Posted on 09/15/2004 8:25:17 AM PDT by dala
Although I have some expertise with servicing the sorts of equipment that produced documents back in the 1970s, having serviced copy machines, typewriters, and later on, early word processing systems, I thought the best person to contact regarding the authenticity of the alleged Texas Air National Guard memoranda would be someone who has made a career of producing documents that aren’t real but look it. So I downloaded the scanned images of the memoranda ostensibly written by President Bush’s old National Guard supervising officer, and took the printouts to a friend we’ll call Bernie, who works in, well, a place that doesn’t officially exist, although in the fall when the trees lose their leaves, you can see the 495 bridge across the Potomac from the building where he works.
“These aren’t even worthy of being called forgeries!” Bernie looked with disgust at the printouts of CBS’s PDF files. “These things,” he fairly spat out the appelation, “are either the result of some kid pulling a prank that got out of hand, or an amateur with an agenda. There isn’t really even any attempt at making period docs here.” I noted that Bernie preferred the term period doc over forgery. Someone just typed up a memo on a computer and photocopied it several times. There is not a scintilla of evidence of real craft here – to call these things forgeries gives them way too much credit.”
Bernie explained further. “It’s not just the kerning between the characters for proportional spacing, nor is it just the superscripting – that technology existed back in the seventies, but mostly on commercial typesetting equipment – linotypes, that sort of thing. Sure, there were a couple of expensive typewriters that had both features, but the IBM’s customer for those was higher up the food chain than a lowly Air National Guard office. Besides, I read there are plenty of Internet types who have already reproduced these memos using the default font on their computers, with overlays that show them to be identical to these memos.
“The only thing that looks right about them is the xerographic quality – part of that actually looks like a copy from the seventies, albeit a multi-generational copy. See those little spots?” He pointed at a cluster of random dots on the printout. “Those are produced two ways. Today’s digital copiers still get ‘em when a little spot of toner or ink gets on the copier glass, but those tend to be blotchy and irregular. The ones here are almost perfectly round spots. Back in the seventies, Xerox made high-volume copiers that used what was called cascade developer. Today’s printers use magnetic toner; back then the toner had to be carried by some sort of medium. Smaller copiers used iron filings coated with a plastic insulating film. Big ones like the Xeroxes used aluminum beads about a third of a millimeter in diameter. These had tiny pits in their surfaces and a static charge that would hold the fine toner powder. Sometimes where a bead of developer struck the drum, it left a little spot of toner. Other times static would spark from the coronas used to charge the drum in the copier and make a little burn pit on the surface of the drum. These make little spots too, but they are usually not in clusters. Repairmen would daub a bit of fingernail polish on them – that becomes a blotch on the copy. ‘Course, the CBS docs look like someone made a copy of a copy of a copy to disguise their work. It only makes sense that there’s some artifact from the process.
“Now let me show you how it would be done if someone wanted to create a real period doc.” He spoke with pride in his craft. I was already impressed by the depth of Bernie’s expertise. Then he led me down a back hallway with several doors “First we need some 1970’s paper, and we don’t need regular office supply paper, but G.I. issue – eight by ten and a half.” He swiped a card to open the fourth of six doors, a heavy metal affair that looked like it would fit better on a Cold War bomb shelter, above which a plaque read “6080 Supply.” Inside the room I saw recessed black lights and the faint hum of equipment. “We keep the air sterile in here and all the supplies are held at a uniform humidity to keep them from deteriorating. Not much different than a good humidor, really.”
Bernie pulled on a pair of latex gloves from a box on the wall and walked between two rows of grey metal cabinets, finding one marked 1970-75 and pulling it open. “We only keep supplies in here.” On shelves I could see reams of various paper stocks with GSA numbers, rolls of business carbon forms, and government forms as well. Bernie took three sheets from the open ream of paper in a mostly full case marked GSA-MilSpec. “In a pinch we could take a sheet of regular letter sized paper and trim it down, but paper yellows from the edges. We can produce that effect, but we don’t have to, cause the Pentagon had lots of the old MilSpec paper to throw away.” From the next shelf down Bernie took two sheets of carbon paper. “Most folks forget about this stuff, but they sure used a lot of it back then – only big fish could afford a copier, and even those would probably have a fluid process electrostatic machine that used zinc oxide paper. We can do those, too – we have an old 3M e-stat copier, but we almost never use it because it uses mineral spirits for developer. Fire hazard.” Before he left he reached into the bottom of the cabinet and grabbed a pen. “We’ll run this under a heat gun for a few seconds to get the ink flowing. We wouldn’t want anyone to see any contemporary ink formulations, would we?”
In an adjoining cabinet he picked a plastic cartridge-like container. I could see the hubs of plastic reels with what looked like cloth tape between them – this was an old typewriter ribbon. We’ll use an old IBM Selectric for this work – the government had thousands of ‘em. The model isn’t important as long as it’s older than the document we want to produce – most Guard offices had old equipment, hand-me-down stuff or GSA seconds. We’ll use a ’69 model that uses older nylon inked ribbon, made before they came out with the carbon coat mylar film. We keep ‘em in shape by running the ribbon between some foam rollers coated with ink from the period of manufacture.”
Carrying the paper, the carbons and the ribbon on a stainless tray, he led me out of the supply room into another room which bore the label “Technical.” Inside I saw rows of desks with most sorts of typewriters ever made, from manual Olivers, Smith-Coronas, Royals, Remingtons and Underwoods, and a whole section devoted to IBM Selectrics. There were foreign brands including German Ideals, Cyrillic Olympia and Fullmark models, and several others including a bizaare-looking ancient Rofa. There were also had KSR teletype terminals, keypunch machines for making punch cards, and even some appratus for making several types of perforated paper tapes, from old tickertape machines to paper tape cryptographic engines. The array of equipment was staggering – if you needed something to make a document on old equipment, it’s in Bernie’s equipment room.
Bernie deftly stacked the slightly yellowed paper and the carbons and spun it into the IBM in front of him. Then he typed a memo with the same text as the CBS document. “This is just an exercise, of course. When we really need this sort of document to create back story for someone who needs a cover, for instance, like someone in the Witness Protection Program or an intel type, we’ll fact check to ensure names and places match history – like the officers in this memorandum for instance. Whoever made the CBS docs didn’t even bother to check if the names used were all still on active duty. I read that the Colonel Staudt referred to in one memo– turns out he was discharged a year and a half before the date on the document. I understand there were also factual problems with addresses and also jargon and style. Silliness! We would never let anything like that through.”
For our back docs we check for period and regional jargon, look for nicknames if we can find them. We have plenty of real correspondence from the most periods in the twentieth century in our microfiche, and from those we can reproduced rubber stamps right down to the same nicks and worn places and ink buildups. Our docs are originals, not copies of copies of copies, and they will test correct in terms of age of paper, age of ink, the pen used for the signature, the ink on the stamp pad, not to mention typography. We don’t miss details like that. We take great pride in our work – hell, our docs are better than originals, and we take pains to make sure they will stand up to inspection.”
I asked if Bernie could venture an opinion on who made the documents that CBS swallowed. He shook his head as if in disbelief. “I can’t say for certain, but again, these things are so bad they don’t even look like anyone who knew what they were doing made any effort at producing an authentic period doc. Whoever made these didn’t even try. I’m inclined to think these must have started out as a joke, or maybe as concept documents that never made it to the actual stage of producing period docs. This doesn’t look like a serious attempt at forgery; it never got that far.”
Was Mil-Spec paper acid free?
Dear Robin:
Thank you for your e-mail. Though Mr. Abagnale has not personally seen the documents or copies of the documents, from what he has seen on television he believes the documents are forgeries. He feels this should be evident to anyone of any knowledge of forged documents.
I can tell you that he sent an e-mail to Neil Cavuto of Your World on Fox News Network (he knows him personally) that stated: "If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been "Catch Me In Two Days".
Sarah Hammermill
Information Officer
Abagnale & Associates
Washington, DC
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