Game absolutely over, period
Memogate can't survive this one-two punch

I long ago concluded the Memogate documents were forgeries. I was not the first to do so by any means, but I based my conclusion on the docs' style and format, rather than a technical analysis of the typeface and imprinting technology, which I am not qualified to evaluate.

But others are. Here are two long and very technical (but quite readable) essays from extremely qualified authors. The first, "The IBM Selectric Composer" (which I also wrote about), includes an interview with Gerry Kaplan, an authority on the machine. The decisive part of the analysis was the centering of the letterhead text.

This point was so important to Gerry that he went out of his way to mention it to me again later in the day: centering type is hard on the Selectric Composer. Two of the memos, May 4 and August 1, 1972, feature a three-line centered head. Each of those lines of type had to be centered by measuring it carefully, doing some math, then advancing the carrier to just the right point on the page. The margin for error would be pretty wide because type can be off by a few points in either direction and still look pretty well centered. It wouldn't be objectionable unless you went looking for it. So it wasn't necessary for Lt. Col. Killian — or his typist — to be millimeter-precise.

And yet … he was. ...

These letterheads weren't centered to within a couple of points of each other. They were centered exactly the same. Three months apart.

Gerry also wrote,

Something that I think would be a good test for your website may be to reproduce the centered heading using MS Word and Times New Roman. If you can produce centered text that matches identically to the letterhead, it is, in my opinion, a true hoax. The reason is, because even if they were able to center text with a typesetting machine such as the composer, a PC (and good word processor), will center the text even more precisely, not at the "point" level, but rather on the twip level (1/1440th of an inch or 1/20th of a point).

And Word-produced text does in fact match; see the proof at the site.

Next, read Joseph M. Newcomer's definitive analysis of the documents CBS presented. Newcomer explains his credentials thus:

I am one of the pioneers of electronic typesetting. I was doing work with computer typesetting technology in 1972 (it actually started in late 1969), and I personally created one of the earliest typesetting programs for what later became laser printers, but in 1970 when this work was first done, lasers were not part of the electronic printer technology (my way of expressing this is “I was working with laser printers before they had lasers”, which is only a mild stretch of the truth). We published a paper about our work (graphics, printer hardware, printer software, and typesetting) in one of the important professional journals of the time (D.R. Reddy, W. Broadley, L.D. Erman, R. Johnsson, J. Newcomer, G. Robertson, and J. Wright, "XCRIBL: A Hardcopy Scan Line Graphics System for Document Generation," Information Processing Letters (1972, pp.246-251)). I have been involved in many aspects of computer typography, including computer music typesetting (1987-1990). I have personally created computer fonts, and helped create programs that created computer fonts. At one time in my life, I was a certified Adobe PostScript developer, and could make laser printers practically stand up and tap dance. I have written about Microsoft Windows font technology in a book I co-authored, and taught courses in it. I therefore assert that I am a qualified expert in computer typography.

Convinces me. His analysis is too intricate for a non-techie like me to excerpt sensibly, but not to complex for me to fail to comprehend. That's a real achievement in technical writing. Suffice to repeat his conclusion:

It is therefore my expert opinion that these documents are modern forgeries.

Criticisms by others and myself of matters of style and format are compelling by themselves, but these two essays alone are convincing. Now even the Boston Globe is abandoning ship. Like I said, this game is absolutely over, period.

This is my last post regarding the authenticity of the CBS memos, unless something truly new and significant turns up. I've received lots of email about how the publication governing flight physicals was in the Air Force 160-series, not the 35 series. But also several Air Force veterans advised me that the USAF changed its publication numbering system dramatically around 1990. I also remmeber seeing in the last several days a PDF of a document released by Bush that references a flight physical and AFM 35-13, but not I can't find it. If you know which I mean, please leave a link in the comments.

by Donald Sensing, 9/13/2004 07:28:47 AM. Permalink |