Are the CBS National Guard Documents Fake? (UPDATED: "At Least" 90% Positive They're Fake)

Are the CBS National Guard Documents Fake?
(UPDATED: "At Least" 90% Positive They're Fake)

Based on Powerline's suspicions of forgery over the documents put forth regarding George W. Bush’s National Guard service, I decided to do some legwork and track down the opinions of forensic document examiners that may have an expertise in old typefaces.

After contacting several experts, a rather notable Forensic Document Examiner named Dr. Philip Bouffard took the time to examine a pdf of the documents and perform an initial visual analysis of their authenticity. Dr. Bouffard has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Michigan, but got involved in forensic examination of typefaces after working in “graphics” with NCR until 1973 and taking a two-year Certification Program in Document Examination at Georgetown University. After completing the program, he became specifically interested in typewriter classification and went to work for a prosecutor’s crime lab in Lake County, Ohio.

Using something called the Haas Atlas, the definitive collection of various typefaces, Mr. Bouffard (and other forensic document examiners) examined the veracity of various documents for over 30 years. Beginning in 1988, Mr. Bouffard hired a programmer to write a computer database program that catalogues the nearly 4,000 typefaces that appear in the Haas Atlas. This computer program is now a forensic standard that is sold as a companion to the Haas Atlas by American Society of Questioned Document Examiners (ASQDE).

UPDATE: The name of the program that Dr. Bouffard developed is called "The Typewriter Typestyle Classification Program" (C:\TYPE).

• The pdf document is of poor quality. It seems to have been copied and recopied several times, blurring letter characteristics.

• Also, certain types of analysis can only be done on the original documents, which don’t seem to be available, even to CBS.

So Dr. Bouffard is very clear that his analysis is not 100% positive. That being said …

“It’s just possible that this might be a Times Roman font, which means that it would have been created on a computer. It’s very possible that someone decided to create this document on a computer... I’ve run across this situation before … my gut is this could just well be a fabrication.”

• Right off the bat, Dr. Bouffard noted what others in the blogosphere have been talking about – something called “proportional spacing,” which means that each letter does not take up the same amount of width on the page. On old typewriters that do not have proportional spacing, the letter “i” would be as wide as the letter “m.” Except for professional typesetting, proportional spacing was only available on a very few models (an IBM model, "Composer" and perhaps one or two other models) that were not widely available in 1972-73; the vast majority of typewriters did not have proportional spacing. Because of this, Dr. Bouffard’s computer program immediately eliminated “over 90%” of the possible fonts from typewriters that could create such a document, narrowing it down to perhaps 15 fonts used by a very few models.

• Next, Dr. Bouffard began entering individual characters in an attempt to match them to the remaining fonts that were available on proportional spacing typewriters of that era, focusing on numbers. Thus far, one character stood out, the number “4.” In the document provided by CBS News, the number 4 does not "have a foot" and has a “closed top,” which is indicative of Times New Roman, a font exclusive to more modern computer word processing programs. other characters matched the old proportional spacing fonts (available on only a small few typewriters of the era), but this number did not (please note that this is only an initial analysis with numerical characters).

Dr. Bouffard ran this number and could not find a match in his entire database of over 4,000 typewriter fonts that have been maintained and collected into his computer database since 1988. Otherwise, the font is very indicative of Times New Roman, the font that is only available on computer word processing programs.

Once again, let’s not forget the qualifications: it's a bad copy of a copy and we have no original document for review, but, based on the initial analysis of the documents by an industry expert with over 30 years of experience in typesetting and forensic document examination, the documents “could just well be a fabrication.”

In light of this information, I think that it would be highly appropriate for CBS News and the Boston Globe to attempt to obtain a copy of the original document for more thorough vetting, and run a correction/addendum to the story.

I still have two other forensic document examiners that are examining the pdf file, and I will update if/when they get back to me. I also plan to ask Dr. Bouffard more detail about the nature of the "th" on the end of dates, though in our first conversation he indicated that some typewriters had the capability to do something in that format.

UPDATE: Dr. Bouffard called me again, and after further analysis, he says that he's pretty certain that it's a fake.

* He looked through old papers he's written, and noted that he's come up against the inconsistency of the "4" several previous times with forgeries that attempt to duplicate old proportional spaced documents with a computer word processing program.

* Regarding the small "th" after the date, Dr. Bouffard told me that it was possible to order specialty keys that would duplicate the automatic miniaturization completed by word processors after a numerical date, but it was certainly not standard, and wouldn't make a lot of sense in a military setting. "That by itself, while suspicious, is not impossible, but in conjunction with the (font irregularity of the) number four, it is really significant," he said.

* Dr. Bouffard said that signature analysis isn't that relevant because the signature could have easily been copied and pasted onto one of the photocopied forgeries from another document.

* He said that he didn't know who CBS contacted to verify the document's authenticity, but that there is really only one other man that may be more qualified to determine authentic typefaces than himself. I think that the burden of proof may be on CBS to reveal this information.

I asked him to put a percentage on the chances that this was a fake, and he said that was "hard to put a number on it." I then suggested "90%?" Again he said it's "hard to put an exact number, but I'd say it's at least that high, sure. I pretty much agree that that font is Times New Roman."

I hesitate to render verdicts, but based on an initial visual analysis by one of the country's foremost forensic document analysts that specializes in old typefaces, it looks like CBS was duped.

Those two are my biggest things, too. I've been a typist for many years, since at least 1969. Those weren't on any typewriter back in those days. IBM selectric had interchangeable balls who MAYBE could have been switched - mid-stream - while typing - (ya, right, like anyone would do that) - change balls, then change back againt to type the rest, and then change again. They were a pain to change. Superscript and smart quotes weren't part of IBM Selectric's regular balls. I worked for a state government office back then. No money available for frivolities. I highly doubt that national government had better equipment.

3 - small "th" single element not generally available
4 - Smart quotes. Curved apostrophes and quotation marks were not available

The second line has 111th with the superscript th, and was dated 1968. All the rest have 111th with no superscript. They were obviously written on different typewriters at different times, but it obviously was possible to get a superscript in 1968, as these are official docs, supposedly. Of course the image was linked to from the DUmmy site, so who knows if it is real.

Old memories, LOL!

"Is there any significance to the fact that the 'th' in the very top title line is not the small font superscript like in the body of the document? Would it have been standard procedure to type the 'th' in two different ways. " Superscript and subscript could NOT have been in a LOWER CASE. It wasn't available, as I recall in a Selectric ball.

We had to use small letters, and manually adjust the carriage about a half a notch.

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I'm with you RightField; I recall that also! I was taught to use lower case 'th'. I think that was the clinker!

29 - what are the chances that military officer had very expensive (at that time) proportionally spacing TYPESETTER at his disposal instead of "ordinary" typewriter? Typesetters were used only by publishing and typesetting places. Much more expensive than Selectrics.

Definitely no way to perfectly lineup with today's computer produced output. Major stupid fake!

My first "typesetter" was Selectric modified with addition of magnets being run by Apple II, before daisy wheels and dot matrix printers. IBM had version of selectrics that were used as computer terminal, no proportional spacing.

Bunch of lying democRAT skunks, how well orchestrated, from head sKerry sKunk all the way to revolting spineless media prostitutes.

God Bless President Bush, few media decent and this J. Robinson baby - FReepy FReepers! Let's Roll!

"You also have to take into account the device (printer) that the document is printed on. That may account for things such as the "th" (like in 14th) not lining up exactly."

Perhaps. However, the same effect can be reproduced in MS Word. With minimal effort, a forger could easily raise or lower typed characters, regular or superscript, with ease to give a document a greater feel of having been originally typed.

One need only go in MS Word to FORMAT, then select FONT, then select the CHARACTER SPACING tab. On this tab you can play with the Position drop down to raise or lower a single letter and or superscipt. You can even select how many "points" to lower it by. The default on my computer is to 3pts when raising or lowering characters, but this can be increased or decreased.

Bottom line, one can use Word to reproduce the effect of the raised superscript, or even letters following slightly below other characters on the same line - mimicking type.

I was able to do this in a few seconds to raise the superscript "th" higher than the default setting, or to lower or raise characters on a given line. I'm not a techie type, so I don't know how to post the example to FreeRepublic, but anyone with Word can reproduce the effect per the instructions above.

Here is a sampling of the misinformation put forth on these threads that has already been debunked:

Budding Myth #1: "Proportional fonts were not available til the 80's."
Debunked: Proportional fonts were available on IBM typewriters in 1941.

Budding Myth #2: "Times New Roman font wasn't invented until 1988."
Debunked: The Times New Roman font was designed in 1931 by Stanley Morison, Typographical Advisor to the Monotype Corporation, with the assistance of draughtsman Victor Lardent.

Budding Myth #3: "There was no '4' available without a foot and the top closed."
Debunked: The IBM Selectric Composer Pressman Roman (Times New Roman) font of 1968 has exactly the right '4'.

Budding Myth #4: "The document was altered because one of the 'y's' is different from another 'y'."
Debunked: All typos made with typewriters were corrected by "altering" the document.

Budding Myth #5: "You need to use a complicated guage system to backspace with an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter."
Debunked: The IBM Selectric had a memory system that automatically adjusted the backstroke to exactly match the letter widths of the previously typed text as far back as 1968.

Budding Myth #6: "The type of typewriter that could do this would have cost $20,000 dollars back then."
Debunked: At least one type of typewriter that could do this was available for around $300.

These may be forgeries, but not because of any of the above reasons.

Here's my recollection how we did it along time ago. Subscript or Superscript - on a manual typewriter: you switched from Caps Lock On over to lower case. That was when I was a legal secretary. Then, you manually 'notched' up 1/2 roll on the typewriter. And, I was always taught to put the lowercase (subscript) or uppercase (superscript) in lower case letters. Superscript was 1/2 notch above the line; subscript was 1/2 notch below. AND in parentheses - ALWAYS!

That's how it was in the early 70's. That's my personal story, and I'm sticking to it. LOL. I was taught by the STATE government, at the time where I worked, that this was THE correct way. Low-grade typist I was, back then.

I'd guess all government agencies, state and federal, were similar then, as far as that paperwork goes.

Good grief, how times have changed, thank God.

I'm not sure why you posed these to me, but I'll take a shot at your attempt to "debunk...budding myth"s.

Here is a sampling of the misinformation put forth on these threads that has already been debunked:

Budding Myth #1: "Proportional fonts were not available til the 80's." Debunked: Proportional fonts were available on IBM typewriters in 1941.

This takes out of context the sum of the whole; the documents feature proportional fonts in addition to superscripting, the font used, and so forth.

Budding Myth #2: "Times New Roman font wasn't invented until 1988." Debunked: The Times New Roman font was designed in 1931 by Stanley Morison, Typographical Advisor to the Monotype Corporation, with the assistance of draughtsman Victor Lardent.

The date of the creation of TNR I've not questioned, but rather its use on a typewriter contemporary to the documents' authorship. And again, one must consider the whole circumstances.

Budding Myth #3: "There was no '4' available without a foot and the top closed." Debunked: The IBM Selectric Composer Pressman Roman (Times New Roman) font of 1968 has exactly the right '4'.

Show an example.

Budding Myth #4: "The document was altered because one of the 'y's' is different from another 'y'." Debunked: All typos made with typewriters were corrected by "altering" the document.

Correcting a document with the same typewriter would result in characters identical, or nearly so, to the others.

Budding Myth #5: "You need to use a complicated guage system to backspace with an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter." Debunked: The IBM Selectric had a memory system that automatically adjusted the backstroke to exactly match the letter widths of the previously typed text as far back as 1968.

If one reads how to use the Composer, one would understand the use of the relative term "complicated."

Budding Myth #6: "The type of typewriter that could do this would have cost $20,000 dollars back then." Debunked: At least one type of typewriter that could do this was available for around $300.

What is the equivalent of $300 circa 1972 in $US 2004?

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