The Evidence Against Rather

free republic ^ | 11 Sep 04 | self

[SkyPilot]

Mods and Jim,

I hope you will forgive me, but no one seems to have posted this in one inclusive thread before. This is a list that has been circulating the blogs regarding the evidence of forgery of the CBS documents.

OK? Here we go:

_________________________________________________________________

Some have already been clarified, but here are the running discrepancies:

1. proportional spacing not generally available (no confirmation this type of technology was available at TANG)

2. CBS admits that it does *not* have the originals, but only original documents can be proven to be real; copies can *never* be authenticated positively...repeat: only original documents can be proven real. CBS never had the originals, so CBS knew that it was publishing something that couldn't be assured of authenticity

3. superscripts not generally available

4. Small "th" single element not generally available (not common, but available. Highly unlikely the machines were available at TANG)

5. 4's produced on a typewriter are open at the top. 4's on a word processor are closed. Compare the genuine Bush ANG documents, where the 4's are open at the top, to Rather's forgeries, where the 4's are closed at the top

6. Smart quotes. Curved apostrophes and quotation marks were not available – only vertical hash marks.

7. The blurriness of the copy indicates it was recopied dozens of times, common tactic of forgers (confirmed by CBS).

8. Signature block. Typical authentic military signature block has name, then rank, then on the next line the person's position. This just has rank beneath the name.

9. Margins. These look like a computer's unjustified default, not the way a person typing would have done it. Typewriters had fixed margins that “rang” and froze the carriage when typist either hit “mar rel” or manually returned carriage.

10. Date inconsistent with military style type. Date with three letters, or in form as 110471.

11. Words run over consistent with word processor.

12. Times Roman has been available since 1931, but only in linotype printshops...until released with Apple MacIntosh in 1984 and Windows 3.1 in 1991.

13. Signature looks faked, and it cut at the very end of the last letter rather than a fade when pressure would have been released.

14. No errors and whiteout (CBS used copies)

15. No letterhead

16. Exact match for Microsoft Word Processor, version disputed, but converted to pdf matches exactly.

17. Paper size problem, Air Force and Guard did not use 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper until the 1980s.

18. Overlap analysis is an exact match (see #15).

19. Absence of hyphens to split words between lines, c/w 1970's typewriter. (see #8)

20. 5000 Longmont #8 in Houston Tx. does not exist (actually does exist, but Mr. Bush had already moved TWICE from this address at the time the memo was written).

21. Box 34567 is suspicious, at best. This would not be used on correspondence, but rather forms. The current use of the po box 34567 is Ashland Chemical Company, A Division of Ashland Oil, Incorporated P. O. Box 34567 Houston (this has been confirmed by the Pentagon, per James Rosen on Fox News)

22. It would have been nearly impossible to center a letterhead with proportional spacing without a computer (not impossible, but for Killiam, who did not type, improbable).

23. Bush's grade would be abbreviated "1/Lt" not "1st Lt"

24. Subject matter bizarre

25. Air Force did not use street addresses for their offices, rather HQ AFLC/CC, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433.

26. Kerning was not available

27. In the August 18, 1973 memo, Jerry Killian purportedly writes: "Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job." but General Staudt, who thought very highly of Lt. Bush, retired in 1972.

28. Language not generally used by military personnel.

29. Not signed or initialed by author, typist, or clerk.

30. Not in any format that a military person would use, e.g. orders not given by Memo.

31. Is the document original or a copy of an original? Why all the background noise such as black marks and a series of repeated dots (as if run through a Xerox).(Rather explained his document was a photocopy-brings up additional questions of how redacted black address was visible from a several generation copy)

32. The Killiam family rejected these documents as forgeries. Then where did the “personal files” come from if not the family?

33. Why no three hole punches evident at the top of the page?

34. Mr. Bush would have had automatic physical scheduled for his Birthday – in July! He would not have received correspondence.

35. Why is the redacted address of Longmont #8 visible beneath the black mark? This would have been impossible after one copy, but it would be visible if the document was scanned.

36. Why were these exact same documents available for sale on the Internet y Marty Heldt, of leftist web site Tom Paine, as early as January 2004? Is this where CBS obtained their copies?

37. Acronym should be OER, not ORET.

38. Last line of document 4 "Austin will not be pleased with this" is not in the same font and has been added! 39. Handwriting experts are not document experts – apples and oranges.

40. Lt Col Killian didn't type

41. The forged documents had no initials from a clerk

42. There was no CC list (needed for orders)

43. Subject line in memos was normally CAPITALIZED in the military

44. The forged documents used incorrect terminology ("physical examination" instead of "medical")

45. There was no "receipt confirmation box" (required for orders)

46. The superscript "th" in the forged documents was raised half-way above the typed line (consistent with MS Word, but inconsistent with military typewriters which kept everything in-line to avoid writing outside the pre-printed boxes of standard forms).

47. Regarding superscript - typewriter example had it underlined in the keystroke but the forged document doesn't.

48. May 4, 1972 "order" memo and the May 19, 1972 "commitment" memo typeface doesn't match the official evaluation signed 26 May 1972. Or does the TxANG have a new typewriter just for Col. Killian's memorandum

[Sola Veritas]

"Has anyone bothered to check what the USAF or ANG correspondence manuals called for regarding typed correspondence? I can speak from 25 years of service with USCG and USN that the standard in the late '70s and early '80s was Courier 12 for correspondence. My recollections are that we had Courier 10, Helvetica, and always an OCR ball for personnel forms. But that was pretty much it. Any typewriters that were out in offices always just had Courier 12 so that by default people were using the right type."

I agree with you. I was a Navy Yeoman (clerk) from 1972 to 1973. Every place I served had either IBM seletric Is (10 pitch - pica) or IBM seletric IIs (10 or 12 pitch - pica or elite). Optical Character Recognition(OCR) documents were typed in pica using an OCR character ball. I don't remember their being any requirement to type official corresspondence in elite. I think it depended on what was available to you. However, during that time frame in both the regular and reserve Navy, the IBM selectric (some with earasing capability)was the standard typewriter. It should be noted that these were all monospaced not proportionate. We were still using carbon copies then, and correcting a proportinate document would be really difficult.

[rolling_stone]

there is a new thread the other shoe drops showing a real document side by side with one 20 days difference the real one has date stamped in not typed in as someone noted..it was done by secretary so officer could date stamp it when he signed it...new thread is smoking evidence..

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1212833/posts?q=1&&page=51

[SkyPilot]

You go stone! Thanks--everyone--check out this thread

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1212833/posts?q=1&&page=51"

[claudiustg]

---One of the leftest "urban legends" is the constant accusation that "Bush avoided the physical because he was on drugs!".

Back in the early 70's the physical was strictly for health fitness. I understand that substance abuse was not introduced until the early 80's and few tests were available even if it was required prior to this.

Could some other Freepers please help to confirm this?---

You are correct! In the 70's I remember CID having test kits for the drugs themselves. There were no urine tests. The urine tests were started in the early 80's as a response to cocaine abuse.

[dougd]

Another thing to look for would be the cross-hatch pattern of the ribbon. I recall that was fairly visible with a magnifying glass, except maybe for a brand new ribbon still loaded with ink. Do your old documents confirm this?

[SkyPilot]

On Sean Hannity today, he interviewed Killian's son who
1. His father did not keep secret memos
2. His father did not keep files at home
3. His father shared an office with one Rufus Martin
4. Killian and Martin shared a secretary, one Marian Carr
5. The office they shared had one aging typewriter
6. Killian nor Martin did do their own typing, presumably leaving that to their shared Secretary

Below, is one of the SeeBS memos, dated May 4, 1972, followed by a memo signed by Rufus Martin on May 24th, 1972. It is obvious the second memo was written on a standard manual typewriter of that era.

If the statements by Killians son can be taken as factual, the SeeBS produced memo runs counter to every known piece of factual information known about Killian and how his office prepared, filed and stored memos.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

Add:

I heard from a retired ANG officer that air base locations are referenced by their military name. Didn't one of the memos reference "Austin AFB" or something to that effect?

[SkyPilot]

Twenty Days later--this doc came out:

[rolling_stone]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1212786/posts

another expert sinks the titanic cbs...

[TN4Liberty]

The forgers copied them 20 times to make them look old. I can make my last month electric bill look old by putting it through the copier 4 times.

This raises a logic question I haven't seen addressed. If the Lt Col was writing memos to his own file, only for his use, only to "CYA," why were there ANY photocopies made, let alone multiple generations of photocopies? Not proof of anything, but a question a good investigator would ask before saying the documents were legit.

[Ramius]

If the Times New Roman typeface was available on the IBM Executive typewriter at the the time, is it not still curious that *only* these memos were written on it? A wealth of documents from before and after these documents are available in Bush's military records from the same ANG office, and the all without exception use ordinary monospace typesets like Courier.

The availability of the TNR typeface seems to run counter to the history of licensing of that typeface that's been posted all over... but assuming that it is true, and assuming that this ANG HQ office had such a machine available... seems to me that something else ought to show up that was done on this machine... yet nothing other than these "personal" memos is in anybody's records.

funny, that.

[Age of Reason]

Another thing to look for would be the cross-hatch pattern of the ribbon. I recall that was fairly visible with a magnifying glass, except maybe for a brand new ribbon still loaded with ink. Do your old documents confirm this?

The one old letter that I have handy is the one from 1975.

I have other typewritten letters that go back to the early twentieth century, but I'd have to go look for them.

However, the letter I do have handy, does not show the pattern you speak of.

This is probably because the type of ribbon used on this letter was a newer kind--it was probably not fabric but plastic, which I seem to remember was the kind of ribbon used by IBM selctric typewriters, on which the letter I looked at must have been typed.

But typewriters using the fabric ribbon that would leave a pattern were still being used, I am sure, in the early 1970's, and I do seem to remember noticing the pattern you speak of.

[Rockpile]

It says "Commander" under the Killian signature. Every signature that I can recall would say "Commanding"

[Ramius]

I entered the USCG in 1985, and we had to do urine tests regularly. I don't know exactly when that practice began, but I do remember that they were still working out the best practices for the procedure. It had not been common practice for very long, I don't think. Maybe just a couple of years. I remember the "old" guys at the time bitching about having to go through it. It was fairly new.

Even then, the drug testing was a separate program from the ordinary physical. Physicals were done for the usual medicals reasons. I don't remember a drug test even being part of it, since that required elaborate arrangements with labs to perform the testing, and it required two-person integrity on all the sampling and marking of samples, and lots of special forms to fill out to meet the specs of the process. No point in doing it for the physical when there was already an apparatus in place to deal with drug testing as a program on its own.

[SkyPilot]

It says "Commander" under the Killian signature. Every signature that I can recall would say "Commanding"

We must be correct here---unlike CBS News.

Commander is correct for an Air Force Squadron

Commanding is correct for an Army Brigade (or Corps)

[rolling_stone]

http://www.alwaystestclean.com/articles/atc_article_40.htm

1981 according to this article..

[rolling_stone]

whoops that was random tests i dont know about scheduled medical exams...

[rocklobster11]

Re: kerning. It is true that Word has a special kerning function, which typically would be used for extremely large font sizes. I believe - am not an expert but did my own test on this - that it DOES kern automatically somewhat. I'm not sure about the kerning. Check out this:

The top part from the August 1 memo doesn't appear to be kerned. The bottom part from the August 18 memo does appear to be kerned. Perhaps it is due to artifacts from the copy process. I think the MS Word document that matches it exactly was made with kerning turned off (the default)

[claudiustg]

---BTW, I tried "To" and "Yo," the upper arm of the T and Y do NOT hang over the o. It looks like it because the T is just a tad narrower than the Y. ---

I assume you're talking about MS Word. Try typing the Yo To in 24pt type so you can see it clearly then go to print preview. I think you'll see the o has visably jumped over much closer to the T. The Yo remain a little further apart.

[Ramius]

Well... that was the point of my post. When there is a special apparatus for doing drug testing, with special procedures, forms, and arrangements for labs to run the testing... then you *don't* need to or want to burden the process of ordinary physicals with yet another drug test. No point in it.

The actual testing on the samples, incidentally, were not actually performed on-site in a military medical facility. Those projects were contracted out to commercial laboratories, and were done in huge volumes of samples with each contract.

Yet another reason that there would have been no point to include such a test with an ordinary physical. They bought those tests in volume with a contractor... they weren't done piecemeal on-site. It would have been a waste of time.

At any rate... I really don't think those tests were even considered (or possible?) as early as 1972. The big push for drug testing in the military, it seems to me, was several years later.