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Skriven 2004-09-14 19:48:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Documents
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18982-
2004Sep13?language=printer

Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn't Authenticate Papers

By Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 14, 2004; Page A08 

The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from 
President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard said 
yesterday that he examined only the late officer's signature and made no 
attempt to authenticate the documents themselves. 

"There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them," 
Marcel Matley said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The main 
reason, he said, is that they are "copies" that are "far removed" from 
the originals. 

Matley's comments came amid growing evidence challenging the 
authenticity of the documents aired Wednesday on CBS's "60 Minutes." The 
program was part of an investigation asserting that Bush benefited from 
political favoritism in getting out of commitments to the Texas Air 
National Guard. On last night's "CBS Evening News," anchor Dan Rather 
said again that the network "believes the documents are authentic." 

A detailed comparison by The Washington Post of memos obtained by CBS 
News with authenticated documents on Bush's National Guard service 
reveals dozens of inconsistencies, ranging from conflicting military 
terminology to different word-processing techniques. 

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. 

"I am personally 100 percent sure that they are fake," said Joseph M. 
Newcomer, author of several books on Windows programming, who worked on 
electronic typesetting techniques in the early 1970s. Newcomer said he 
had produced virtually exact replicas of the CBS documents using 
Microsoft Word formatting and the Times New Roman font. 

Newcomer drew an analogy with an art expert trying to determine whether 
a painting of unknown provenance was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. "If I 
was looking for a Da Vinci, I would look for characteristic brush 
strokes," he said. "If I found something that was painted with a modern 
synthetic brush, I would know that I have a forgery." 

Meanwhile, Laura Bush became the first person from the White House to 
say the documents are likely forgeries. "You know they are probably 
altered," she told Radio Iowa in Des Moines yesterday. "And they 
probably are forgeries, and I think that's terrible, really." 

Citing confidentiality issues, CBS News has declined to reveal the 
source of the disputed documents -- which have been in the network's 
possession for more than a month -- or to explain how they came to light 
after more than three decades. Yesterday, USA Today said that it had 
independently obtained copies of the documents "from a person with 
knowledge of Texas Air National Guard operations" who declined to be 
named "for fear of retaliation." 

It was unclear whether the same person supplied the documents to both 
media outlets. USA Today said it had obtained its copies of the CBS 
documents Wednesday night "soon after" the "60 Minutes" broadcast, as 
well as another two purported Killian memos that had not been made 
public. 

A detailed examination of the CBS documents beside authenticated Killian 
memos and other documents generated by Bush's 147th Fighter Interceptor 
Group suggests at least three areas of difference that are difficult to 
reconcile: 

• Word-processing techniques. 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. Nor 
did they use a superscripted "th" in expressions such as "147th Group" 
and or "111th Fighter Intercept Squadron." 

In a CBS News broadcast Friday night rebutting allegations that the 
documents had been forged, Rather displayed an authenticated Bush 
document from 1968 that included a small "th" next to the numbers "111" 
as proof that Guard typewriters were capable of producing superscripts. 
In fact, say Newcomer and other experts, the document aired by CBS News 
does not contain a superscript, because the top of the "th" character is 
at the same level as the rest of the type. Superscripts rise above the 
level of the type. 

• Factual problems. A CBS document purportedly from Killian ordering 
Bush to report for his annual physical, dated May 4, 1972, gives Bush's 
address as "5000 Longmont #8, Houston." This address was used for many 
years by Bush's father, George H.W. Bush. National Guard documents 
suggest that the younger Bush stopped using that address in 1970 when he 
moved into an apartment, and did not use it again until late 1973 or 
1974, when he moved to Cambridge, Mass., to attend Harvard Business 
School. 

One CBS memo cites pressure allegedly being put on Killian by "Staudt," 
a reference to Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, one of Bush's early 
commanders. But the memo is dated Aug. 18, 1973, nearly a year and a 
half after Staudt retired from the Guard. Questioned about the 
discrepancy over the weekend, CBS officials said that Staudt was a 
"mythic figure" in the Guard who exercised influence from behind the 
scenes even after his retirement. 

• Stylistic differences. To outsiders, how an officer wrote his name and 
rank or referred to his military unit may seem arcane and unimportant. 
Within the military, however, such details are regulated by rules and 
tradition, and can be of great significance. The CBS memos contain 
several stylistic examples at odds with standard Guard procedures, as 
reflected in authenticated documents. 

In memos previously released by the Pentagon or the White House, Killian 
signed his rank "Lt Col" or "Lt Colonel, TexANG," in a single line after 
his name without periods. In the CBS memos, the "Lt Colonel" is on the 
next line, sometimes with a period but without the customary reference 
to TexANG, for Texas Air National Guard. 

An ex-Guard commander, retired Col. Bobby W. Hodges, whom CBS originally 
cited as a key source in authenticating its documents, pointed to 
discrepancies in military abbreviations as evidence that the CBS memos 
are forgeries. The Guard, he said, 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." 

In its broadcast last night, CBS News produced a new expert, Bill 
Glennon, an information technology consultant. He said that IBM electric 
typewriters in use in 1972 could produce superscripts and proportional 
spacing similar to those used in the disputed documents. 

Any argument to the contrary is "an out-and-out lie," Glennon said in a 
telephone interview. But Glennon said he is not a document expert, could 
not vouch for the memos' authenticity and only examined them online 
because CBS did not give him copies when asked to visit the network's 
offices. 

Thomas Phinney, program manager for fonts for the Adobe company in 
Seattle, which helped to develop the modern Times New Roman font, 
disputed Glennon's statement to CBS. He said "fairly extensive testing" 
had convinced him that the fonts and formatting used in the CBS 
documents could not have been produced by the most sophisticated IBM 
typewriters in use in 1972, including the Selectric and the Executive. 
He said the two systems used fonts of different widths. 

On last night's "CBS Evening News," Rather said "60 Minutes" had done a 
"content analysis" of the memos and found, for example, that the date 
that Bush was suspended from flying -- Aug. 1, 1972 -- matched 
information in the documents. He also noted that USA Today had 
separately obtained another memo from 1972 in which Killian asked to be 
updated on Bush's flight certification status. 

CBS executives have pointed to Matley as their lead expert on whether 
the memos are genuine, and included him in a "CBS Evening News" defense 
of the story Friday. Matley said he spent five to eight hours examining 
the memos. "I knew I could not prove them authentic just from my 
expertise," he said. "I can't say either way from my expertise, the 
narrow, narrow little field of my expertise." 

In looking at the photocopies, he said, "I really felt we could not 
definitively say which font this is." But, he said, "I didn't see 
anything that would definitively tell me these are not authentic." 

Asked about Matley's comments, CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said: "In 
the end, the gist is that it's inconclusive. People are coming down on 
both sides, which is to be expected when you're dealing with copies of 
documents." 

Questions about the CBS documents have grown to the point that they 
overshadow the allegations of favorable treatment toward Bush. 

Prominent conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh are insisting the 
documents are forged. New York Times columnist William Safire said 
yesterday that CBS should agree to an independent investigation. Brent 
Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, called on the network to 
apologize, saying: "The CBS story is a hoax and a fraud, and a cheap and 
sloppy one at that. It boggles the mind that Dan Rather and CBS continue 
to defend it." 

Staff reporters James V. Grimaldi and Mike Allen and researcher Alice 
Crites contributed to this report.


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