Saturday, September 11, 2004

BOUFFARD BLASTS GLOBE. Philip Bouffard, the forgery expert who is quoted in today's Boston Globe as saying that he now believes the Killian memos could have been produced on a 1972 typewriter, tells a website called INDC Journal that the Globe misrepresented him.

Bouffard is quoted as saying, "What the Boston Globe did now sort of pisses me off, because now I have people calling me and e-mailing me, and calling me names, saying that I changed my mind. I did not change my mind at all!"

Bouffard adds: "But the more information we get and the more my colleagues look at this, we're more convinced that there are significant differences between the type of the (IBM) Composer that was available and the questionable document."

Via InstaPundit.

Just thought you'd like to know. And note that what Bouffard tells INDC Journal is completely consistent with the indirect quote that the New York Times attributed to him this morning.

5 comments:

Sterling said...

The following comment made in the comment section of a weblog is what has struck me as the best reason to believe the documents are forgeries. Once you see how a computer MSWord document aligns PERFECTLY with the CBS memos, the following quote stands out for its clarity and reasonableness:

"I've matched some type in my time, and even using the same computer and OS and fonts, it's not always easy. Matching something done on a PC with a Mac is harder. Matching something done on a non-computer system is extremely hard to do. Even though someone might have been able, in theory, to typeset memos that look like these back in '72-'73, the chances that they would match something easily created by MS Word at default settings 30+ years later are zero."

Anonymous said...

Has anyone recreated the memo(s) using a Selectric? Can't be that hard if the Selectrics were as common as is being argued (personally, I'm just too young to remember any typewriter other than my parents' and grandparents' highly unsophisticated but charmingly old-school machines).

Anonymous said...

Today's NY Times Business section refers to a study by the "admittedly conservative" American Enterprise Institute, (we're talkin' NYT here). They posit that the world view of business reporters comes out in their coverage of the economy, etc. and Republicans don't get treated fairly (ya think?) Coming to the point here. The actions of the Boston Globe (re Type-gate) seem less of a surprise when we read NYT's quote of Jack Shafer in Slate, basically saying we shouldn't rely on headlines to reflect what is beneath them. Oh really?? Isn't this what the Globe has been famous for forever, putting headlines lined up with their world view over op-eds or AP copy they don't agree with but grudgingly publish? As Mom used to say, sometimes what we say about others tells a lot more about us than them.....

Anonymous said...

" The following comment made in the comment section of a weblog..." A weblog? Which weblog? The fact that you won't say which is odd. (But then again, perhaps not.)

Your certainty is misplaced. Check out this link from PC Mag, far better experts than you or I.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1644869,00.asp

Sorta blows your observations out of the water. Simply saying something is true, doesn't make it so, no matter how much bravado you use.

Anonymous said...

Hey Anon:

Nice link, but you should also follow up:

http://www.ibmcomposer.org/SelComposer/description.htm

Let's see, you COULD generate this using the IBM Composer. But read how one generated text -

"Since it has no memory, the user was required to type everything twice. While typing the text the first time, the machine would measure the length of the line and count the number of spaces. When the user finished typing a line of text, they would record special measurements into the right margin of the paper. Once the entire column of text was typed and measured, it would then be retyped, however before typing each line, the operator would set the special justification dial (on the right side) to the proper settings, then type the line. The machine would automatically insert the appropriate amount of space between words so that all of the text would be justified."

So first off, technically there did exist a machine that could have created these documents at the time. But do you honestly think that the Texas National Guard would be using such a high end machine to type a memo on a routine basis? Doubtful. Plus I would imagine that this IBM Composer might have been a litle on the pricy side.

For a further update, try this out:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18982-2004Sep13?language=printer