'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake

[DC09]

(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.

Full Article

Edited September 10, 2004 by Kellalor

[DC09]

Sept. 10, 2004 — Questions are being raised about the authenticity of newly discovered documents relating to George W. Bush's service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War.

Marjorie Connell — widow of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the reported author of memos suggesting that Bush did not meet the standards for the Texas Air National Guard — questioned whether the documents were real.

"The wording in these documents is very suspect to me," she told ABC News Radio in an exclusive phone interview from her Texas home. She added that she "just can't believe these are his words."

First reported by CBS' 60 Minutes, the memos allegedly were found in Killian's personal files. But his family members say they doubt he ever made such documents, let alone kept them.

Connell said Killian did not type, and though he did take notes, they were usually on scraps of paper. "He was a person who did not take copious notes," she said. "He carried everything in his mind."

Killian's son, Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father, also told ABC News Radio that he doubts his father wrote the documents. "It was not the nature of my father to keep private files like this, nor would it have been in his own interest to do so," he said.

"We don't know where the documents come from," he said, adding, "They didn't come from any family member."

Connell said her late husband would be "turning over in his grave to know that a document such as this would be used against a fellow Guardsman," and she is "sick" and "angry" that his name is "being battled back and forth on television."

Her late husband was a fan of the young Bush, said Connell, who remarried after her husband died in 1984. "I know for a fact that this young man … was an excellent aviator, an excellent person to be in the Guard, and he was very happy to have him become a member of the 111th."

Experts Question Veracity

Questions are also being raised about the memos by document experts, who say they appear to have been written on a computer, not a typewriter.

Full Article

[DC09]

Look at this this MS Word document overlaid on the CBS News “original,” in an animated GIF alternating between the two:

Hmmm...

Link - No I don't agree with all of this guy's views, but it is a good site for news.

[doomgirl]

all you needs is some guys that aren't afraid to speak up and tell the truth about Bush

[+joc]

Good post Kellalor! The Dems are obviously believing it was faked or they wouldn't be trying to purport a conspiracy theory about how the Republicans put it out there.

all you needs is some guys that aren't afraid to speak up and tell the truth about Bush

All we have are some guys that aren't afraid to lie boldly where no man has lied before about Bush

Edited September 11, 2004 by joc

[sunshinenz]

Kellalor

I reserve my opinion on you ..................

[AztecInca]

Dont you just love the lead up to elections, all the name calling, conspiracy theories, documents resurfacing, accusations, all sooooo much more, its just soooo much fun!!!!

What exactly is sunshinenz going on about?!

[DC09]

What exactly is sunshinenz going on about?!

262732[/snapback]

Perhaps he has some sort of mental deficiency...

[doomgirl]

um and what is that suppose to mean Kellalor, I have a mental deficiency and so do a few other people in here

[+joc]

um and what is that suppose to mean Kellalor, I have a mental deficiency and so do a few other people in here

Ahah! That explains it! Seriously though, I know many of you girls, and guys on this forum are suffering from depression. I have read it in your posts, I have seen it in your writings. I too was once depressed....(as you well know Doomie)

and depression and other things mental are not to be made light of. Having said that.........political correctness makes it darn hard to express your thoughts on anything without offending someone. Kellalor has had problems too. She has addressed some of them in other posts and I am sure she didn't mean anything hurtful.

[DC09]

um and what is that suppose to mean Kellalor, I have a mental deficiency and so do a few other people in here

262885[/snapback]

I wasn't refering to any illnesses.

And I was joking, besides.

[doomgirl]

besides what?

I knew about you Joc

[DC09]

besides what?

262900[/snapback]

Um, joking.

It probably should have been written as - Besides, I was joking.

Maybe not.

I just woke up, gimme a break.

[doomgirl]

maybe you should go back to bed and try getting out of the other side

[Magikman]

Little Miss Sunshine has been dealt with, lets focus our attention on the topic please.

MM

[DC09]

More challenges about whether Bush documents are authentic

AUSTIN, Texas — The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugarcoat" George W. Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo supposedly was written, his service record shows.

An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of the future president's service was dated Aug. 18, 1973.

That added to mounting questions about the authenticity of documents that seem to suggest Bush sought special treatment as a pilot, failed to carry out a superior's order to undergo a physical exam and was suspended from flying for failing to meet Air National Guard standards.

Staudt, who lives in New Braunfels, Texas, did not return calls seeking comment. His discharge paper was among documents obtained by The Morning News from official sources during 1999 research into Bush's Guard record.

A CBS staffer stood by the story, suggesting Staudt could have continued to exert influence over Guard officials. But a former high-ranking Guard official disputed that, saying retirement would have left Staudt powerless.

Authenticity of the memo and three others included in Wednesday's "60 Minutes" report came in for heavy criticism yesterday, prompting an unusual, on-air defense of the original work. Experts on typography said the memos appeared to have been computer-drafted on equipment not available at the time.

And the widow and son of the officer who supposedly wrote them, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984, have said it wasn't his nature to keep detailed personal notes.

Full Article