Text 1964, 108 rader
Skriven 2004-09-09 19:39:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Documents ?
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So CBS is now taking after the NY Times ?

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http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200409\P
OL20040909d.html

'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - The 32-year-old documents produced Wednesday by the CBS 
News program "60 Minutes," shedding a negative light on President Bush's 
service in the Texas Air National Guard, may have been forged using a 
current word processing program, according to typography experts.

Three independent typography experts told CNSNews.com they were 
suspicious of the documents from 1972 and 1973 because they were typed 
using a proportional font, not common at that time, and they used a 
superscript font feature found in today's Microsoft Word program.

The "60 Minutes" segment included an interview with former Texas 
lieutenant governor Ben Barnes, who criticized Bush's service. The news 
program also produced a series of memos that claim Bush refused to 
follow an order to undertake a medical examination.

The documents came from the "personal office file" of Bush's former 
squadron commander Jerry B. Killian, according to Kelli Edwards, a 
spokeswoman for "60 Minutes," who was quoted in Thursday's Washington 
Post. Edwards declined to tell the Post how the news program obtained 
the documents.

But the experts interviewed by CNSNews.com homed in on several aspects 
of a May 4, 1972, memo, which was part of the "60 Minutes" segment and 
was posted on the CBS News website Thursday.

"It was highly out of the ordinary for an organization, even the Air 
Force, to have proportional-spaced fonts for someone to work with," said 
Allan Haley, director of words and letters at Agfa Monotype in 
Wilmington, Mass. "I'm suspect in that I did work for the U.S. Army as 
late as the late 1980s and early 1990s and the Army was still using 
[fixed-pitch typeface] Courier."

The typography experts couldn't pinpoint the exact font used in the 
documents. They also couldn't definitively conclude that the documents 
were either forged using a current computer program or were the work of 
a high-end typewriter or word processor in the early 1970s.

But the use of the superscript "th" in one document - "111th F.I.S" - 
gave each expert pause. They said that is an automatic feature found in 
current versions of Microsoft Word, and it's not something that was even 
possible more than 30 years ago.

"That would not be possible on a typewriter or even a word processor at 
that time," said John Collins, vice president and chief technology 
officer at Bitstream Inc., the parent of MyFonts.com. 

"It is a very surprising thing to see a letter with that date [May 4, 
1972] on it," and featuring such typography, Collins added. "There's no 
question that that is surprising. Does that force you to conclude that 
it's a fake? No. But it certainly raises the eyebrows."

Fred Showker, who teaches typography and introduction to digital 
graphics at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., questioned 
the documents' letterhead.

"Let's assume for a minute that it's authentic," Showker said. "But 
would they not have used some form of letterhead? Or has this letterhead 
been intentionally cut off? Notice how close to the top of the page it 
is."

He also pointed to the signature of Killian, the purported author of the 
May 4, 1972, memo ordering Bush, who was at the time a first lieutenant 
in the Texas Air National Guard, to obtain a physical exam.

"Do you think he would have stopped that 'K' nice and cleanly, right 
there before it ran into the typewriter 'Jerry," Showker asked. "You 
can't stop a ballpoint pen with a nice square ending like that ... The 
end of that 'K' should be round ... it looks like you took a pair of 
snips and cut it off so you could see the 'Jerry.'" 

The experts also raised questions about the military's typewriter 
technology three decades ago. Collins said word processors that could 
produce proportional-sized fonts cost upwards of $20,000 at the time.

"I'm not real sure that you would have that kind of sophistication in 
the office of a flight inspector in the United States government," 
Showker said.

"The only thing it could be, possibly, is an IBM golf ball typewriter, 
which came out around the early to middle 1970s," Haley said. "Those did 
have proportional fonts on them. But they weren't widely used."

But Haley added that the use of the superscript "th" cast doubt on the 
use of any typewriter.

"There weren't any typewriters that did that," Haley said. "That looks 
like it might be a function of something like Microsoft Word, which does 
that automatically."

According to an article on the CBS News website, the news program 
"consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the 
material is authentic."


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