$10,500 reward to anyone who can replicate the CBS documents on a typewriter

defeatjohn.com ^ | 9-10-04

[ambrose]

Friday, September 10, 2004

$10,000 Part Two: The IBM Selectric First of all, thanks to the five people who have each pledged $100 a piece in addition to my $10,000 offering. Therefore, anyone who can reasonably recreate the CBS memos on equipment available in early 1972 will be receiving at least $10,500.

Two people so far have attempted to claim the prize on the basis that the IBM Selectric Composer was a proportionally-spaced font typewriter available at that time (though not yet in wide use). In fact, even CBS News is apparently going on the air tonight with "evidence" that this model and several other typewriters of the day could even do super- or sub-script characters.

Yet the IBM Selectric Composer's own manual makes superscripting of the type seen in the CBS forgeries impossible. This section is taken from page 51 of the manual (page 56 of the .pdf):

[buwaya]

Well, they could change to a different type ball that would have the small font "th". But this would -

a. Be a pain in the neck. Why bother.

b. Be even more of a pain in the neck on that IBM Selectric Composer. The things was a monster apparently.

[humblegunner]

[fat city]

But you could get a small text superscript with a Composer-- by programming a stop code at the desired spot, do required indexing, changing font balls to a smaller font, typing the superscript, add a stop code, reindex, change font balls to regular type font and proceed. Then be there to do it all again during printing. Not really too much work for a dedicated Lt. Col. typing out a personal memo for his own files which, presumably, no one would ever read. This would not be in the military's style format though.

[fat city]

But you could get a small text superscript with a Composer-- by programming a stop code at the desired spot, do required indexing, typing the superscript, add a stop code, reindex, change font balls to regular type font and proceed. Then be there to do it all again during printing only changing the font ball to a smaller font when the machine hits the stop code. Not really too much work for a dedicated Lt. Col. typing out a personal memo for his own files which, presumably, no one would ever read. This would not be in the military's style format though.

[longtermmemmory]

Notice how the MSM is NOT SAYING THE MILITARY TYPEWRITERS COULD DO THIS! just some thing some place at some time in THEORY could do that.

A smiple Freedom of Information act request could EASILY reveal what typewriters existed at that military base.

[Don Corleone]

Are we having fun yet?????

[fat city]

Sorry about the double post-- the Army taught me how to type.

[aruanan]

Shouldn't we be looking for other documents typed on that same "supposed" typewriter? I'm sure that other service members who served with GWB had records typed up and put into their records. If GWB has the only unique typed letters, it would be fairly obvious. Thoughts???

It's all the other non-type related things that make the issue of superscripts merely the icing on the cake.

[Tacis]

Does it have to be on real paper (8" x 10.5" - check your own personal military files to check size - with a federal watermark) or can we use the same Xerox machine paper that Rather used for his forgeries?

Has any one taken the methodology that proves that Rather faked these documents and id lying to us, yet again, and analyzed the other fake documents we've seen lately, the Leham Citations on Traitor John's site?

[narby]

You should post some rules with your challenge.

1) The document should be able to be produced without "moving" the paper around to duplicate the kerning.

2) It should be able to be produced on the same typeface (i.e. they can't change the typeface to do different parts of the doc)

3) There should be a time limit so as to disqualify hugely time consuming tasks.

Basically, someone should just be able to sit down and type it out. No funny business.

MineralMan describes an IBM Executive that he claims can do everything on these documents. Including the apostrphies, etc. Apparently the ONLY thing it cannot do is duplicate the kerning. That would take a typeseting machine. He claims he used to publish a magazine using such a machine.

Add some rules, and I'll pledge some money (with security, I don't think it can be done)

[knarf]

Hell ... all ya' gutta' do is wait n' it'll be.
See ... they're all evolutionists and the document we are being shown really was typed on an old Selectric, but ... you see ... after so many years ... the fonts evolved to appear as a modern day creation.

It had to evolve ... everything does.

[Thebaddog]

Doesn't Garry Trudeau have a similar contest out there?

[longtermmemmory]

but the font could not change. You could not make a smallter "t" because the ball was a solid piece of metal. You had ONE font that was it, until you manually changed the ball.

[MizSterious]

I had the same problem with Juan Williams' ranting this evening--he kept saying "But the storrrrreeeeeee...." The fact of the matter is, if the document is false, that particular story isn't true anyway, so discussion over.

[Newtoidaho]

These things were apparently prohibitively expensive ($20,000) back then, and this Lt. Col. according to his wife DIDN'T TYPE!
So, yes, naturally the dims and lames will be assuring everyone that is was perfectly natural for the TANG to have this behemoth in that office or if not, then of course he had one at his home.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

Good website. The author raises a great point. The characters on the Selectric metal wheel or ball were fixed like any normal typewriter, and while raising or lowering their position on the page was possible, adjusting their point size was entirely impossible. Think this will this be discussed by Dan Rather and CBS?

[longtermmemmory]

maby he used the european A5 (or is it A4 size?)

Wouldn't it be ironic if they used a "french" size!

[Taffini]

too many focused on the documents, not the story


if the documents are forged there is no story...

unless you want to count the story stirred up by the actual forged documents, which has now become the story...

you get what I mean

[Servant of the 9]

Well, he sure didn't hide it in a drawer. veryone around would remember this thing, and they obviously don't.

So9

[Let's Roll]

And the infinitesimal possibility that in 1972 someone somewhere might have had an electric typewriter capable of this feat (and I've read that it certainly wasn't the military) answers the question of why Col. Killian's other documents about GWB praise him highly, how?

Or that Killian's widow says he was not the type to make notes, memos to the file etc.