Posted on 09/09/2004 12:16:21 PM PDT by Hank All-American
Okay, guys and gals. As a former Air Force officer and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI), I have reviewed the documents released by CBS and can say with a high degree of confidence they are fake.
1--the month in a military date is always three letters. August is spelled out.
2--no one issues an "order" through a "memo." Maybe a letter, but nothing as informal as a "memo."
3--the signature (initials) of Lt. Col. Killian is clearly a cut-and-paste job. The last letter ("K") is cut off at the top, where two lines start to curve toward each other in a loop. Impossible to to do by hand. This signature was cut from another document and pasted or taped on the document.
4--No letterhead. Do you really think commanders typed out a the squadron on every letter? No. Letterhead was used.
5--No way there were superscripts back then. No way. Even if it was theoretically possible (which it wasn't), the national guard isn't exactly an early-adopter of technology. This ability wasn't even available at any price for several years.
Conclusion. I think they're fake. As a lawyer, I can also tell you this kind of thing is far more common than people think.
AF Pamphlet 13-2 (AKA Tonque and Quill)lists the proper abbreviations used in the AF
2d Lt
1st Lt
Capt
Maj
Lt Col
Col
Brig Gen
etc
Bwhahaha I used one that looked just like that one for awhile, but it must have been older, cuz it didn't do proportional spacing.
Superscript... at some point there was a lever to drop the carriage to do it & another lever to lift the carriage to do subscript. I was reminded of that after seeing pictures of typewriters today & one of them had a bunch of differnt levers above the keyboard.
I think the "Silver" we bought around 1980 or '81 had that feature, as well as a whole bunch of other bells & whistles.
Anyone gonna let him see the actual documents??!!!
I do not believe superscripting was available in 1972. If you can show me otherwise, please do. But even if it was, it would not be some common function on an Air National Guard typewriter. An electric typewrite would have likely been a luxury. Car phones existed in 1972, but I can tell you virtually no one had one. Just because it may have existed doesn't mean there is much chance it would have been available to this kind of unit. I find this highly unlikely.
Regarding the date, the month in an Air Force would have been abbreviated to three letters, not written out. The year would also have been abbreviated to two numerals. The date should have read, "01 Aug 72."
Also, did typewriters have "smart quotes" in 1973? The "18 August 1973" document has curved apostrophes. Pretty damn intelligent typewriter for a time period when computers took up entire rooms, with glass doors over spinning tape wheels and blinking lights.
You have to look at the totality of the discrepancies. There are two many strange things about this document, it is too convenient that it comes from the "personal" files of a long-deceased person, too convenient that it surfaces now, and there is no arguing whether or not the signature is a cut-and-paste job.
I believe the documents are fake.
When Liquid Paper is used very carefully, just filling in the sunken space of the bad letter, you would be amazed. The only way to detect them was by holding the paper up to light & looking through it from the back. Doing it on good rag paper was easier than with basic typewriter paper.
Also, two of the docs have directional apostrphes, which per other posts weren't available even on IBM Selectrics at the time.
"Bush won't sue, but I think if this turns out to be true (fakes), 60 Minutes is finished."
You're dreaming. Remember NBC and Stone Phillips (I think it was) who had the show which said that Chevy truck gas tanks would explode in a crash? They had dramatic test footage showing a truck getting hit by a car and blowing up. Turns out that they had rigged explosives in the gas tank because they wanted to make sure it blew up.
Stone Phillips and all the rest at NBC are still on the job. And 60 Minutes has done stupid stuff like this before and survived it. It will only make a small dent in their viewership and soon it will all be forgotten.
This is one of the "memos":
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardaugust18.pdf
It has 3 "curly" quotes in it. Impossible on a typewriter. This is definitely FAKE
Look for a diagram of the levers on the thing, rather than anything on the keyboard.
I have about a half-inch of documents on a cousin who flew a B-17 and was lost in 1943. These documents are from 1943 to 1948 and include Missing Crew Report, disposition of personal effects, results of search in Mediterranean, etc.. Virtually every reference to his rank is 1st Lt. (including the period).
On many of my own documents from the Army in 1952-53, the signers are 1st Lt. and Lt. Col..
>>Remember NBC and Stone Phillips (I think it was) who had the show which said that Chevy truck gas tanks would explode in a crash?<<
That wasn't Phillips. It was somone else who was fired, almost immediately. He wrote an op-ed against Limbaugh in early 1993 that Limbaugh respoded to with the Chevy reference. Don't remember his name, and he isn't around.
There's a big difference anyway: yes, the truck thing was rigged, but there had been some accidents where that event happened or allegedly happened. I'm not saying it was honest or ethical to do what NBC did; quite the opposite. But it wasn't purely made up out of thin air as these documents were -- IF they are forged.
Hank, maybe my memory is fading, but I could swear we didn't spell August out when I served in the USN.
This is what I found so far. A user could have whatever special characters were available ...
On the Executive, you could optionally have removable type-bars. This is somewhat like later Smith-Corona portables which have removable type-slugs on the two outermost type-bars, with corresponding changeable keytop caps. In this case, though, it's the whole type-bar.
http://www.geocities.com/wbd641/TypeManuals2.html
You have some proportionally spaced fonts available to you on the computer. Courier is one. Write something in Courier and compare it to the same text written in Ariel.
I'm talking about right above the keyboard, on the vertical rise. Looking at the picture you posted on #85, there are 4 levers, two on either side of the IBM logo. Amidst one of the other threads about this today, there was a picture of a more modern machine & there were levers all of the way across.
1943 to 1948 and include Missing Crew Report, disposition of personal effects, results of search in Mediterranean, etc.. Virtually every reference to his rank is 1st Lt. (including the period).
On many of my own documents from the Army in 1952-53, the signers are 1st Lt. and Lt. Col..
I would agree because my Dad's material was the same....in the "Brown Shoe Army."
However, when the USA went Green and "Black Shoe" everything got abbreviated to the nth degree.
Even the "phonetic alphabet" got changed. Remember when "E" was "Easy?" Black Shoe Army changed it to "Echo."
Wish I could post examples for you but for some reason that is above my skill level on this forum.
12 years after leaving active duty, I either write dates one of two ways: 9/9/04 or 09SEP04.
Also, the way it's centered is exactly the way a computer would automatically center it. I remember on typewriters, we used to have to tab to the center of the page and then manually backspace the proper amount of spaces in order to center text.
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