Now the New York Post suggests that CBS’ handwriting expert, Marcel Matley, might not even have any professional training in document authentication or handwriting analysis.
According to the Post, Matley got his start in the pseudo-science of graphology (the claim that you can tell much about an individual’s personality/character by their handwriting),
The expert chosen by CBS to check Dan Rather’s disputed National Guard documents got his start as a graphologist analyzing “Spirituality in Handwriting” and lacks recognized document training, The Post has learned.
Analyst Marcel Matley lists “Spirituality in Handwriting” and “Female/Male Traits in Handwriting” on the Web site for a foundation he serves as librarian. They were privately printed, but another analyst provided portions to The Post.
In “Spirituality in Handwriting,” Matley assesses a woman’s “libidinal energy” based on her handwriting.
“She has an excellent and rich animate nature with a healthy, instinctual libidinal energy which, when integrated, will propel her into dynamic and fruitful activity and self-fulfillment,” Matley wrote in 1989.
In “Female/Male Trait in Handwriting,” the San Francisco-based Matley said he could analyze a woman’s handwriting “to show her how she can have her womanly qualities fully realized.”
The article continued: “For your male client, you will be able to recognize the facade of machismo — and also recognize the hurt boy- child who uses that as a defensive hiding place.”
Moreover, in the past Matley has had to admit that he apparently has no formal training in document authentication,
In addition, in a 1995 California court deposition obtained by The Post, Matley acknowledged that he had no formal training in a document lab, in identification of papers, inks or “machines, typewriters, photocopies.” He also acknowledged he’d had no training from the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, U.S. Army, California Department of Justice or any other law-enforcement body.
Maybe he thought the Killian memos looked masculine and that was enough!
Source:
CBS Writing Ace Has Rather Wacky Background. Deborah rn, New York Post, September 14, 2004.