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Here is an article about the composer re the memo text:
http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html

I am not sure whether the answer was yes or no.

and about the expert on fonts backtracking.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/11/authenticity_backed_on_bush_documents?mode=PF

I think there are several ways to go:

1. Look at all other published memos from the TANG to see if any have proportional font.

2. Talk to his son to see if the Secretary is still around to find out about what kinds of typewriters existed in the office.

3. Flange up with someone at the TANG who can tell us if the TANG ever had such an expensive machine.

4. Find us an expert who can tell us is there is any way to find some component of fonts or Microsoft that can conclusively prove that it had to come only from a computer word processor. I'm willing to contribute to the pot if necessary.

Any ideas?

Remember the objective is to nail Rather to the corner in such a way that the proof of forgery is so blatantly obvious that even his toes can move. If we can't find the single magic bullet, then the only other option is to hone the h**l out of the Master List until it is so high that it burys him.

BTW, are there any expert blogs or groups that we out to be tying into in a cooperative manner?

I've been thinking about #4. I still say that it might be possible to definitively "prove" forgery with the character widths. Consider this hypothetical scenario (I'm pulling numbers out of the air since I don't have a font program to look at the actual character units):

A: 565 units
B: 540 units
...
D: 579 units

I'm talking about *total spacing* here, not just the width of the glyph. A computer can produce a font with any character spacing, but a mechanical typewriter (yes, even a Composer) might not. It depends on how the unit actually moves the paper. There has to be some sort of mechanical item on the font ball that tells the machine how much to move, and I'm willing to bet that it isn't nearly as precise as a computer is. I'm also willing to bet that font balls would have varied by tiny amounts from run to run.

The kicker though is that mechanical machines were most likely *not* accurate to the twip like a PC is. So, for instance, a mechanical tpewriter (even the most sophisticated ones) might have been able to produce a "D" at 575 or 580 units, but not exactly 579 (or maybe they coult make a 579-unit "D" but not also a 565-unit "A"). The point I'm getting at here is that there is *no way* that all of the character spacings would be the same as in MSWord. Some would necessarily vary, partly because fonts from different manufacturers (or even the same one at different times) vary in spacing even if the actual letterforms don't. I also seriously doubt the machining of either the font ball or the typewriter itself would be that precise or reliable with use. What's more, it should be possible to prevail on someone with access to such a machine to relate just how it mechanically moves the paper according to the font spacing. Like the first link showed, the documents were ucannilly precise, not only with each other, but also with a word processor made thirty years later. In my mind, the only way this isn't a forgery is if Monotype bought *this particular typewriter and font ball* from the Air Force and used it as the basis for the Times New Roman we all now know and love in our PCs.