Phinney (and Hailey as well) got as a result to what Charles Johhson got overlaying a Word recreation on a sample from a real Selectric Composer (as opposed to Phinney's "virtual" one) taken from a PC Magazine article. Interesting, no? Callmebc 21:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Mendelson's test in PC Magazine uses justified text -unlike the memos. About a year after my original tests I did some more testing to look at various parameters, and discovered that justification makes the kinds of spacing comparisons I was doing very difficult indeed. If the original memos had been justified I wouldn't have been able to show a darn thing using the approach I did. However, as the memos are not justified, my tests were useful, and Mendelson's samples are of minimal relevance. Thomas Phinney 20:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The original poster writes: "Since the proportional spacing in Times Roman (Mac, what Johnson used) and Times New Roman (Windows) is highly derivative of the proportional spacing used by the early word processing systems -- especially ones using Diablo and Diablo compatible daisywheel printers, which were the standard for about a dozen years prior to the first laser printers...." Unfortunately, this is completely and utterly false, without basis in fact whatsoever. This guy claims to have read my writing on the subject, but if he had, he'd know that the proportional spacing in the common versions of Times Roman and Times New Roman is taken directly from the spacing of the Linotype hot-metal version of the 1930s, which used an 18-unit spacing system. There's no way spacing of the 1930s is based on devices created decades later. But more importantly, the IBM Executive or the IBM Composer used vastly cruder spacing systems than 18 units. The Executive had a five-unit or six-unit spacing system, depending on who you listen to. The Selectric Composer had a nine-unit system, but also the maximum width was only 3/4 of the height, which means that letters like "W" must be much squished compared to the version in Times. Thomas Phinney 20:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Phinney wrote: Unfortunately, this is completely and utterly false, without basis in fact whatsoever. This guy claims to have read my writing on the subject, but if he had, he'd know that the proportional spacing in the common versions of Times Roman and Times New Roman is taken directly from the spacing of the Linotype hot-metal version of the 1930s, which used an 18-unit spacing system.

You should know better by now that I do my homework -- all versions of Times Roman and Times New Roman are indeed based on very old standards, but those standards have been modified over the years, and there have been numerous variations, like "CG Times," as well as "Times like" and "Roman like" typefaces, especially around the time of the memos. This is a list of some printwheel options for some old Xerox typewriters/daisywheel printers. Note the "PS" (proportional spaced) ones called "Roman PS" and "Roman/Madeleine" -- what would you guess the spacing on those would be like? Sort of Times New Roman but not quite?

Since you kindly decided to pop in, would you please explain the very poor results by both you and Hailey in overlaying a Word recreation of the August 1st, 1972 memo over the original? While you apparently aligned yours up a little better than Hailey did, it still doesn't match up anywhere near as good as it it should if the memo had been originally created in Word as charged, despite you cheating by not superscripting the "st" in "1st" and the "th" in the letterhead as is the default behavior of Word. In case you try to claim that the poor matchup can be attributed to copy/fax distortion and that the forger disabled auto-superscripting, look at the May 4th, 1972 memo, which has an identical letterhead -- literally, it overlays dead on -- and *mixed* superscripting: the letterhead "th" and 1st are not superscripted, but the "th" in 111th further down is -- please try explain that logically if you stick with the premise that Word (Mac or Windows) was used. Doesn't it seem a teeny bit more likely that something only "Times Roman - like," perhaps called "Roman PS" or even actually just plain "Times" was used? There is a mention of a Redactron model Redactor II having a "Times" font option that I quoted here which goes: My buddy had one, and so we purchased a Redactor II (R-2) (which we promptly renamed R2-D2, of StarWars fame) for a mere $10,000. It used a Qume daisy wheel printer which had blinding speed that blew away the IBM Selectric, and we could attach different wheels for different fonts and sizes ranging from 10 pica to 12 elite to 15 fine print (great for attorneys ), Courier, Letter Gothic, and even "proportional spacing" Times (OMG!) print. It was almost like owning a print shop and having a sophisticated type composer machine. We could do anything...except graphics.

Lastly, is it my imagination or are the character ratios, like between "M" and "i" in "CG Times Bold" rather different from that of Times Roman or Times New Roman? If so, how do you then explain the results I got using CG Times Bold, which apparently closely matches up with the default proportional spacing mode in a daisywheel printer, as shown here? (Also note that no "smart quotes" were used.)

Considering how I demonstrated further up how one of the memos, the Feb 2nd, 1972 one that CBS didn't even use, could not possibly have been forged since the needed key info -- Bush's flight records -- wasn't released by the DoD until after CBS had obtained the memos, and how nobody can accurately recreate all of the memos using a modern word processor, isn't the only logical conclusion therefore be that the memos were created on some very old system that had some type of proportional spacing modeled after and hence at least approximating Times Roman? Wouldn't that then cleanly explain both the superscripting oddities (they would have had to have been manually selected then) and the close-but-not-identical Times Roman-like printing? Well? Callmebc 12:42, 28 March 2007 (UTC) (Fixed some typos.) Callmebc 00:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm still awaiting an answer to my "Well?" question, although we all know what the honest answer will be. It might be time for certain people to come forward and do the right, ethical thing, however hard or awkward that might be. Callmebc 22:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:OR

Can we remove the above section on the grounds that it is original research? The main author cites no reliable sources for any of his claims. Αργυριου (talk) 02:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Check those hyperlinks, bright eyes -- the text in pale blue with the little arrows: they are all either to the original sources or to documented excerpts and copies I've collected, and are far more reliable and complete than anything in the footnote section on the main page. The only truly "original" research was in simply pointing out how and where actual evidence, via either original sources or simple, easily reproduceable tests, completely contradicts pretty much all of the reasons and claims used for the forgery charge, by both amateur would-be Sherlocks and supposed experts alike. Also note how I never, ever make any claims or pretense to being an expert to promote any of this -- I merely took what claims were used by the pro-forgers and then provided inarguable evidence from the DoD and elsewhere to show how false they are.
Also this is the discussion page, and I do believe "original research" in only prohibited from the main page on a given subject. I presented a lot of material and I think I've been good and thorough at addressing any and all complaints and objections to anything I posted.
The bottom line is that once you put all of the available pieces of evidence on the table, it becomes literally impossible to make them fit into any forgery scenario under any circumstances. However firmly convinced you may be about my not possibly being right here, I have collected the evidence and put it all out in the open for you and anyone else to look at. While I may have put in some hard work in collecting all this stuff, I suspect it won't be nearly as hard as it will be for some to admit that they could have been utterly wrong and so completely suckered in by "Rathergate".
By the way, what should the new name for this little episode in mass confusion and gullibility be? Bloggergate? Mediagate? Journalismgate? Expertgate? Gulliblesuckersgate? BSgate? Perhaps even WTFgate? Callmebc 14:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


Alrighty then. Since nobody, including Phinney, has been able to refute anything I've posted (the nice advantage to using only inarguable evidence as proof, rather [umm, so to speak...] than simply making claims, expertwise or otherwise), it appears that you pro-forgers have been checkmated. The pieces are still on the table and feel free to look them over all you want, but....it's game over. I still have a bit of work to do, though -- I haven't updated my little ol' site since November. I'll try to tidy things up when I do the update, but the idea was to make things as bullet and bomb proof as possible by documenting everything in exquisitely painful detail in anticipation of any and all snipes and criticisms no matter how dumb or dumber. Soo.... I'm not completely done with the tech questions, but that's mostly just in the details now. Now knowing that the memos could not possibly have been forged relaxes, if not completely eliminates, the need to find the particular -- or even just "a" particular -- system they were created on, but I am still curious and I have yet more tests to do. But for the most part, the hard work has been done and the main result achieved.

The central issue now should be in figuring out how, in this day and age in this country, could such a thing have happened. Where were the breakdowns and who are the main villains? The 60 Minutes Wednesday crew obviously -- in hindsight at least -- did not sufficiently authenticate the memos for use in their very ill-fated segment, which left the door ajar for the ensuing charges they were fake or forged. That segment, though -- and bear in mind that it really was only a standard length segment typical of that show -- followed on the heels of a DoD release of Bush's records resulting from an FOIA lawsuit filed earlier in the year by the AP, was really a me-too effort more than anything else, which might explain the less than thorough authentication effort, but not excuse it. They are suppose to be serious journalists after all.

More interesting is the role of the right wing blog sites that instigated the forgery charge, specifically The Free Republic, Power Line, and Little Green Footballs, aided by (psuedo?) news outlets like The Drudge Report.

I had already shown that Buckhead's original post in the Free Republic was nonsensical in its description of 70's (and even 80's) office technology, but was "Buckhead" aka Harry MacDougald, just cluelessly shooting his mouth off or was he deliberately lying? According to this article MacDougald is a lawyer who was 46 at the time he made his Free Republic post about the memos. Assuming he got a law degree by his mid-20's, that would put him working in some sort of law office by the early 80's, a time when there were very, very numerous options for word processing, from the well known, like the early IBM PC's being attached to NEC Spinwriters to the now completely forgotten, like the "A.B. Dick Magna SL," despite this particular model apparently selling, um, rather well at the time, at least according to this. Since law offices were among the early and quick adopters of word processing technology, it would be reasonable to assume MacDougald would have seen many systems come and go during the 80's, including systems fully capable of proportional printing and such, but....if he was a typical lawyer back then, and had a secretary to take care of all the typing and filing, he probably had little or no idea what those strange machines with the funky green and amber text screens could do aside from whatever printed documents appeared on his desk. So unless we knew for sure what office technology he was exposed to over the years since he started working, it's impossible to say if he was indeed no more than just being clueless.

I had already shown Charles Johnson to be fraudulent in one way or the other, so there's no need to recover that. Power Line's role in all this seemed to have been that of a consolidater of nonsensical assertions, nutcase conspiracy theories, and idiotic analyses regarding the memos. If you search through their postings on the matter, you just see dumb and dumber, but nothing seemingly outright fraudulent outside of the usual right-wing "interpretation" of reality.

Whatever the exact case, once these three got the "They were Forged!" ball rolling, the rest of the right wing blogosphere came to play. The Drudge Report then brought in a huge new audience, including apparently the attention of the mainstream media, by linking to Power Line's "coverage" of the forgery claims -- ABC News is among the first in the mainstream media to "cover" the forgery charge, via this entry in what they call "The Note". If you search down, you will find this gem:

At 8:00 pm ET Wednesday night, CBS News does the story . . .

at 11:59 pm ET (8:59 pm PT), the documents come into question via a poster named Buckhead on the Free Republic Web site: LINK

Buckhead seems well-read on his forensic document examination skills. [!?!]

"Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts. The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts. I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old."

Well, this is bandied about by dozens of Freepers, as they're called and is picked up at 8:30 am ET and added to by www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/ -- this little green football guy is a very popular conservative blogger . . .

It's expanded upon by www.powerlineblog.com/ in the early morning:

and also by www.spacetownusa.com/hmmm

and here, at 10:36 am ET: www.allahpundit.com/.

Around midday, the popular author Roger L. Simon praises the blogosphere for getting this story . . . LINK

Between this time and mid-day, reporters in the MSM -- that's the Main Stream Media to these folks (that's us) -- are alerted by some sources to the blogosphere's agita . . . others have read the blogs themselves.

At 2:41 pm ET, one blogger even consulted his own forensic expert and told anyone using the blog that, well, they must credit him: indcjournal.com/.

To Drudge, around 3:00 pm ET . . .

and the Weekly Standard . . . around 5:00 pm ET . . .

to Fox after 6:00 pm ET and then the AP and then ABC . . .

John Podhoretz credits the blogosphere, as he should: LINK

All of which foreshadows the greater mainstream media's utter and irresponsible ineptness in doing the most basic research and investigation into the story, hence allowing the forgery charges to spread unchecked, unchallenged to the general and rather (well...) gullible public. CBS's handling of the forgery charges made their sloppiness with the authentication issue look brilliant and thorough by comparison: they obviously made no further serious attempt to authenticate the memos; nor did they make any serious attempt to discredit the often laughable "evidence" behind the forgery charges; and instead they created this supposed independent panel headed by former AP CEO Louis Boccardi and former attorney general Dick Thornburgh, whose final report, as I had also already pointed out, showed such poor investigation that it served no practical purpose aside from scapegoating and facesaving.

Hmmm, this is taking longer than I thought, but I think it will serve for the time being until I update my site.

I suppose, though, I should mention 2 things Wikipedia-related before I completely finish. One is that I've been recenly emailed a "Loss of Privacy" threat by someone uhhappy with the stuff I'm posting here but who can't (of course) refute a single lick of it. Let's just say that this is not a good tactic and leave it at that.

The second thing is that in the course of digging up appropriate links, I came across a fairly recently added, tantalyzing reference at the bottom of this Wiki page on word processing called "Remembering the Office of the Future: Word Processing and Office Automation before the Personal Computer". I had already scoured the Internet multiple times for anything that dealt with past office technology, but not so much recently, so this was obviously of great interest to me. But when I clicked on the link, I instead got this page. (By the way, this is the correct link, and which I had used earlier.) Checking the hyperlink properties, I found that an extra "Http" had been inserted near the beginning that caused it not to work, but without generating an error message. Considering that this link is to the only other researched article on 70's office tech easily accessible on the entire Internet besides my site, I find that little link glitch rather curious. Not to imply anything, but it may be worthwhile for some appropriate Wikipedia person to check to see who might have done that. Just a suggestion. Callmebc 23:46, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Esther Kartiganer

Missing from the Aftermath section is the "reassignment" of Sr Producer Esther Kartiganer,[4] who sued CBS as a result.[5] No time to add this myself...but the story element is readily Googled. Andyvphil 14:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Initial LACK of skepticism in MSM

The section "Initial Skepticism" doesn't explicitly cover the initial lack of skepticism in MSM. See the AP Story [6] with it's repetition of the misidentificaltion of Stoudt as heading TANG. And see [7] (search for "Washington Post"). The significance of this story is that that was overcome, so the initial gullibility/resistance maybe needs to be covered better? Andyvphil 13:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a very good point. You're a good editor, Andyvphil — do you want to have a go at it? Cheers, CWC 13:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks muchly. So much need for improvement, so little time. Andyvphil 01:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
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