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The memos, purportedly written in 1972 and 1973, were used by CBS News producer Mary Mapes as the basis for a 60 Minutes segment in September 2004. Colonel Killian's secretary, Marian Carr Knox, denies typing the memos but insists they reflect the truth about Lieutenant Bush.
After controversy about the authenticity of the documents erupted, many document authentication experts consulted by other major media entities cast doubt on the memos. [1] [2] Afterwards, CBS News admitted they cannot prove the authenticity of documents, that their source Bill Burkett lied about how he got the documents, and that airing the story was a "mistake" that CBS regretted. [3]
Dan Rather, the reporter on the story, has apologized. [4] Burkett, a former Texas Army National Guard officer, has been extremely critical of President Bush in the past [5] and has previously claimed that Bush's National Guard record files had been purged. [6] Burkett admits he misled CBS and now claims that the documents came to him from another source, one CBS has yet been unable to verify. [7]After CBS ran its story USA Today received copies of the four documents used by CBS and two additional memos. [8] USA Today has identified Burkett as the source for this set of documents. [9]
Copies of the documents were first released to the public by the White House. Press Secretary Scott McClellanScott McClellan (born 1968) is the White House Press Secretary for President George W. Until he replaced Ari Fleischer on July 15, 2003, he served as deputy press secretary. McClellan began working for President Bush in 1999 (when Bush was the Governor of stated that the memos had been provided to them by CBS in the days prior to the report and that, "We had every reason to believe that they were authentic at that time." Critics have suggested that this belief of authenticity by the White House could not have existed if the memos contained information they knew to be inaccurate.
The disputed documents include the following accusations:
Brig. Gen. David L. McGinnis (ret'd) who once worked for an assistant secretary of defense, said that these documents prove that Bush did not complete his national service commitments, even if the records showed that he had been paid during this time. Lawrence Korb said that a truthful evaluation by Killian would have resulted in Bush's being drafted for active duty in Vietnam.
A few hours after the release of the 60 Minutes II segment, a discussion began on Free RepublicFree Republic or FR " is a American Internet forum and activist organization for conservatives and those on the political right. Origins Free Republic was founded in 1996 by Jim Robinson of California as a discussion site during the presidency of Bill Cli, a right-wing Internet forum. This quickly spread to various weblogs that the copies of these memos from the CBS News website displayed characteristics inconsistent with being produced by 1972 typewriter technology. These claims quickly found their way into the mainstream press, and the following night CBS News gave a firm rebuttal. The initial skepticism appeared in the following posts on Free Republic:
"Buckhead", who quickly became an internet folk hero of sorts, was later revealed to be Atlanta lawyer Harry W. MacDougald, who has worked for right-wing groups such as the Federalist SocietyThe Federalist Society began at Yale Law School in 1982 as a student organization that challenged what it saw as the orthodox liberal ideology found in most law schools. Its members argued that, while some members of the academic community dissented from and the Southeastern Legal Foundation and helped draft the petition to the Arkansas Supreme Court for the disbarment of President Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) is a U. politician who served two terms as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A moderate Democrat who was elected Governor of Arkansas five times, Cli. [10] MacDougald's identity and the fact that he posted specific technical complaints about the memos so soon after the broadcast has fueled speculation of a right-wing conspiracy.
Various conservative discussion groups and Internet blogs quickly picked on the story, some contributing evidence of forgery (notably Power LinePower Line is a conservative blog run by three lawyers, John H. Hinderaker "Hindrocket", Scott W. Johnson "The Big Trunk" and Paul Mirengoff "Deacon". Power Line covers political and social issues relevant to modern Americans. It rose to prominence in 200 and Little Green Footballs). Left-wing blogs tended to be skeptical of this. Blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of the Daily Kos, one of the most influential left-wing blogs on the Internet, wrote in a preface to his rebuttal of forgery arguments:
Independent media and blog sites accused CBS of expert shopping.
CBS News initially claimed the documents were "thoroughly vetted by independent experts" and that they "are convinced of their authenticity." On September 10, a CBS memo reiterated their confidence in the authenticity of the documents, which they said were "backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content" and insisted that no internal investigation would take place. Dan Rather, appearing on CNN, asserted "I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn't have gone to air if they would not have been."
CBS interviewed Robert Strong, a friend of Killian's who ran the Texas Air National Guard administrative office at the time. Strong believed the documents are authentic, saying "They are compatible with the way business was done at the time. They are compatible with the man that I remember Jerry Killian being." [12] CBS also cited Killian's immediate superior at the time, Major General Bobby W. Hodges, who reportedly said that the memos were familiar to him and that details read to him over the phone were "the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time." [13] [14] According to Hodges, when CBS read portions of the memos to him he simply stated, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt." [15] However, Hodges later claimed that he was misled by CBS and that the quote does not reflect what he said.
After further investigation, CBS News stated on September 20 that their source, Bill Burkett, "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source." The network did not state that the memos were forgeries [16], but CBS News president Andrew Heyward did state "Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."
Soon after, CBS established a review panel "to help determine what errors occurred in the preparation of the report and what actions need to be taken." [17] Dick Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and United States Attorney General, and Louis Boccardi , retired president and chief executive officer and former executive editor of the Associated Press, make up the two-person review board.
The majority of typewriters available in 1972 used fixed width fonts. Typewriters with proportional fonts were first introduced in 1941, mass-produced from 1948 onwards, and were in use by 1972.
The only known typewriters available in 1972 with proportional font support and a similar (though not exact) [18] match to the font some claim was used in the memos (11-point Press Roman vs. 12-point Times New Roman) is the IBM Selectric Composer. The IBM Executive supported a single serifed proportional font that is very different from the Selectric Composer font that most closely matches the font some believe is used in the memos; however, the actual font used is almost impossible to identify, and various fonts supported by the Selectric and the Executive are likely candidates.
Bill Glennon, a technology consultant in New York City who worked for IBM repairing typewriters from 1973 to 1985, says experts making the claim that typewriters were incapable of producing the memos "are full of crap. They just don't know." He says there were IBM machines capable of producing the spacing, and a customized key — the likes of which he says were not unusual — that created the superscript th (discussed below). [19] Responding directly to Glennon was Thomas Phinney, program manager for fonts at Adobe Systems, which helped to develop the modern Times New Roman font. Phinney stated that the memos could not have been produced with IBM typewriters, including the Selectric and Executive models, due to differences in font width. [20]
Phinney's view is supported by some typeface designers. The theory is that each time a typeface is redeveloped for new technology, the widths, heights or designs will vary slightly. Hence Times Roman on an Apple LaserWriter is different from the Times New Roman on Windows operating systems.
Desktop magazine in Australia analysed the documents in its November 2004 issue and concluded that the typeface was a post-1985 version of Times Roman, rather than Times New Roman, both of which are different in detail to IBM Press Roman. The article did not dispute that superscripts and proportional fonts were available in the 1970s.
The Selectric Composer cost $3,600 to $4,400 in 1973 dollars ($16,000 to $22,000 in 2004 dollars). (Regular Selectrics were available second-hand for around $150 [21], but could not have produced the documents in question.) Most of the known genuine documents from Bush's ANG base were typed using the more typical fixed width fonts commonly associated with typewriters. However, one document released by the Pentagon on September 24 (well after the controversy erupted) uses a proportionally spaced font similar (but not identical) to the font used in the Killian memos [22].
Some argue that the Killian memos display kerning, a sophisticated character spacing that is ubiquitous with word-processing documents and uncommon in typewriters in 1972. Technically, Microsoft Word does not perform true kerning by default, but the TrueType engine used by Windows supports something called "hinting" or pseudo-kerning, which is not implemented on mechanical typewriters.
Some typewriters that were available at the time, the IBM Executive and the IBM Selectric Composer, were capable of kerning. However, on these typewriters, kerning required additional operations such as backspacing or manually moving the carriage back slightly.
Because a typewriter does not have the ability to know what the user is going to type next, it is up to the typist to decide when to move the carriage to the next line. Often, a typist will use hyphenation to split a word between two lines on a syllable boundary, while computer word processors (and Microsoft Word in particular) do not do this by default. The lines in the memos are split along word boundaries at the exact location where Microsoft Word would have split them.
The Killian Memos display superscripted "th" glyphs in a smaller font on numbers (such as 111th) that are generated automatically by Microsoft Word but some claim would require excessive effort to create using most 1972 typewriters.
Dan Rather has pointed out several documents of unquestioned authenticity in the Bush records have apparently superscripted 'th' characters interspersed throughout. However, these are not technically superscripts, since they are not raised above the level of the normal text, like an actual superscript would be. The CBS memos show signs of such raised superscripts.However, the superscripts in the CBS memos are mathematically reduced versions of the standard letters, suggesting computer production. Traditionally, superscripts in metal type differed from standard letters by being proportionally wider and heavier, so that when set, they looked the same "weight".
Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, a registered Democrat, who worked from 1956 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, recalls that during her time at the Guard, she used a mechanical Olympia typewriter, which did have a special 'th' key. (This 'th' character was the same weight as the other characters.) She said it was replaced by an IBM Selectric in the early 1970s. She asserts that the memos are not real, as the typeface does not match either of the two typewriters and that she would have remembered typing them. [23] However, she also says that the content of the memos is genuine, and speculates that they may have been copied from originals that Killian had her type in the early 1970s. [24]
Some have found it suspicious that two of the memos, dated May 4 and August 1, 1972, feature a three-line centered heading which aligns exactly, not only between the two memos (dated three months apart), but also with a comparison document created using the auto-centering feature of Microsoft Word.[25]
In fact, centering headers, even if the font is proportional, is not difficult at all. For example, one can left-justify the header and then use the space bar to count the number of spaces from the end of the text to the right margin. The IBM Executive and Selectric also have a kerning key which would give a more accurate measure of the whitespace. Once this number is determined, halving it gives the number of leading spaces for the centered header.
A typist who had centered a header once with this procedure could then duplicate this exactly the next time this centered header was needed, resulting in headings that match perfectly.
It is unclear how the auto-centering done by Microsoft Word compares to this method.
Another feature of computer word processors such as Microsoft Word is "smart quotes"—the automatic translation of typed apostrophes and quotation marks depending on context. While typewriters of that era generally only supported a single kind of apostrophe ( ' ) and a single kind of quotation mark ( " ), word processors have the ability to display curved marks like those used in typeset text. An example from the Killian memo is the word "I’m", which would have been rendered as "I'm" on a typewriter or computer word processor without this feature. Word processors can also convert typed quotation marks into curved left and right marks, so "this" automatically becomes “this”. Double quotation marks are not used in any of the Killian memos. (You may have to enlarge the font size of your browser or print this page in order to see the difference between the two kinds of apostrophes.)
This image of a 1954 advertisment for an IBM Executive typewriter allegedly shows the ability of that machine to produce left and right quote marks. However, close examination where the individual pixels are visible shows the resolution of the image is too low to make such a determination. Many analysts have disqualified the IBM Executive on other grounds, particularly the typeface and spacing differences (see above).
Some critics claim that the memo could be duplicated identically with the default settings in Microsoft Word 2003 [26], while others dispute this, noting, among other discrepancies, letters and words in the original which are not aligned properly [27] and variations in boldness of letters [28]. CBS does not possess the original documents, and the discrepancies could have been introduced by a combination of FAX transmission, repeated photocopying (a technique often used by forgers to give the appearance of age), and/or Photoshop manipulation. It seems illogical, however, that a hypothetical forger would have used advanced techniques such as Photoshop, whilst having seemingly made other errors through being hasty. Using a custom computer algorithm to find the best alignment between the scanned memo and the Word version shows an exact overlay, demonstrating how the low fidelity of the CBS documents can give the appearance of differences between individual letters in the two versions due to the random "thickening" introduced during the FAXing and/or photocopying process [29]. However, the same low fidelty also aids the appearance of an exact overlay, as the re-sizing of the CBS documents obscures details.
Some claim that this screenshot of an Word document is an exact replica. Others point to discrepancies such as the inconsistent baseline in the original and the divergent locations of the 'th' supercript [30]. In response, the creator of the screenshot printed the Word document to a PDF and obtained a much closer match to the superscript, but not to the baseline irregularities [31]. In Microsoft Word, the 'th' superscript is drawn in a different location on the screen than it is when printed. Another experiment showed that faxing, scanning, and copying a Word document creates random baseline irregularities [32]. It has been reported that at least one of the documents obtained by CBS had a fax header indicating it had been faxed from a Kinko's copy center [33].
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs published an animated GIF of one of the CBS memos and a version he typed in Microsoft Word on Mac OS X using the software's default settings. The overlay allows easy examination of Johnson's claim that the two are essentially identical. When using other versions of Microsoft Word or alternative products such as Wordperfect, with their default settings on, such an exact match is not usually obtained [34].Thus far, no one has been able to reproduce the exact typography, spacing and layout of the Killian memos using technology available in 1972. One critic even offers a reward of over $50,000 to anyone who can "reasonably" duplicate the memos using the default setup of a 1972 typewriter.[35].
The Washington Post reported that "[o]f more than 100 records made available by the 147th Group and the Texas Air National Guard, none used the proportional spacing techniques characteristic of the CBS documents"[36]. This raises the question of the likelihood of a National Guard office having access to this type of equipment.
Update: On September 24th, 2004, just four days after CBS admitted it couldn't authenticate the Killian memos, another PDF packet of Bush's Guard records appeared on this Pentagon site containing the full master list of the officially released records: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records The PDF packet is simply labeled "Documents Released on September 24, 2004" and the sixth document, dated 19 February 1971 and titled "Appointment and Federal Recognition," is proportionally spaced. While it appears to be of a different font style than that used in the Killian memos, it is apparently the first officially released document that is in some sort of obviously proportionally spaced font.
On September 13th, CBS Evening News introduced two new claimed experts to vouch for the authenticity of the memos. One of the individuals, a software designer named Richard Katz, claimed that a lower case ell was used in place of the numeral one in the memos. Further, it was claimed that this would be difficult to duplicate on the computer today. Mr. Katz did not elaborate on how he was able to determine ell's were used in place of one's and why it would be difficult to duplicate on a computer.
There is speculation that Mr. Katz was referring to the fact that early typewriters did not have a one or zero key and that typists learned to use ell's and the letter "O" in their place. However, analysis by other individuals have shown that it is exceedingly difficult to discern a one from a lowercase ell even when dealing with a pristine original, let alone poor quality photocopies. Further, the one discerning trait that can be analyzed, the character space occupied by ell's versus one's, indicates that the typist did in fact use one's rather than ell's where the numeric character was appropriate.[37]
In addition to the typographical concerns, other issues have been raised regarding the content and formatting of the memos.
Of the documents, only the May 4 memo bears a full signature. This signature was confirmed as authentic by Marcel Matley [38], an expert consulted by CBS. Matley examined only the signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves [39]. An independent certified forensic document examiner said Killian did not sign the documents [40].
Jerry Killian's wife and son argued that their father never used typewriting equipment and would have written these memos by hand. The family also stated that Killian was not known for keeping personal memos and that he had been very pleased with George Bush's performance in his TANG unit.
In contrast, Killian's secretary at the time, Marian Carr Knox, stated, "We did discuss Bush's conduct and it was a problem Killian was concerned about," Mrs. Knox said. "I think he was writing the memos so there would be some record that he was aware of what was going on and what he had done." She added that Killian had her type the memos and locked them away in his private files. She did not believe the CBS documents were real, due to inconsistencies, but said the content is accurate and was perhaps copied from the originals. Gary Killian, Killian's son, disputed her version of the history. [41]
Earl W. Lively, who at the time was the commanding officer at the Austin TANG facility was quoted in the Washington Times as saying, "They're forged as hell."
An officer, Walter Staudt, cited in the memo dated August 18, 1973 as exerting pressure on officers to "sugar coat" their evaluations of Bush, had in fact retired from the service in March of 1972. Defenders contend that Staudt could have continued to exert influence after his retirement.
ABC News "Speaking Out" Staudt, however, in an exclusive interview with ABC Sept 17th, has denied this. “Staudt said he never tried to influence Killian or other Guardsmen, and added that he never came under any pressure himself to accept Bush. “No one called me about taking George Bush into the Air National Guard,” he said. “It was my decision. I swore him in. I never heard anything from anybody.” And "I never pressured anybody about George Bush because I had no reason to," Staudt told ABC News in his first interview since the documents were made public.
One of the memos indicates that Killian had requested that a flight inquiry board be convened to examine the causes of Bush's loss of flight status. However, no records of this request or the flight inquiry board itself have been found. Regulations required such a review following the grounding of any pilot.
According to U.S. Air Force practice of the 1970s, the memo dated "04 May 1972" should have had the date formatted as "4 May 72". Months were abbreviated to three characters, leading zeros were not used, and only the last two digits of the year were used up until the year 2000. In this memo, other discrepancies include:[42]
In 1921, two different committees decided on standard paper sizes for the United States. A group called the Permanent Conference on Printing established the 8" by 10˝" size as the general U.S. government letterhead standard, while a Committee on the Simplification of Paper Sizes came up with the more familiar 8˝" by 11" size now known as US Letter. The U.S. military used the smaller size up until the early 1980s. So a low-quality photocopy of the memos might have shown thin vertical lines or some other indication of the smaller paper size in a photocopy of the memos if they had been typed on the 8" by 10˝" paper.[44]
CBS authenticated their documents with General Robert "Bobby" Hodges, a former officer at the Texas Air National Guard. Hodges agreed with CBS's assessment that the documents were real. However, he declined CBS's request that he give an interview and review the documents in person. The authentication was performed via telephone. Once Hodges had seen the documents and heard of claims of forgery by Killian's wife and son, he stated that they had been falsified. Hodges also claims that when CBS interviewed him, he thought the memos were handwritten, not typed. ([45] New York Times, September 12, 2004)
The memos released by CBS appear to be inconsistent with earlier memorandums, written by Killian, and released by the Department of Defense. According to the Washington Post on September 14, 2004, "The analysis shows that half a dozen Killian memos released earlier by the military were written with a standard typewriter using different formatting techniques from those characteristic of computer-generated documents. CBS's Killian memos bear numerous signs that are more consistent with modern-day word-processing programs, particularly Microsoft Word..." The language and terminology in the memos also differed from standard military usage, (for example, in the use of abbreviations, and in punctuation).
In fact, on September 14, 2004, Marian Carr Knox stated that the memos were not written by Killian[46]. Knox was a secretary at Ellington Air Force from 1956 to 1979 that typed up documents for Killian. She said that although she did not recall typing the memos reported by CBS News, they accurately reflect the viewpoints of Col. Killian and documents that would have been in the personal file. Referring to the disputed memos, Knox commented "The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones," she said. "I probably typed the information and somebody picked up the information some way or another."
Some of the experts that were contacted by CBS about the memos have publicly stated that they could not verify the authenticity of the Killian memos.[47] Emily Will had examined two of the memos for CBS prior to the story being aired. She stated that she told CBS that she had doubts in both the production of the memos and the handwriting. Linda James, another document examiner hired by CBS, stated that the memos were "very poor quality" and did not authenicate them.
The vast majority of independent document authentication experts contacted by the major news media and bloggers have indicated a strong likelihood that the Killian memos are forgeries constructed with the use of modern word processing software and printer technology, with the memos "aged" using multiple generations of copying to blur the characters. Several are "certain" that the documents are fraudulent. For example, Frank Abagnale Jr., the forger whose story was told in the movie Catch Me If You Can, believes the memos are forgeries from what he has seen on television; Abagnale has not personally examined the documents or any copies.[48] In contrast, Dr. David Hailey, who holds a doctorate in technical communication and is an associate professor and director of a media lab at Utah State University, stated in October 2004 that "evidence from a forensic examination of the Bush memos indicates that they were typed on a typewriter." [49] Hailey's study has been controversial with critics pointing out that Hailey donated $250 to Kerry's campaign; Hailey has also been the subject of an email campaign demanding his dismissal from the university. [50] Dr. Joseph Newcomer, described by FOX News as "an expert in computer-based typesetting", called Hailey's study "deeply flawed". [51]
Forensic document examiner Dr. Philip Bouffard has claimed there is a very high probability that the memos are fake [52], yet the Boston Globe cited him as a "skeptic" whose "further study" caused his views to shift [53]. 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. [54]
Many analysts have said that they were not concerned with whether or not it was hypothetically possible to duplicate one or even a few of the typographic features with 1973 technology, but whether it was likely that all of them would have matched, at least as closely as the Microsoft Word samples, using a single typewriter that could plausibly have been in use at a remote national guard base in 1973 (and apparently wasn't used to type any other memos from that base). Several people with experience in operating either the IBM Executive or the Selectric Composer have said that they were much more complicated to operate than a regular typewriter and therefore were reserved for important correspondence within the companies where they had worked.
To some, the case seemed so obvious that they have suggested that the documents were more likely forged by the Bush camp to embarrass their opponents, the argument being that someone wanting to create plausible forgeries would likely have used an actual old-style typewriter. Others would suggest that these documents could easily have been produced on the equipment used by the National Guard at that time (although they have not demonstrated how), making it unlikely for them to be forgeries. A third group suspects that the memos are forgeries, produced by the Bush camp, not to embarrass their opponents but to distract from the more tangible evidence that Bush allegedly disobeyed orders and was allegedly AWOL. And there's a fourth group that believes that the Kerry camp or someone with sympathy for the Kerry camp created these documents to get the news media attention off of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads, critical of Kerry's military service, and bring the focus of their attention to Bush's activities during Vietnam. A fifth group believes that the memos were created as a hoax intended to demonstrate a lack of standards by major news organizations.
The Washington Post traced the faxes to a Kinko's in Abilene, Texas. Abeline's Kinko's is the closest copy shop to the Baird, Texas home of Bill Burkett. It was established that Burkett has a standing account at this Kinko's, and was in the store three days before CBS aired the story.
Not all 60 Minutes personalities agreed with Dan Rather and CBS management. Andy Rooney indicated on September 16, 2004 that he believed the documents were falsified, but hoped that CBS might salvage its reputation with other authenticating evidence. Referring to CBS management, Rooney said, "I'm surprised at their reluctance to concede they're wrong."[55]
On September 15, 2004, U.S. Representative Chris Cox ( R- CA) called for an investigation of the Killian memos by the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications . He did not level specific charges in his request, but potential claims ostensibly might include violation of election law or falsification of government documents.
One common thread to the debate over the documents' authenticity lies in the fact that the most influential bloggers currently supporting the claim of authenticity are well-known for holding liberal views [56][57], while the earliest and most influential bloggers to question their authenticity[58][59][60] generally hold conservative views. This leads to a conflict of interest, as the people who believe that the documents are authentic are generally supporters of John Kerry or the Democratic Party in general (including Dan Rather, who raised $20,000 for the Texas Democratic party at an event he did not know in beforehand was a fundraiser in 2001), while those questioning their authenticity are generally supporters of President Bush. However, many supporters of John Kerry believe that the memos are fraudulent, including several of the most qualified document experts who have examined the evidence. There do not appear to be any Bush supporters who believe the memos are authentic.
NB: the following are all PDF documents and might prove larger than expected.
