Killian documents

The Killian documents controversy, also referred to as Memogate or Rathergate, involved documents that were publicized during the 2004 US presidential campaign. The documents were presented as authentic by CBS anchor Dan Rather in a 60 Minutes Wednesday segment that aired on September 8, 2004, and contained criticisms of President George W. Bush's quality of service in the Texas Air National Guard (TexANG) during the Vietnam war of the 1970s, by his then-commander, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian. Near-immediate questioning of the authenticity of the documents on internet forums and blogs, initially focusing on their alleged anachronous typography, rapidly spread to the mainstream media.

After defending the segment for about two weeks, CBS reversed their previous statements that document examiners had authenicated the memos. The Killian documents used by CBS are considered by most experts to be forgeries, and Rather himself stated "if I knew then what I know now-I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question." [1] CBS ordered an independent internal investigation. (pdf), which concluded that the producers had failed to authenticate the documents, and listed other serious criticisms of CBS news and their handling of the controversy. Mary Mapes, the segment's producer, was fired, several other senior executives resigned, and CBS apologized to viewers. The controversy, called Rathergate by critics of Dan Rather and CBS, damaged the reputation of CBS News and Dan Rather while bringing considerable attention to the blogging phenomenon.

It is disputed whether the allegations contained in the unauthenticated documents cited by CBS News are true and whether they still may accurately reflect Lt. Col. Killian's opinion (See also: George W. Bush military service controversy). Marion Carr Knox, the 86 year old former secretary of Lt. Col. Killian, believed they were probably forgeries but stated that the documents accurately reflect Lt. Col. Killian's opinion of Bush's quality of service in the Texas Air National Guard, [2] a view disputed by Killian's widow and son, and by separate authenticated documents in which Killian described Bush as "an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot". [3]

It is also disputed whether CBS was attempting to illegitimately influence the 2004 US Presidential election. Democrats allege that a controversy over the authenticity of the documents was preemptively engineered by Republicans to misdirect media attention and undermine legitimate criticism of Bush's service record.

Missing image
Guardgif.gif

One of the Killian documents.

Contents

1 Background and timeline

1.1 Allegations purportedly supported by memos
1.2 CBS investigations prior to airing the segment

1.2.1 Response of the document examiners

2 The Segment, September 8

2.1 Initial skepticism
2.2 CBS's response
2.3 Response statement, Carr interview
2.4 CBS abandons defense of the segment
2.5 Review panel established

2.5.1 Findings
2.5.2 Panel's view of the documents themselves

2.6 CBS response to the panel findings

3 Explanatory theories

3.1 Attempt to harm Bush
3.2 Attempt to help Bush

4 Detailed analysis of authentication issues

5 Typographical questions

5.1 Proportional fonts
5.2 Sophisticated spacing
5.3 Word wrapping
5.4 Superscripted "th"
5.5 Centered headers
5.6 Smart quotes
5.7 Reproduction of the documents using modern technology
5.8 Inability to reproduce using contemporary technology
5.9 No similar contemporary documents
5.10 Ones versus Ells

6 Other authenticity issues

6.1 Signatures
6.2 Skepticism from Killian's family and others
6.3 Mention of influence by retired officer
6.4 Unsubstantiated Content
6.5 Improper formatting
6.6 Paper size
6.7 Inconsistency with Killian's earlier memos

7 Independent experts

8 See also

9 External links

9.1 The memos
9.2 News items
9.3 Editorials
9.4 Blog and other links

Background and timeline

The memos, supposedly written in 1972 and 1973, were obtained by CBS News producer Mary Mapes and Michael Smith, a freelance journalist from Texas who was collaborating with Mapes, from Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett, a former Texas Army National Guard officer, although CBS would not name him as the source until other news organizations began to speculate Burkett was their contact. Burkett had received publicity in 2000, after alleging and then retracting a claim that he had been transferred to Panama for refusing "to falsify personnel records of Governor Bush," (Review panel p. 53), and in February of 2004, when he claimed to have knowledge of "scrubbing" of Bush's TexANG records[4],[5] According to the review panel, investigations by major news outlets at the time, including CBS, "revealed inconsistencies... which led to questions regarding his credibility and whether his claims could be proven." (p. 51). The Review panel found that despite this coverage, "no one involved in the vetting of the September 8 segment seemed to be aware of it." (p. 52).

Mapes and Smith made contact with Burkett in late August, and on August 24 Burkett offered to meet with them to share the documents he possessed. Emails between Smith and Mapes document their discussion of providing assistance to Burkett (financial compensation, help negotiating a book deal, security, and Burkett's request that they facilitate his contact with the John Kerry Campaign) in exchange for the documents (Panel Report, pp. 60-62), but found no evidence that any of these proposals "contemplated in these emails was ever consummated, except for putting Lieutenant Colonel Burkett in touch with the Kerry campaign," (op.cit.) "a clear violation of CBS News' standard II-I as an 'unethical newsgathering practice.'" During the last week of August, Mapes contacted her immediate superior, Josh Howard, who "emphatically denied giving Mapes permission to make the call." Mapes claims that Howard authorized the contact (Ibid, p. 64-5), and in any case, she was in contact with the campaign several times during the period of the end of August through September 6, when she spoke with senior Kerry advisor Joe Lockhart regarding the progressing story (Ibid, p. 90-91). Lockhart later told the Panel that he was "wary" of contact with Mapes at this stage, because if the story were true, his involvement might undermine its credibility, and if it were false, "he did not want to be associated with it." (op.cit.).

Two documents were provided by Burkett to Mapes on September 2 and four others on September 5, 2004. At the time he supplied the documents, Burkett told Mapes that they were copies of originals that had been obtained from Killian's personal files via Chief Warrant Officer George Conn, another former member of the TexANG. At this time, Mapes contacted Rather to keep him up to date on the progress of the story, which was being targeted to air on September 8.

Allegations purportedly supported by memos

The documents allegedly showed that Bush disobeyed orders while in the Guard, and had undue influence exerted on his behalf to improve his record, and included the following accusations:

An order directing Bush to submit to a physical examination. This order was not carried out.
A note of a telephone conversation with Bush in which Bush sought to be excused from "drill." The note records that Bush said he did not have the time to attend to his National Guard duties because of his responsibilities with the Blount campaign.
A note that Killian had grounded Bush from flying for failing to live up to the standards of the U.S. Air Force and the National Guard and for failure to submit to a physical examination. Killian also requested that a flight inquiry board be convened, as required by regulations, to examine the reasons for Bush's loss of flight status.
A note (labeled "CYA" for "cover your ass") claiming that Killian was being pressured from above to give Bush better marks in his yearly evaluation than he had earned. The note attributed to Killian says that he was being asked to "sugarcoat" Bush's performance. "I'm having trouble running interference [for Bush] and doing my job."

USA Today also received copies of the four documents used by CBS and two additional memos. [6], and identified Burkett as the source for this set of documents.[7]

CBS investigations prior to airing the segment

Mapes and her colleagues began preparing a news segment to air on the September 8 program, interviewing people who might be able to corroborate the information in the documents while also retaining four forensic document experts (Marcel J. Matley, James J. Pierce, Emily Will, and Linda James) to assess the validity of the memos.

On September 5th, CBS interviewed Robert Strong, a friend of Killian's who ran the Texas Air National Guard administrative office. Among other issues covered in his interview with Rather and Mapes, Strong was asked if he thought the documents were genuine. Strong had first seen the documents 20 minutes earlier and had said he had no personal knowledge of their content, but also replied, "they are compatible with the way business was done at the time. They are compatible with the man that I remember Jerry Killian being." [8], (also Panel report p. 88)

On September 6 CBS interviewed General Robert "Bobby" Hodges, a former officer at the Texas Air National Guard and Killian's immediate superior at the time. Hodges declined CBS' request for an on-camera interview, and Mapes read the documents to him over the telephone. According to Mapes, Hodges agreed with CBS's assessment that the documents were real, and CBS reported Hodges stating that details read to him over the phone were "the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time." [9],[10] According to Hodges, when CBS read portions of the memos to him he simply stated, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt," [11] and he claims he never confirmed the validity of the content of the documents [12] (p.12), further asserting to the investigatory panel that he told Mapes at the time that Killian had never to his knowledge ordered anyone to take a physical and that he had never been pressured regarding Lieutenant Bush, as the documents alleged (op. cit.) Hodges also claims that when CBS interviewed him, he thought the memos were handwritten, not typed, [13] and following the September 8 broadcast, when Hodges had seen the documents and heard of claims of forgery by Killian's wife and son, he was "convinced they were not authentic" and told Rather and Mapes on September 10. (Panel Report, p. 12).

Response of the document examiners

Prior to airing, all four of the examiners responded to Mapes' request for document analysis, though only two to Mapes directly:(Panel Report, pp. 84-86)

Emily Will noted discrepancies in the signatures on the memos, and had questions about the letterhead, the proportional spacing of the font, the superscripted "th" and the formatting of the date. Will requested other documents to use for comparison.
Linda James was "unable to reach a conclusion about the signature" and noted that the superscripted "th" was not in common use at the time the memos were allegedly written.
James Pierce concluded that both of the documents were written by the same person and that the signature matched Killian's from the official Bush records. Only one of the two documents provided to Pierce had a signature. Pierce also told Mapes he could not reach a conclusion about authenticity because he was reviewing copies, not original documents.
Marcel Matley's review was initially limited to Killian's signature on one of the Burkett documents, which he compared to signatures from the official Bush records. Matley "seemed fairly confident" that the signature was Killian's. On September 6, Matley was interviewed by Rather and Mapes and was provided with the other four documents obtained from CBS (he would prove to be the only reviewer to see these documents prior to the segment). Matley told Rather "he could not authenticate the documents due to the fact that they were poor quality copies." (Panel Report, p. 98-99). In the interview, Matley told Rather that with respect to the signatures, they were relying on "poor material" and that there were inconsistencies in the signatures, but also replied "Yes," when asked if it would be safe to say the documents were written by the person who signed them. (Panel Report, p.101)

The Segment, September 8

The segment, entitled "For The Record" aired on 60 Minutes Wednesday; a transcript is available [here]. After introducing the documents, Rather said, in reference to Matley,

"We consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic," (Panel Report, p. 127)

The segment introduced Lieutenant Robert Strong's interview, describing him as a "friend of Killian" without noting he had not worked in the same location and without mentioning he had left the TexANG prior to the dates on the memos. The segment used the sound bite of Strong saying the documents were compatible with how business was done without the disclaimer that he was told to assume the documents were authentic (Panel Report, p. 128-129).

Rather's narration about one of the memos refers to pressure being applied on Bush's behalf by General Buck Staudt, whom Rather described as "the man in charge of the Texas National Guard." Staudt had retired from the guard a year and a half prior to the dates of the memos.

Interview clips with Ben Barnes, former Speaker of the Texas House, created the impression "that there was no question but that President Bush had received Barnes' help to get into the TexANG," when Barnes himself had acknowledged that there was no proof his call was the reason, and that "sometimes a call to General Rose did not work." (Panel report, p. 130), testimony that was not included in the Segment.

Initial skepticism

Within hours of the segment, the authenticity of the documents was questioned by posters on Free Republic, a conservative Internet forum, and discussion quickly spread to various weblogs in the blogosphere:

The initial skepticism appeared in the following posts on Free Republic:

"TankerKC": "[The documents are] not in the style that we used when I came into the USAF...Can we get a copy of those memos?" (posted 19 minutes after the CBS broadcast began)

"Buckhead": "Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts...I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively." (responding less than four hours later)

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Killian_memos_MSWord_animated.gif

Charles Johnson's animated GIF image comparing what CBS claimed to be a 1973-era typewritten memo with a 2004-era Microsoft Word document made with default settings

"Buckhead," who gained Internet notoriety, would later be identified as Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta attorney who had worked for conservative groups such as the Federalist Society and the Southeastern Legal Foundation and who had helped draft the petition to the Arkansas Supreme Court for the disbarment of President Bill Clinton.[14] These facts, along with his rapid response and specific technical complaints about the memos, would fuel speculation on the political left that the entire document controversy was preemptively engineered by Republicans to discredit a potentially legitimate source of criticism over Bush's quality of service in the Texas Air National Guard.

The following morning, several blogs including Power Line [15] and Little Green Footballs [16][17] claimed the memos were almost certainly forgeries. On 11 am on September 9th, Charles Johnson at LGF produced an animated .gif file superimposing the photocopied memo on a nearly-identical copy he produced using the default settings of Microsoft Word, while other writers explored in detail the typographical characterstics of the memos. Within hours, the anti-Kerry weblog defeatjohnjohn[18] had offered detailed supporting research, ultimately offering a $10,000 prize to any individual who could recreate the Killian memos using technology available at the time.

From there, the story was picked up by The Drudge Report and broke into the mainstream media, including the Associated Press and the other major news networks, as well as getting serious attention from conservative writers such as the National Review Online's Jim Geraghty [19][20][21], and RatherBiased.com, [22], a blog devoted to criticizing Dan Rather for being liberally biased in his reporting. The first article doubting the documents appeared in the Washington Post on September 10.[23]

CBS's response

CBS News initially claimed the documents were "thoroughly vetted by independent experts" and that they were "convinced of their authenticity," having acquired them from an "unimpeachable source."

On the CBS Evening News, on September 10, Rather dismissed critics of the story, whom he described as "partisan political operatives."
In the broadcast, Rather stated Marcel Matley "analyzed the documents for CBS News. He believes they are real," [24] and broadcast additional excerpts from Matley's September 6 interview showing Matley's agreement that the signatures appeared to be from the same source. Rather did not report that Matley had referred to them as "poor material" that he had only opined about the signatures, or that he had specifically not authenticated the documents (qv). [25]
Rather presented footage of the Strong interview, introducting it by stating Robert Strong "is standing by his judgement that the documents are real,"[26] despite Strong's lack of standing to authenticate them and his brief exposure to the documents (supra).
Rather concluded by stating, "If any definitive evidence to the contrary of our story is found, we will report it. So far, there is none."[27]

In an appearance on CNN that day, Rather asserted "I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn't have gone to air if they would not have been."

On September 10, a CBS memo reiterated the company's confidence in the authenticity of the documents, which it said were "backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content" and insisted that no internal investigation would take place. A former Vice President of CBS News dismissed the allegations of bloggers, suggesting that the "checks and balances" of a professional news organization were superior to individuals sitting their home computers "in their pajamas." In response, some conservative bloggers started to refer to themselves as Pajamahadeen.

Left-wing blogs tended to be skeptical of their criticisms. As one poster on the liberal blog Daily Kos wrote in a preface to his rebuttal of forgery arguments:

"As everyone on the planet no doubt knows by now, the hard-right of the freeper^* contingent ... discovered that if you used the same typeface, you could make documents that looked almost — but not exactly — like the TANG documents discovered by CBS News."[28]

Concurrently, USA Today reported that it had also obtained copies of some of the memos and had hired independent document examiners to review them, and other news outlets began to pursue the story aggressively.[29]

On September 11, a CBS News Segment stated a document expert Phillip Bouffard had initially expressed doubts but then reported to CBS that the documents "could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer Typewriter, available at the time,"[30]. Bouffard had claimed there is a very high probability that the memos were fake [31], but the Boston Globe cited him as a "skeptic" whose "further study" caused his views to shift [32]. Bouffard claims that further study left him "more convinced" that the memos were forgeries and that he was quoted out of context by the Boston Globe. [33].

CBS noted that General Hodges had changed his opinion about the authenticity of the documents he had never seen, but stated "we believed General Hodges the first time we spoke with him," and "we believe the documents to be genuine."[34]

By September 13, Rather acknowledged that "some of these questions come from people who are not active political partisans,"[35] but reaffirmed that CBS "talked to handwriting and document analysts and other experts who strongly insist the documents could have been created in the 70s,"[36] Rather did not make reference to the original four experts consulted by CBS, who did not authenticate the documents, but presented two additional viewpoints, from Bill Glennon and Richard Katz. Independent media and blog sites accused CBS of expert shopping as they produced document examiners who supported CBS' minority view that the documents were genuine. Glennon, a former typewriter repairman with no specific credentials in typesetting beyond that job, was found by CBS after posting several opinionated defenses of the memos on left wing blog sites such as Daily Kos. In any case, neither interviewee asserted that the memos were genuine; Rather ended by stating CBS "believes the documents to be authentic."[37]

Response statement, Carr interview

By September 15, Emily Will was publicly stating she told CBS that she had doubts about both the production of the memos and the handwriting prior to the segment, and in interviews, Linda James stated that the memos were "very poor quality" and that she did not authenticate them.[38] In response, 60 Minutes Wednesday released a statement [39] suggesting that Will and James had "misrepresented" their role in the authentication of the documents and had played only a small part in the process. CBS News concurrently amended their previous claim that Matley had authenticated the documents, saying instead he had only authenticated the signatures.[40] On CNN, Matley stated he had only verified that the signatures were "from the same source," not that they were authentically Killian's [41]:

"When I saw the documents, I could not verify the documents were authentic or inauthentic. I could only verify that the signatures came from the same source," Matley said. "I could not authenticate the documents themselves. But at the same time, there was nothing to tell me that they were not authentic."

CBS located and interviewed Marian Carr Knox, who was a secretary at Ellington Air Force from 1956 to 1979, and Colonel Killian's assistant on the dates of the memos. She denied typing the memos and also stated that the memos were not written by Killian, while insisting they reflected the truth about Lieutenant Bush.[42] Referring to the disputed memos, Knox commented "The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones," she said. "I probably typed the information and somebody picked up the information some way or another." Knox also shared her views, which did not air, that President Bush was "unfit for office" and "selected, not elected".[43]

CBS also hired a private investigator to look into the matter after the story aired and the controversy began.[44]

Copies of the documents were first released to the public by the White House. Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated that the memos had been provided to them by CBS in the days prior to the report and that, "We had every reason to believe that they were authentic at that time." Some have critically suggested that this belief of authenticity by the White House could not have existed if the memos contained information they knew to be inaccurate. Others suggest that if the White House did not release what CBS gave them (documents/photocopies of unknown provenance), there may have been complaints of 'failure to disclose'.

The Washington Post reported that at least one of the documents obtained by CBS had a fax header indicating it had been faxed from a Kinko's copy center [45] in Abilene, Texas, leading some to trace the documents back to Burkett.

CBS abandons defense of the segment

As a growing number of independent document examiners and competing news outlets reported their findings about the documents, CBS News stopped defending the documents and began to report on the problems with their story. On September 20 they reported that their source, Bill Burkett, "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source." While the network did not state that the memos were forgeries [46], CBS News president Andrew Heyward did state

"Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."[47][48]

In an interview with Dan Rather, Burkett admitted that he misled CBS about the source of the documents, and then claimed that the documents came to him from "Lucy Ramirez," whom CBS has yet been unable to identify.[49]

On September 21, CBS News addressed the contact with the Kerry campaign in its statement: "It is obviously against CBS News standards and those of every other reputable news organization to be associated with any political agenda." [50] The next day the network announced it was forming an independent review panel to perform an internal investigation.

Review panel established

Soon after, CBS established a review panel "to help determine what errors occurred in the preparation of the report and what actions need to be taken." [51] Dick Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and United States Attorney General, and Louis Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer and former executive editor of the Associated Press, made up the two-person review board.

Findings

On January 5, 2005 the Report of the Independent Review Panel on the September 8, 2004 60 Minutes Wednesday Segment "For the Record" Concerning President Bush's Air National Guard Service was released.

The purpose of the panel was to examine the process by which the September 8 Segment was prepared and broadcast, to examine the circumstances surrounding the public statements and news reports by CBS News after September 8 defending the segment, and to make any recommendations it deemed appropriate. Among the Panel's conclusions were the following:

The most serious defects in the reporting and production of the September 8 Segment were:

The failure to obtain clear authentication of any of the Killian documents from any document examiner;
The false statement in the September 8 Segment that an expert had authenticated the Killian documents when all he had done was authenticate one signature from one document used in the Segment;
The failure of 60 Minutes Wednesday management to scrutinize the publicly available, and at times controversial, background of the source of the documents, retired Texas Army National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett;
The failure to find and interview the individual who was understood at the outset to be Lieutenant Colonel Burkett’ s source of the Killian documents, and thus to establish the chain of custody;
The failure to establish a basis for the statement in the Segment that the documents "were taken from Colonel Killian’s personal files";
The failure to develop adequate corroboration to support the statements in the Killian documents and to carefully compare the Killian documents to official TexANG records, which would have identified, at a minimum, notable inconsistencies in content and format;
The failure to interview a range of former National Guardsmen who served with Lieutenant Colonel Killian and who had different perspectives about the documents;
The misleading impression conveyed in the Segment that Lieutenant Strong had authenticated the content of the documents when he did not have the personal knowledge to do so;
The failure to have a vetting process capable of dealing effectively with the production speed, significance and sensitivity of the Segment; and
The telephone call prior to the Segment’s airing by the producer of the Segment to a senior campaign official of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry - a clear conflict of interest - that created the appearance of a political bias.

Once questions were raised about the September 8 Segment, the reporting thereafter was mishandled and compounded the damage done. Among the more egregious shortcomings during the Aftermath were:

The strident defense of the September 8 Segment by CBS News without adequately probing whether any of the questions raised had merit;
Allowing many of the same individuals who produced and vetted the by-then controversial September 8 Segment to also produce the follow-up news reports defending the Segment;
The inaccurate press statements issued by CBS News after the broadcast of the Segment that the source of the documents was “unimpeachable” and that experts had vouched for their authenticity;
The misleading stories defending the Segment that aired on the CBS Evening News after September 8 despite strong and multiple indications of serious flaws;
The efforts by 60 Minutes Wednesday to find additional document examiners who would vouch for the authenticity of the documents instead of identifying the best examiners available regardless of whether they would support this position; and
Preparing news stories that sought to support the Segment, instead of providing accurate and balanced coverage of a raging controversy.

Panel's view of the documents themselves

The panel did not undertake a thorough examination of the authenticity of the Killian documents, but consulted Peter Tytell, a New York City-based forensic document examiner and typewriter and typography expert who analyzed the typeface of the documents. Tytell concluded that the documents were not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s but were produced on a computer in a Times New Roman typestyle that would not have been available at that time.

The panel found Tytell's analysis to be sound, but did not reach a conclusion on whether his analysis was correct overall.

CBS response to the panel findings

CBS apologized to viewers, terminated Mary Mapes, and demanded the resignations of Senior Vice President Betsy West, who had been in charge of all prime time newscasts, 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard, and Howard's top deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. Murphy and West resigned on February 25, 2005,[52][53], and after settling a legal dispute regarding his level of responsibility for the segment, Josh Howard resigned on March 25, 2005.[54]

Explanatory theories

Attempt to harm Bush

Critics of CBS and Dan Rather alleged that CBS's decision to air the story reflected an attempt to influence the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, and supported accusations of liberal bias at CBS. Mary Mapes was faulted for violating CBS' ethical standards and by "creating the appearance of political bias" because of her call to Joe Lockhart.

Attempt to help Bush

Opponents of President Bush hypothesized that the document controversy was engineered to undermine the credibility of Bush's opponents and to misdirect the attention of the media and the public from the facts supporting criticism of Bush's military service. Advocates of this theory acknowledge that the documents were forgeries, which they allege were supplied to Burkett. These in turn were to be fed to CBS news producers in the hopes that they would publish them, and be later discredited. Events are said to have worked according to plan - causing political damage to Kerry through the eagerness of CBS news. A recent book on the 60 Minutes series claims that Rather's celebrity status and his busy schedule meant that he simply lacked the proper amount of time (1 day) to properly investigate the report, whereby he and Mapes made a foolish choice to assert its authenticity, misrepresent their sourcing, accuse critics of political bias, and defend the story for two weeks.

Bush adviser Karl Rove, often accused of deceptive political tactics[55], has been accused of responsibility,[56] but denied any involvement[[57]. U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey (D.-NY), naming Rove, stated the motivation was because "they knew that Bush was a draft dodger." [58] On CNN, Hinchey presented his view:

WOODRUFF: "But, at this point, it is just imagination, is that correct?

HINCHEY: "It's a possibility, yes. It's a possibility based upon circumstantial evidence and the history of his behavior over the course of several decades."

In addition, the rapid response with which the arguments for forgery were presented, by people who supposedly had no knowledge of the documents before the broadcast[59] and the failure of any federal or state prosecutors to launch an investigation to identify and prosecute the forger[60] are cited as evidence of a prepared Republican response.

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe, suggested Roger Stone might have a hand in what McAullife called the "forgeries."[61], and some have suggested that Roger Stone's wife, who is Cuban, may have been the Lucy Ramirez whom Burkett claims supplied the documents[62]. Stone also denied any involvement in the forgeries, stating "I have nothing whatsoever to do with this. I'm a firm believer in political hardball, but I draw the line at forged documents." [63]

Detailed analysis of authentication issues

No generally recognized document experts have positively authenticated the memos. Several individuals with expertise in typewriters or computer typography regard the documents as forgeries based on typographical analysis. These include Peter Tytell, a document examiner and typewriter expert [64], Thomas Phinney, an Adobe computer font expert [65], and Joseph Newcomer, a computer typography pioneer and Windows typography expert [66]. This conclusion is based in part on analysis of the letterspacing, as follows:

The typography of the Killian documents can be matched with a modern personal computer and printer using Microsoft Word with the default font (Times New Roman) and other settings. Therefore the equipment with which the Killian documents were actually produced must have been capable of matching the typographical characteristics produced by this modern technology.

But the letterspacing of the Times New Roman font used by Microsoft Word with a modern personal computer and printer employs a system of 18 units relative to the letter height (em), with common characters being 5 to 17 units wide. (The technology allows even finer variability of character widths, but the 18 unit system was chosen for compatibility with the Linotype phototypesetting and earlier hot-metal versions of the font.) In contrast, the variability of character widths available on early 1970s typewriters using proportional letterspacing was more limited, due to the mechanical technology employed. The most sophisticated of these machines, the IBM Selectric Composer, used a system of 9 units relative to the letter height, in which all characters were 3 to 9 units wide. Less complex machines used fewer widths.

Differences in individual character widths accumulate over the length of a line, so that comparatively small differences become readily apparent. Because of the differing character widths employed, the letterspacing exhibited by the Killian documents (matching that produced by a modern computer and printer) could not have been produced with a mechanical typewriter using proportional letterspacing in the early 1970s. At the time the documents were purportedly created, the matching letterspacing could only have been produced using phototypesetting or hot-metal printing. But it is not a realistic possibility that Killian would have had these documents printed, so it must be concluded that they are modern forgeries.

Typographical questions

Proportional fonts

The majority of typewriters available in 1972 used fixed width fonts, and most of the authenticated documents from the TexANG were typed using fixed width fonts commonly associated with typewriters; one document released by the Pentagon on September 24, 2004 used a proportionally-spaced font similar (but not identical) to the font used in the Killian memos [67]. Because they are photocopies, the actual font of the Killian Documents is almost impossible to identify.

Typewriters with proportional fonts were first introduced in 1941, mass-produced from 1948 onwards, and were in widespread use by 1972. The most common typewriter available in 1972 with proportional font support and a similar (though not exact) [68] match to the font some claim was used in the memos (11-point Press Roman vs. 12-point Times New Roman) is the IBM Selectric Composer. The IBM Executive supported a single serifed proportional font that is very different from the Selectric Composer font that most closely matches the font some believe is used in the memos. The Selectric Composer cost $3,600 to $4,400 in 1973 dollars ($16,000 to $22,000 in 2004 dollars). (Regular Selectrics were available second-hand for around $150 [69], but could not have produced the documents in question.)

Bill Glennon, a technology consultant in New York City with typewriter repair experience from 1973 to 1985 said experts making the claim that typewriters were incapable of producing the memos "are full of crap. They just don't know." He said there were IBM machines capable of producing the spacing, and a customized key — the likes of which he said were not unusual — for creating the superscript ^th.[70] Thomas Phinney, program manager for fonts at Adobe Systems responded to Glennon's stating that the memos could not have been produced with 1970s typewriters or low-end typesetters, such as the IBM Executive or Selectric Composer machines, due to differences in letter width and spacing. [71] Phinney's view is that each time a typeface is redeveloped for new technology, the widths, heights or designs will vary slightly, and therefore Times Roman on an Apple LaserWriter is different from the Times New Roman on Windows operating systems.

Desktop magazine in Australia analysed the documents in its November 2004 issue and concluded that the typeface was a post-1985 version of Times Roman, rather than Times New Roman, both of which are different in detail to IBM Press Roman. The article did not dispute that superscripts and proportional fonts were available in the 1970s.

Sophisticated spacing

Some argue that the Killian memos display kerning, a sophisticated character spacing that is ubiquitous with word-processing documents and uncommon in typewriters in 1972. Technically, Microsoft Word does not perform true kerning by default, but the TrueType engine used by Windows supports something called "hinting" or pseudo-kerning, which is not implemented on mechanical typewriters.

Some typewriters that were available at the time, the IBM Executive and the IBM Selectric Composer, were capable of kerning. However, on these typewriters, kerning required additional operations such as backspacing or manually moving the carriage back slightly.

Word wrapping

Because a typewriter does not have the ability to know what the user is going to type next, it is up to the typist to decide when to move the carriage to the next line. Sometimes, a typist will use hyphenation to split a word between two lines on a syllable boundary, while computer word processors like Microsoft Word do not do this by default. The lines in the memos are split along word boundaries at the exact location where Microsoft Word might have split them. The precise locations a typist chooses for splitting lines can be arbitrary, such that even the same typist may choose differently at different times.

Superscripted "th"

The Killian Memos display superscripted "th" glyphs in a smaller font, raised above the level of the normal text (such as 111^th). While this is generated automatically by word-processing software like Microsoft Word, it would require a special character on a traditional typewriter. Marian Carr Knox recalled that during her time at the Guard she used a mechanical Olympia typewriter that did have a special 'th' key. (This 'th' character was the same weight as the other characters.) She said it was replaced by an IBM Selectric in the early 1970s.

Traditionally, superscripts in metal type differed from standard letters by being proportionally wider and heavier, so that when set, they looked the same "weight".

While Dan Rather initially argued that several documents of unquestioned authenticity in the Bush records have superscripted 'th' characters interspersed throughout, they are not raised above the level of the normal text, like an actual superscript would be.

Centered headers

Bloggers at ChronicallyBiased [72] noted that two of the memos, dated May 4 and August 1, 1972, feature a three-line centered heading which aligns exactly between two memos dated three months apart, and with a comparison document created using the auto-centering feature of Microsoft Word.[73]

Creating centered headers is possible on a typewriter, even if the font is proportional. The typist can left-justify the header and then use the space bar to count the number of spaces from the end of the text to the right margin. In addition, the IBM Executive and Selectric have a kerning key that would give a more accurate measure of the whitespace. Once this number is determined, halving it gives the number of leading spaces for an centered header.

Word processors, by contrast, center text based on a computer algorithm using a fixed central reference point rather than the left margin on the typewriter as measured from the paper's edge, ensuring virtually perfect centering consistent from line to line in successive blocks of text and on different pages.

In the Killian memos the text matches perfectly when overlaid with a word processor-centered 3 line address block, and between the 3- and 2- line blocks of different memos. The probability of a typewriter user perfectly centering successive lines of text to both the page itself and to each other on at least three different dates is believed to be low.

Smart quotes

Another feature of computer word processors such as Microsoft Word is "smart quotes"—the automatic translation of typed apostrophes and quotation marks depending on context. While typewriters of that era generally only supported a single kind of apostrophe ( ' ) and a single kind of quotation mark ( " ), word processors have the ability to display curved marks like those used in typeset text. An example from the Killian memo is the word "I’m", which would have been rendered as "I'm" on a typewriter or computer word processor without this feature. Word processors can also convert typed quotation marks into curved left and right marks, so "this" automatically becomes “this”. Double quotation marks are not used in any of the Killian memos. (You may have to enlarge the font size of your browser or print this page in order to see the difference between the two kinds of apostrophes.)

This image of a 1954 advertisement for an IBM Executive typewriter allegedly shows the ability of that machine to produce left and right quote marks. However, close examination where the individual pixels are visible shows the resolution of the image is too low to make such a determination. Many analysts have disqualified the IBM Executive on other grounds, particularly the typeface and spacing differences (see above).

Reproduction of the documents using modern technology

Several experiments have suggested that the memos could be duplicated with the default settings in Microsoft Word 2003.[74]. Others have pointed out that duplicating the output of an executive office typewriter was a specific design goal of Word, with Microsoft going so far as to acquire its fonts from the same source used by IBM.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs published an animated GIF of one of the CBS memos and a version he typed in Microsoft Word on Mac OS X using the software's default settings. The overlay allows easy examination of Johnson's claim that the two are nearly identical. When using other versions of Microsoft Word or alternative products such as WordPerfect, with their default settings, such an exact match is not usually obtained [75]. The underlying suggestion that the documents produced are identical has also been disputed by liberal sites such as Daily Kos, which pointed out that there were letters and words in the original which were not aligned properly, as well as variations in the boldness of letters, and even in the shapes of certain numbers. [76][77] Daily Kos readers reported the existence of an inconsistent baseline in the original and divergent locations of the 'th' supercript [78].

In response, the creator of the screenshot printed the Word document to a PDF and obtained a much closer match to the superscript [79]. In Microsoft Word, the 'th' superscript is drawn in a different location on the screen than it is when printed. Another experiment showed that faxing, scanning, and copying a Word document creates random baseline irregularities [80]. Some of these observations, even if substantiated, could still be explained as common by-products of fax transmission and/or repeated photocopying (a technique often used by forgers to give the appearance of age). One approach, using a custom computer algorithm to find the best alignment between the scanned memo and the Word version, seems to show an exact overlay, demonstrating how the low fidelity of the CBS documents can give the appearance of differences between individual letters in the two versions due to the random "thickening" introduced during the faxing and/or photocopying process [81]. However, the same low fidelity also aids the appearance of an exact overlay, as the re-sizing of the CBS documents obscures details.

Inability to reproduce using contemporary technology

Thus far, no one has been able to reproduce the exact typography, spacing and layout of the Killian memos using technology available in 1972. The political weblog defeatjohnjohn.com offered a $10,000 reward to "anyone who can find for me a typewriter from 1972 that could have reasonably made those documents". Through a series of contributions and pledges from all over the world, the reward grew to more than $50,000 within weeks, giving the previously-small blog some surprising international publicity. (Despite extensive media coverage of this challenge, to date no one has been publicly able to accomplish the task and claim the money.)

Many analysts have said that they were not concerned with whether or not it was hypothetically possible to duplicate one or even a few of the typographic features with 1973 technology, but whether it was likely that all of them would have matched, at least as closely as the Microsoft Word samples, using a single typewriter that could plausibly have been in use at a remote national guard base in 1973 (and apparently wasn't used to type any other memos from that base). Several people with experience in operating either the IBM Executive or the Selectric Composer have said that they were much more complicated to operate than a regular typewriter and therefore were reserved for important correspondence within the companies where they had worked.

No similar contemporary documents

The Washington Post reported that "of more than 100 records made available by the 147th Group and the Texas Air National Guard, none used the proportional spacing techniques characteristic of the CBS documents"[82]. This raises the question of the likelihood of a National Guard office having access to this type of equipment. However, on September 24, 2004, just four days after CBS admitted it couldn't authenticate the Killian memos, another PDF packet of Bush's Guard records appeared on a Pentagon site containing the full master list of the officially released records. [83] The PDF packet is simply labeled "Documents Released on September 24, 2004," and the sixth document, dated February 19, 1971 and titled "Appointment and Federal Recognition," is proportionally spaced. While it appears to be of a different font style than that used in the Killian memos, it is apparently the first officially released document that is in some sort of obviously proportionally spaced font.

Ones versus Ells

On September 13th, CBS Evening News introduced two new claimed experts to vouch for the authenticity of the memos. One of the individuals, a software designer named Richard Katz, claimed that a lower case ell was used in place of the numeral one in the memos. Further, he claimed that this would be difficult to duplicate on a computer today. Mr. Katz did not elaborate on how he was able to determine ell's were used in place of one's and why it would be difficult to duplicate on a computer.

There is speculation that Mr. Katz was referring to the fact that early typewriters did not have a one or zero key and that typists learned to use ells and the letter "O" in their place. However, analysis by other individuals have shown that it is exceedingly difficult to discern a one from a lowercase ell even when dealing with a pristine original, let alone poor quality photocopies. Further, the one discerning trait that can be analyzed, the character space occupied by ells versus ones, indicates that the typist did in fact use ones rather than ells where the numeric character was appropriate. [84]

Other authenticity issues

In addition to the typographical concerns, other issues have been raised regarding the content and formatting of the memos.

Signatures

Of the documents, only the May 4 memo bears a full signature. This signature was confirmed as authentic by Marcel Matley [85], an expert consulted by CBS. Matley examined only the signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves [86]. A different independent certified forensic document examiner said Killian did not sign the documents [87].

Skepticism from Killian's family and others

Jerry Killian's wife and son argued that their father never used typewriting equipment and would have written these memos by hand. The family also stated that Killian was not known for keeping personal memos and that he had been very pleased with George Bush's performance in his TANG unit.

In contrast, Killian's secretary at the time, Marian Carr Knox, stated, "We did discuss Bush's conduct and it was a problem Killian was concerned about. I think he was writing the memos so there would be some record that he was aware of what was going on and what he had done." She added that Killian had her type the memos and locked them away in his private files. She did not believe the CBS documents were real, due to inconsistencies, but said the content is accurate and was perhaps copied from the originals. Gary Killian, Killian's son, disputed her version of the history. [88]

Earl W. Lively, who at the time was the commanding officer at the Austin TANG facility was quoted in the Washington Times as saying, "They're forged as hell."

Mention of influence by retired officer

An officer, Walter Staudt, cited in the memo dated August 18, 1973 as exerting pressure on officers to "sugar coat" their evaluations of Bush, had in fact retired from the service in March of 1972. Defenders contend that Staudt could have continued to exert influence after his retirement.

Staudt, however, in an exclusive interview with ABC Sept 17th, has denied this. ABC News "Speaking Out" Staudt said he never tried to influence Killian or other Guardsmen, and added that he never came under any pressure himself to accept Bush. "No one called me about taking George Bush into the Air National Guard," he said. "It was my decision. I swore him in. I never heard anything from anybody. And I never pressured anybody about George Bush because I had no reason to," Staudt told ABC News in his first interview since the documents were made public.

Unsubstantiated Content

One of the memos indicates that Killian had requested that a flight inquiry board be convened to examine the causes of Bush's loss of flight status. However, no records of this request or the flight inquiry board itself have been found. Regulations required such a review following the grounding of any pilot.

Improper formatting

According to U.S. Air Force practice of the 1970s, the memo dated "04 May 1972" should have had the date formatted as "4 May 72". Months were abbreviated to three characters, leading zeros were not used, and only the last two digits of the year were used up until the year 2000. In this memo, other discrepancies include:[89]

The terminology "MEMORANDUM FOR" was never used in the 1970s.
The abbreviations in this letter are incorrectly formatted, in that a period is used after military rank (1st Lt.). According to the Air Force style manual, periods are not used in military rank abbreviations.
The abbreviation for Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS) includes periods after each capital letter. Again, periods are not used.
In paragraph 1, the phrase "not later than" is spelled out, followed by (NLT). NLT was, and is, a widely recognized abbreviation for "not later than" throughout all military services, so the inclusion of "not later than" was not a generally accepted practice and completely unnecessary in a letter from one military member to another.
According to an ex-Guard commander, retired Col. Bobby W. Hodges, the Guard never used the abbreviation "grp" for "group" or "OETR" for an officer evaluation review, as in the CBS documents. The correct terminology, he said, is "gp" and "OER."[90]
Lieutenant Colonel Killian's signature element is incorrect for letters prepared in the 1970s. This letter uses a three-line signature element, which was normally not used. Three-line signature elements were almost the exclusive domain of colonels and generals in organizations well above the squadron level.
Finally, the signature element is placed far to the right, instead of being left justified. The placement of the signature element to the right was not used or directed by Air Force standards until almost 20 years after the date of this letter.

Paper size

In 1921, two different committees decided on standard paper sizes for the United States. A group called the Permanent Conference on Printing established the 8" by 10½" size as the general U.S. government letterhead standard, while a Committee on the Simplification of Paper Sizes came up with the more familiar 8½" by 11" size now known as US Letter. The U.S. military used the smaller size up until the early 1980s. So a low-quality photocopy of the memos might have shown thin vertical lines or some other indication of the smaller paper size in a photocopy of the memos if they had been typed on the 8" by 10½" paper.[91]

Inconsistency with Killian's earlier memos

The memos released by CBS appear to totally different and inconsistent with earlier memorandums, written by Killian, and released by the Department of Defense. According to the Washington Post on September 14, 2004, "The analysis shows that half a dozen Killian memos released earlier by the military were written with a standard typewriter using different formatting techniques from those characteristic of computer-generated documents. CBS's Killian memos bear numerous signs that are more consistent with modern-day word-processing programs, particularly Microsoft Word..." The language and terminology in the memos also differed from standard military usage (for example, in the use of abbreviations, and in punctuation).

Independent experts

The vast majority of independent document authentication experts contacted by the major news media and bloggers have indicated a strong likelihood that the Killian memos are forgeries constructed with the use of modern word processing software and printer technology, and "aged" using multiple generations of copying to blur the characters. Several are "certain" that the documents are fraudulent.

In contrast, Dr. David Hailey, who holds a doctorate in technical communication and is an associate professor and director of a media lab at Utah State University, stated in October 2004 that "evidence from a forensic examination of the Bush memos indicates that they were typed on a typewriter." [92] Hailey's study has been controversial with critics pointing out that Hailey donated $250 to Kerry's campaign; Hailey has also been the subject of an email campaign demanding his dismissal from the university after bloggers alleged that he fabricated portions of the study and made several claims in it that were perceived to be misleading. [93] Dr. Joseph Newcomer, a Kerry supporter and document expert who produced an extensive analysis asserting the memos were forgeries, called Hailey's study "deeply flawed". [94]

Frank Abagnale Jr., the forger whose story was told in the movie Catch Me If You Can, believes the memos are forgeries from what he has seen on television; Abagnale has not personally examined the documents or any copies.[95]

External links

The memos

NB: the following are all PDF documents and might prove larger than expected.

CBS

USA Today

The six Killian memos that USA Today received