Killian documents authenticity issues

During the Killian documents controversy in 2004, the authenticity of the documents themselves was challenged by a variety of individuals and groups. Proof of authenticity is likely impossible without original documents, and since CBS used only faxed and photocopied duplicates, authentication to professional standards would be impossible regardless of the provenance of the originals. However, the validity of these photocopied documents was challenged on a number of grounds, ranging from alleged anachronisms in their typography to issues pertaining to their content.

Typography

Charles Johnson's animated GIF image comparing what CBS claimed to be a 1973-era typewritten memo with a 2004-era Microsoft Word document made with default settings

In the initial hours and days after the CBS broadcast, most of the criticism of the documents' authenticity centered around the fact that they did not look like typical typewritten documents and appeared very similar to documents produced with modern word-processing software. These criticisms, first raised by bloggers, were taken up by outlets of the mainstream press, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, and others, who sought opinions from multiple experts. The arguments and findings are summarized below.

Proportional fonts

One of the initial doubts bloggers raised about the memos was the use of proportional fonts. The majority of typewriters available in 1972 used fixed width fonts, and most of the authenticated documents from the TexANG were typed using fixed width fonts commonly associated with typewriters; one document released by the Pentagon on September 24, 2004 used a proportionally-spaced font somewhat similar to the font used in the Killian memos. Some have suggested that because they are photocopies, the actual font of the Killian Documents may be almost impossible to identify. Various proportional fonts were commonly available on military typewriters of that era. This 1969 letter from Gen. Ross Ayers of TexANG also exhibits proportional spacing, as does this letter of resignation in protest from a TexANG secretary, as does John Kerry's 1967 Navy fitness report, as does this 1963 White House memorandum. None of these proportional font examples is the same font as that used on the Killian documents.

Several experts interviewed by the media suggested that the proportional fonts in the documents indicated likely forgery. John Collins, vice president and chief technology officer at Bitstream Inc., the parent of MyFonts.com, stated that word processors that could produce proportional-sized fonts cost upwards of $20,000 at the time. Allan Haley, director of words and letters at Agfa Monotype, stated "It was highly out of the ordinary for an organization, even the Air Force, to have proportional-spaced fonts for someone to work with." William Flynn, a forensic document specialist with 35 years of experience in police crime labs and private practice, said the CBS documents raise suspicions because of their use of proportional spacing techniques. The Washington Post also indicated the presence of proportional fonts as suspicious "of 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". However, several documents later obtained from the TexANG, including parts of Bush's service record, display proportional fonts. None of these documents used the same proportional font as the CBS documents.

Bill Glennon, a technology consultant in New York City with typewriter repair experience from 1973 to 1985, said experts making the claim that typewriters were incapable of producing the memos "are full of crap. They just don't know." He said there were IBM machines capable of producing the spacing, and a customized key — the likes of which he said were not unusual — for creating the superscript ^th.

Thomas Phinney, program manager for fonts at Adobe Systems, responded to Glennon's statement by saying that the memos could not have been produced with either the IBM Executive or Selectric Composer, which had been suggested as possibilities, due to differences in letter width and spacing. Phinney says that each time a typeface was redeveloped for mechanical technologies with different width factors, the width and designs are altered, which is why even if Press Roman had been intended to look like Times Roman, the result is significantly different.

Phinney's analysis was based on the fact that the typography of the Killian documents could be closely matched with a modern personal computer and printer using Microsoft Word with the default font (Times New Roman) and other settings. Therefore the equipment with which the Killian documents were actually produced must have been capable of matching the typographical characteristics produced by this modern technology.

As Phinney explained, the letterspacing of the Times New Roman font used by Microsoft Word with a modern personal computer and printer employs a system of 18 units relative to the letter height (em), with common characters being 5 to 17 units wide. (The technology allows even finer variability of character widths, but the 18 unit system was chosen for compatibility with the Linotype phototypesetting and earlier hot-metal versions of the font.) In contrast, the variability of character widths available on early 1970s typewriters using proportional letterspacing was more limited, due to the mechanical technology employed. The most sophisticated of these machines, the IBM Selectric Composer, used a system of 9 units relative to the letter height, in which all characters were 3 to 9 units wide. Less complex machines used fewer widths.

Differences in individual character widths accumulate over the length of a line, so that comparatively small differences would become readily apparent. Because of the differing character widths employed, the letterspacing exhibited by the Killian documents (matching that produced by a modern computer and printer) could not have been produced with a mechanical typewriter using proportional letterspacing in the early 1970s. At the time the documents were purportedly created, the matching letterspacing could only have been produced using phototypesetting or hot-metal printing. Since it is not a realistic possibility that Killian would have had these documents printed, Phinney concluded that they are almost certainly modern forgeries.

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.

Inter-character spacing

It has been claimed that the memos display a simple alternative to kerning characteristic of TrueType fonts but not available on any office equipment in 1972. For example, in words containing "fr", TrueType moves the "r" left to tuck it in under the top part of the "f".

Word wrapping

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. Sometimes, a typist will use hyphenation to split a word between two lines on a syllable boundary, while computer word processors like Microsoft Word do not do this by default. The documents are not hyphenated; several official TexANG documents are not hyphenated either. Critics have argued that it is implausible that a manual typist would have ended each line at the exact same point as a computer program written decades later.

Superscripted "th"

The default behavior of Microsoft Word is to format ordinal abbreviations (1st, 2nd, 10th) as superscripts, that use a smaller font size and are raised above the line of text (1^st, 2^nd, 10^th). This automatic formatting can be blocked by leaving a space between the number and the letters, or it can be reversed using the undo command. On most typewriters of the 1970s, a superscripted ordinal was made by manually rolling the platen back slightly so that the letters could be typed above the line of text; however, the letters were the same size as the rest of the letters since they were produced with the same elements. Some typewriters had a special key for creating a smaller, superscripted "th", but this would be confined within the line of type, unless the typist manually rolled back the platen.

Among the 6 memos produced by Bill Burkett there are 3 instances of a superscript "th" that are both smaller than the other characters and raised above the line of type (for example, 111^th). There are also 7 instances where a space is inserted between the number and the letters, and 4 instances where "th" and "st" ordinals immediately follow a number but are not superscripted. Three of the documents use multiple formats for ordinals within the same document.

Marian Carr Knox recalled that during her time at the Guard she used a mechanical Olympia typewriter that 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. Several documents of unquestioned authenticity in the Bush records have superscripted 'th' characters interspersed throughout; however, they are not raised above the level of the normal text. Like the 'th' key available for the Olympia, they go to the same height as the other lower-case letters. The official report of Bush's ANG unit for 1972, typed on a monospaced typewriter, contains numerous superscript footnotes, all apparently created by rolling the platen forward.

Because a superscripted ordinal mark using a smaller font and raised above the line of type could have been created in 1972 (using a typewriter with a small-font 'th' key and manually rolling the platen back), Philip Bouffard, an authority cited by critics on other issues, has stated of the superscript, "You can't just say that this is definitively the mark of a computer."

Centered headers

Creating centered headers is possible on a typewriter, even if the font is proportional. The typist 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. In addition, the IBM Executive and Selectric have a kerning key that would give a more accurate measure of the whitespace. Once this number is determined, halving it gives the number of leading spaces for a centered header. The same centering will be achieved on different occasions if the paper is inserted flush to the paper guide, and the same count of spaces is applied. For an example of multiple centered lines produced using a proportionally spaced typewriter font, see the third page of the contemporary annual history of Bush's Alabama guard unit.

Word processors, by contrast, center text based on a computer algorithm using a fixed central reference point rather than the left margin on the typewriter as measured from the paper's edge. If the paper in a printer is flush to the left of the paper guide, then a word processor will achieve the same centering throughout a given page and on different pages. The bloggers asserted that it is unlikely that two documents produced 3 months apart by a manual centering process would exactly overlap. In the Killian memos the text matches perfectly when overlaid with a word processor-produced 3 line address block, and between the 3- and 2- line blocks of different memos.

Curved apostrophes

In several places, the documents use apostrophes such as in the words I'm and won't. These are curved somewhat to the left, similar to the shape of a comma. Allegedly, most typewriters of the era featured vertical apostrophes, rather than angled ones. However, for an example of curved apostrophes on documents produced by Bush's unit, see the 1973 "historical record".

Bloggers have frequently asserted the documents use curly, or "smart", quotes – distinct left and right double quotes. This feature is common on modern word processors. The documents use no double quotation marks, but does have one instance of a "smart" single quotation mark in the May 19, 1972 document.

Reproduction using contemporary technology

Thus far, no one has been able to reproduce the exact typography, spacing and layout of the Killian memos using technology available in 1972. The political weblog defeatjohnjohn.com offered a $10,000 reward to "anyone who can find for me a typewriter from 1972 that could have reasonably made those documents." Through a series of contributions and pledges from all over the world, the reward grew to more than $50,000 within weeks, giving the previously-small blog some surprising international publicity. (Despite extensive media coverage of this challenge, to date no one has been publicly able to accomplish the task and claim the money.)

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.

Similarity to contemporary documents

The Washington Post reported that "of 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." This raises the question of the likelihood of a National Guard office having access to this type of equipment.

However, on September 24, 2004 another PDF packet of Bush's Guard records appeared on a Pentagon site containing the full master list of the officially released records. The PDF packet is labeled "Documents Released on September 24 2004," and the sixth document, dated February 19, 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. Several other proportionally space TexANG documents have since surfaced.

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..."

Content and Formatting

In addition to typography, aspects of the memos such as the content and formatting have been challenged.

Signatures

Of the documents, only the May 4 memo bears a full signature. CBS stated that document examiner Marcel Matley had determined the signature was authentic. However, Matley told the Washington Post on September 14, "There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them" because they are copies far removed from the original source. Eugene P. Hussey, a certified forensic document examiner in Washington state, expressed the "limited opinion" that Killian did not sign or initial the documents.

Skepticism from Killian's family and others

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. 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." Although she believed the content of the memos was accurate, she insisted that she did not type the memos CBS had obtained, called them fakes, and noted they contained Army terminology that the Air Guard never used.

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."

Mention of influence by retired 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, although it is possible that Staudt could have continued to exert influence after his retirement.

Staudt also denied being pressured to accept George W. Bush into the National Guard, in an exclusive interview with ABC ("Speaking Out," 17 September 2004): "'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."

Mention of Flight Inquiry

It is a matter of record that Lt Bush was suspended from flight status on August 1, 1972 for failure to complete a required annual physical. The Killian memo dated May 4, 1972 is an order to Lt Bush requiring him to report for his physical by May 14, thus making it appear that Lt Bush ignored a direct written order. However, the order is in conflict with National Guard regulations at the time, which required pilots to take their annual physical in the 3 months preceding their birthdate (in Bush's case, July 6). The Killian memo of August 1 called for a flight inquiry board to review Lt Bush's 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.

Formatting

Some of the formatting of the Killian memos is inconsistent with the Air Force style manual in effect at the time. However, authenticated contemporaneous documents sometimes vary from the style manual as well.

• 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 abbreviated to three characters, leading zeros not used, and only the last two digits of the year until 2000). However, exceptions to these practices did exist as this 1969 letter from Gen. Ayers regarding Bush demonstrates. Similarly, this 1973 official memo from Gen. Straw, regarding an officer involved in the Bush case, is dated "2 February 1973" — writing out both month and year in full. Bush's official flight records are also headed with full year notation.

• It has also been claimed that the terminology "MEMORANDUM FOR" was never used in the 1970s.{fact} However, Mary Mapes has offered evidence that this 1968 letter regarding Bush from Gen. Staudt uses that same heading, though the first several letters of the word "MEMORANDUM" are obscured in the photocopy.

• The abbreviations in this letter are incorrectly formatted, in that a period is used after military rank (1st Lt.). According to the Air Force style manual, periods are not used in military rank abbreviations. However in practice, military ranks are sometimes listed with a period in Air Force documents.

• Killian's abbreviation for Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS) includes periods after each capital letter. Allegedly, it would have been unusual to use periods in this acronym. In official documents of the squadron, similar abbreviations are presented with periods, such as E.I. Squadron, which is also often written without periods. In official documents, the phrase is also at times written out in shorthand, such as "Ftr Intcp" rather than with an acronym. The other four acronyms on that same document are used without periods.

• In paragraph 1, the phrase "not later than" is spelled out, followed by (NLT). NLT was, and is, a widely recognized abbreviation for "not later than" throughout all military services. However in practice, military documents quite frequently use both the acronym and the full version of the phrase.

• According to an ex-Guard commander, retired Col. Bobby W. Hodges, the Guard never used the abbreviation "grp" for "group" or "OETR" for an officer evaluation review during the 1970s, as in the CBS documents. The correct terminology, he said, was "gp" and "OER." Usage in the memos varies; "gp" is used at times.

• Lieutenant Colonel Killian's signature element is incorrect for letters prepared in the 1970s. This letter uses a three-line signature element, which was normally not used by officers below staff rank. Examples of other contempoaneous variations from the standard include the three-line signature of Major Herber or that of Capt. Currie on separate documents concerning Bush's appointment as 2nd Lt. as well as Heber's signature on Bush's suspension from flying status.

• Finally, the signature element is placed far to the right, instead of being left-justified. The placement of the signature element to the right was allegedly not used or directed by Air Force standards until almost 20 years after the date of this letter. However, as contrary evidence, some contemporaneous memos from Gen. Ayers each include a right signature block.

Paper size

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 10½ size as the general U.S. government letterhead standard, while a Committee on the Simplification of Paper Sizes came up with the more familiar 8½ by 11 size now known as US Letter. The U.S. military used the smaller size up until the early 1980s. In some authentic National Guard records, a solid line can be seen where the smaller paper was photocopied onto the larger paper. No such lines are visible on the Killian documents. However, this alone is not conclusive due to the heavy speckling resulting from multiple rounds of photocopying and faxing.

Dr. David Hailey's analysis

As discussed above, a number of experts in typewriters, computer typography and document examination have concluded that the Killian memos are not consistent with 1970's technology and are likely modern forgeries. The most prominent defender of the documents' authenticity has been Dr. David Hailey, a professor of Professional and Technical Communication and director of a media lab at Utah State University. Hailey was the subject of an email campaign demanding his dismissal from the university after bloggers discovered Photoshop files in a readable directory and alleged that he fabricated portions of the study.

Joseph Newcomer published a detailed rebuttal of Hailey's claims; The Weekly Standard called it the "definitive" explanation of why the documents were "necessarily forgeries." The Washington Post quoted Newcomer in its article on the authenticity of the papers.

In November, 2005, Dr. Hailey released a new version of his report in which he argued that the Killian documents were produced on a typewriter, but without identifying the font, maker or model.

Peter Tytell's analysis

The CBS review panel led by Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi hired Peter Tytell, a leading document examiner, to analyse the four documents. He

concluded ... that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle [and that] the Killian documents were not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.

External links

Primary source documents

Links to large PDF documents.

The four CBS News Killian documents:

• Memorandum, May 4, 1972
• Memo to File, May 19, 1972
• Memorandum For Record, August 1, 1972
• Memo to File, August 18, 1973

The six USA Today Killian documents:

• USA Today Killian documents

Peter Tytell's analysis from the Thornbourgh-Boccardi report, Appendix 4

News items

• "60 Minutes Documents on Bush Might Be Fake" CNSNews.com – September 09, 2004
• "Questions Arise About Authenticity of Newly Found Memos on Bush's Guard Service" ABC News – September 9, 2004
• "Some Question Authenticity of Papers on Bush" Washington Post – September 10, 2004
• "False Documentation? Questions Arise About Authenticity of Newly Found Memos on Bush's Guard Service" ABC News – September 10, 2004
• "Anatomy of a Forgery" American Spectator – September 10, 2004
• "Rather Defends CBS Over Memos on Bush" Washington Post – September 11, 2004
• "Amid Skepticism, CBS Sticks to Bush Guard Story" Los Angeles Times – September 11, 2004
• "More challenges about whether Bush documents are authentic" The Seattle Times – September 11, 2004
• "Killian Memo Has Wrong Deadline, Cites Wrong Regulation" The American Thinker – September 11, 2004
• "The X Files Of Lt. Bush: A flurry of contested memos and memories sheds more heat than light on his record" Time – September 13, 2004
• "Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn't Authenticate Papers" Washington Post – September 14, 2004
• Washington Post: A Pentagon memo next to one of CBS's Killian memo – September 14, 2004
• "Document Experts Say CBS Ignored Memo 'Red Flags'" Washington Post – Wednesday, September 15, 2004
• "Ex-Guard Typist Recalls Memos Criticizing Bush" Los Angeles Times – September 15, 2004
• Boston Globe apologizes for taking misquoting two experts about memos
• "Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says' NY Times – September 15, 2004
• "CBS Guard Documents Traced to Tex. Kinko's" Washington Post – September 16, 2004
• "Rather Concedes Papers Are Suspect" Washington Post – September 16, 2004
• "'Buckhead', who said CBS memos were forged, is a GOP-linked attorney" Seattle Times – September 17, 2004
• The Paper Trail: A Comparison of Documents by The Washington Post print edition.
• "In Rush to Air, CBS Quashed Memo Worries" Washington Post – September 19, 2004
• Graphic comparison of all the CBS memos with officially released Killian memos Washington Post – September 19, 2004
• "CBS Says It Can't Vouch for Bush Documents" – New York Times – September 20, 2004
• "Scoops and skepticism: How the story unfolded" – timeline from USA Today – September 21, 2004
• "Prof Pursued by Mob of Bloggers" Wired, October 7, 2004

• Blog-gate Columbia Journalism Review
• Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power, by Mary Mapes, November 2005, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-35195-X
• Mary Mapes – website for her book, including a documents section
• Transcript of online Q&A with Mary Mapes, November 11 2005, by washingtonpost.com

See also

• George W. Bush military service controversy
• Questioned document examination
• Dan Rather