Tag: CBS

Edward Mendelson thought he was going to show conservative bloggers a thing or two by demonstrating it is easy to make a document in Word look like a type document from the early 1970s. The idea here is that the fact that the fake Bush documents are an almost identical match for similar documents typed on Word proves nothing. But, instead, Mendelson ended up showing just how strange it is that MS Word versions of the fake documents look just like the documents supposedly from the 1960s.

Mendelson took a screen grab of output from an IBM Selectric Composer — one of the few typewriters everyone agrees could have been used to produce documents in the 1960s and 1970s with most of the typographical features in the Killian memos. Mendelson then typed in the same text in MS Word, altered some margins and added some hyphenation to more closely resemble the Selectric Composer sample, and then crowed that he had shown that such matches were likely to be common.

But, in fact, as Charles Johnson demonstrates, a very cursory glance would tell anyone who knew nothing about the samples that they were likely not produced by the same typewriter. Johnson has an overlay of the screen shots posted by Mendelson that, even though Mendelson’s shots are ridiculously small, make it clear that both were almost certainly not produced on the same machine. Apparently, making an MS Word document look like a document from a 1960s/1970s era typewriter takes a bit more work.

This also might answer a perplexing question. It is very odd that if you type in the text of the memos on MS Word and print them out, the result is essentially identical to the Killian memos. Assuming they are fakes and that they were produced in MS Word, why would someone be so stupid as to create fake memos from the early 1970s in a modern word processor?

Mendelson’s experiment suggests that the answer is because it is a lot more difficult than it initially appears to create forgeries this way. True, someone with a lot of knowledge about Word or a page layout program could certainly do a pretty good job, but it appears to be a task which would take someone like me a great deal of time, and even then it’s likely that reproducing the exact font and spacing might be impossible without buying specialty fonts.

So if you’re not a typography and computer expert but you want to create fake documents, what’s the next best step? Create them in Word and then use photocopiers and fax machines to create multiple generations of the documents until the typeface and spacing is a bit distorted to the point where it may appear to be authentic at first glance to non-experts.

Earl W. Lively was director of operations of the Texas Air National Guard in the 1970s when CBS’ apparently fake memos were supposedly produced. His take on the memo’s authenticity?

They’re forged as hell. . . . And there’s no way that Jerry Killian would have written what they’ve come up with.

Newsweek, meanwhile, has an article fueling speculation that the source of the documents might be Bill Burkett. Burkett is a former TANG officer who became ill during a mission to Panama in 1998 and blamed then Gov. Bush for his failure to receive proper compensation for his illness.

Four years ago, Burkett claimed that he witnessed an incident at TANG headquarters where records related to Bush’s service were destroyed. Burkett claims he saw records related to Bush thrown into a 15 gallon trash bin.

Furthermore, the Ace of Spades blog notes that Burkett has previously claimed that some of the documents he saw destroyed were signed by Killian. Burkett posted on a web site discussion board,

Of the files that I saw within the 15 gallon waste can were numerous documents which detailed why 1LT George Bush was grounded from flying including a two-page counseling statement signed by LTC Jerry Killian.

The odd thing is this post was made on August 14, 2004.

If Burkett is the source, why not disclose that? Because Burkett is easily discredited. His hatred of Bush goes into the irrational, such as this essay peddling a conspiracy theory about how Mossad gave the Bush administration precise details, including a timeline, about the 9/11 plot the week prior to the terrorist attack. Burkett also claims that Bush personally doctored Burkett’s TANG records.

Source:

Bush Guard papers ‘forged’. Hugh Aynesworth, Washington Times, September 12, 2004.

The Washington Post reports that CBS has asked its document expert Marcel Matley not to give interviews,

Rather said that CBS’s lead expert was Marcel Matley of San Francisco, a member of the National Association of Document Examiners who has taught, lectured and written about his field, testified in numerous trials, and consulted for government agencies. Matley said last night that a “60 Minutes” executive had asked him not to give interviews.

Perhaps CBS is worried that reporters will ask Matley questions about Matley’s previous statements about authenticating documents, such as this,

In fact, modern copiers and computer printers
are so good that they permit easy fabrication of
quality forgeries. From a copy, the document examiner
cannot authenticate the unseen original
but may well be able to determine that the unseen
original is false. Further, a definite finding
of authenticity for a signature is not possible
from a photocopy, while a definite finding of falsity
is possible.

And yet, CBS considers Matley’s analysis of a photocopied and heavily deteriorated signature to be “compelling evidence” that the documents are authentic.

Source:

Using and Cross-Examining Handwriting Experts (PDF). Marcel Matley, Undated.

From Dan Rather’s defense of the Killian documents last night,

Document and handwriting examiner marcel matley analyzed the documents for CBS news.

He says he believes they are real…but is concerned about exactly what is being examined by some of the people questioning the documents….

Because detioration occurs each time a document is reproduced…..

And the documents being analyzed outside of cbs have

Been photocopied, faxed, scanned and downloaded…. And are far removed from the documents cbs started with.

But then the New York Times reports,

Mr. Matley said the documents the network sent him were so deteriorated from copying that it was impossible to identify the typeface.

So apparently CBS is concerned about people trying to authenticate poorly copied and deteriorated documents only when it’s someone other than their expert.

And an odd puzzle remains. If this document came from Killian’s personal file, as CBS claims, how did it end up being copied repeatedly to get into such an advanced stage of deterioriation?

Last night the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes debated former CBS producer Jonathan Klein about whether or not the CBS documents are fake. Here’s a partial transcript,

KLEIN: Yes, I mean, I have a lot of faith in the producer of this segment only because I worked with her for a long time. And she is absolutely peerless, I’d say, in the profession. She is a crack journalist. And in this case, she’s the same producer who broke the Abu Ghraib story.

And at the time, there was a big flurry of, you know, a lot of attempts to discredit that story. And it turned out to be even bigger than the story they originally broke.

But in this case, she’s worked on this story for four years. I mean, this is a multiple Emmy winning producer…

SNOW: But if you’ve worked on this for four years, you’re thinking, you know, I’ve got something here. And if you worked for four years, you’re going to want to make it work. Again, in talking to Gary Killian — one of the things he said in this conversation with her is I’ve got the names of some people who can directly contradict this, who have worked with my father. They were his superiors. They knew the president. And she said I don’t know, you know, I’ve got to find out if they’re Bush supporters. Again, is that the kind of question you’d really ask when you’re doing something like this?

KLEIN: Oh, it speaks to the care that they take to validate sources of all kinds. They’re not going to just throw somebody on the air just because they say something. It’s a real integral part of the “60 Minutes” process. They are probably the most careful news organization, certainly on television.

SNOW: No…

KLEIN: When it comes to the vetting sources.

SNOW: …but they put Ben Barnes on the air. And he’s working for John Kerry.

KLEIN: But they disclose things. You know, they disclose stuff like that. And they vet people’s veracity. And they have multiple checks and balances in the process to make sure that not too much slips by.

Now they’re human. They could make mistakes, but it’s not going to be by forgetting to call the sources that the…

SNOW: Because the point on CBS — “60 Minutes” got burned by a forged document case in the late 1990’s and ended up having to pay some money for it. It was the border patrol.

KLEIN: Well, their track record over 35 years is just about pristine. They have the best record of just about anybody.

Of course, this morning one of the sources cited by CBS — Retired Maj. General Hodges — is claiming that CBS misled him about the new documents and adds that he thinks they are fakes,

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian’s supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were “handwritten” and after CBS read him excerpts he said, “well if he wrote them that’s what he felt.”

Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70’s and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been “computer generated” and are a “fraud”.

Not surprisingly, the only thing Klein offered were ad hominems like this,

KLEIN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and these loggers have no checks and balances and couldn’t — I agree. It’s an important moment because you couldn’t have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing…

I’ll take someone sitting in his living room just writing over producers who deceive the people they’re turning to for verification anyday.

It’s also interesting that according to Killian’s son, CBS interviewed both him and his mother prior on Friday, but of course chose not to include any portion of that interview in their coverage of the controversy over the documents.