Journalists play Gil Grissom: the documents:
It's important to point out from the outset that not a single piece of hard evidence has been uncovered that categorically proves these documents were forgeries.
Still,<font size=4> ABC News consulted yesterday with more than a half dozen top forensic document experts, including William Flynn, considered one of the best in the world.
Flynn and another leading expert agreed on several points, namely that the proportional spaced Times Roman font does not appear to have been the result of available technology in 1972 and 1973. They questioned the superscripts, the spacing between lines (13 points separated each line, which, again, was not a technology that was available in typewriters back then.). Then there's the apostrophe, which is curled to the left in one of the documents — not something typewriters did with their apostrophes.
Richard Polt, a philosophy professor in Ohio and an amateur typewriter enthusiast, said he was 99 percent certain that no typewriter he knew of could have made the typed impressions that cleanly.
And two members of Killian's family (who certainly could have agendas of their own) told ABC News that they had suspicions.
Marjorie Connell, Killian's wife at the time, said she <font color=purple>"just can't believe these are his words."<font color=black> Mrs. Connell said her late husband would be <font color=purple>"turning over in his grave to know that a document such as this would be used against a fellow guardsman."<font color=black> She used the words <font color=purple>"appalling," "sick" and "angry"<font color=black> to describe her feelings about Killian's name was <font color=purple>"being battled back and forth on television."<font color=black>
She made it clear that Lt Col Killian was a fan of Bush: <font color=purple>"I know for a fact that this young man as a lt was an excellent aviator, an excellent person to be in the guard and was very happy to have him become a member of the 111th."<font color=black>
She also mentioned her late husband was no typist. <font color=purple>"He would not have typed because he did not type."<font color=black> When Killian did take notes his wife said he usually wrote on whatever scrap of paper was handy but <font color=purple>"he was a person who did not take copious notes he carried everything in his mind."<font color=black> For more, see: LINK<font size=3>
abcnews.go.com
<font size=4>Deb Orin and Ian Bishop of the New York Post key off of the radio interview with Mrs. Connell and a document expert to point to potential forgery. LINK<font size=3>
nypost.com
<font size=4>The New York Daily News reports forensic scientist Sandra Ramsey Lines says the superscript in the Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's notes are evidence of forgery. LINK<font size=3>
nydailynews.com
<font size=4>CBS News sent reporters a previously validated document last night that does appear to contain a superscripted "th," which confounds some experts we spoke with, including Katherine Koppenhaver, who said she is 75 percent certain even still that the new documents are forgeries.
The New York Times ' Seeyle and Rutenberg were careful to ask the political affiliation of their experts, which we think is a good idea. LINK<font size=3>
nytimes.com
<font size=4>
"Philip Bouffard, a forensic document specialist from Ohio who created a commonly used database of at least 3,000 old type fonts, said he had suspicions as well. <font color=green>'I found nothing like this in any of my typewriter specimens,'<font color=black> said Dr. Bouffard, a Democrat. He also said the fonts were <font color=green>"certainly consistent with what I see in Times Roman,"<font color=black> the commonly used Microsoft Word font. However, Dr. Bouffard said, a colleague had called his attention to similarities between the font in the memos and that of the IBM Selectric Composer of the early 1970's. But he said it would be unusual for Mr. Bush's commanding officer to have had the IBM machine because of its large size."
The Los Angeles Times talked to Killian's daughter: <font color=purple>"Nancy Killian Rodriguez said only that her father, who died in 1984, had 'admired George Bush and was proud of the fact that he pinned his [flying] wings on him.'"<font color=black> LINK<font size=3>
latimes.com
abcnews.go.com |
