Superscript this.....
At the risk of being the only person in the Western DigiSphere not to comment on the CBS "now apparently forged documents" [NAFD's] I will do so now, hopefully with brevity and wisdom....OK, let's shoot for brevity.
I do, however, have some expert wisdom on the subject being the geriatric sort who spent decades typing on manual typewriters, some of it in the Texas National Guard, and later transitioning to digital wordprocessing. Apparently more expert wisdom than anyone at CBS.
Like most people of the Blog persuasion, I was truly amazed at the speed with which the story broke in the BlogWorld and made it to the general media arena, the MSMİ. I found the story Thursday at mid morning on my office computer and by the time I watched the ABC Evening News with Peter Jenkinsİ mention had been made of the anamolies in the documents [kudos, for once to ABC]. By the time I did my at home evening perusal of my usual Blogs, the story was all over the web...and with 100's of helpful comments.
Now to my take of the documents...and in particular the main one in question, the LTC. Killian "CYA" memo.
Much has been said, and rightly so, about the fonts, kerning, spacing and so on...the formatting of the document. This is important, especially the superscripted "th" which was not available on any known typewriter of the early 70's and of course is an automatic feature [unless disabled] of modern day MS Wordİ. But my doubts were based on things more basic, things I know about and have experience with.
One of the first Blog articles I read had side by side comparisons of the NAFD memo and a newly created copy of the memo done on MS Wordİ. They were identical and what are the odds of that occuring by chance? Nil to zilch. Having written 100's of letters on a typewriter, the telling feature for me was the placement of the date, just to the right of center above the body of the text,exactly where MS Wordİ places it by default. To do this on a typewriter, the operator would have to either set a tab at that particular spot, release the carriage and move it over to that exact spot or use the space bar about 40 times to achieve that position. I can tell you as an ex manual typewriter user...we just didn't do that. We normally set the date at either the left or right margin...and more often the left margin, because that was were the carriage was by default.
Another basic and telling clue to me was the neatness of the CYA memo. I'm betting that LTC. Killian was in his mid to late 40's when he supposedly wrote the note. Back in the good old days, older guys didn't type, or if they did they were completely inept at it. Most did the "hunt and peck" technique although some like myself had taken typing in high school and were only partially inept. I can almost guarantee that even in a memo as short as this one, a guy would have had at least one mistake. And a mistake in those days, meant you left a reminder of that error on the page. In the early 70's one either used an old fashion eraser or the "high tech" strip of tape with white dust on the back that imprinted the correct letter over the old mistake. In either case, it was visible. And today my suspicions were confirmed by Killian's family who say that indeed he couldn't and didn't type.
Of course, one could suppose that the memo was typed by someone else such as the unit's clerk typist. Typically the unit clerk was a lower ranking soldier or airman and I don't believe that the commander, a Lieutenant Colonel, would want a 19 or 20 year old typing up personal correspondence designed to "cover his ass". There has been a hypothesis set forth that perhaps this Texas Air Guard unit had access to one of the latest super typewriters that did do some magic things with fonts and spacing, but to this I say Hooey. [I like the word hooey and don't get to use it enough]. No Regular Army or National Guard unit that I had contact with ever had the latest in office equipment or anything else for that matter. In fact, I remember in my National Guard unit, having to use a completely manual typewriter for our work. For younger readers that means even without electricity!
So as I write this, better scribes than I are further dissembling this story and CBS has called for an "internal investigation". But for me, the case is open and shut. I'm betting that some under 30ish demon of the Democratic Party is the author of these NAFD's and hadn't a naive clue that typewriters didn't function like computer word processors. To bad. This might have worked if he'd consulted a baby boomer.
At the risk of being the only person in the Western DigiSphere not to comment on the CBS "now apparently forged documents" [NAFD's] I will do so now, hopefully with brevity and wisdom....OK, let's shoot for brevity.
I do, however, have some expert wisdom on the subject being the geriatric sort who spent decades typing on manual typewriters, some of it in the Texas National Guard, and later transitioning to digital wordprocessing. Apparently more expert wisdom than anyone at CBS.
Like most people of the Blog persuasion, I was truly amazed at the speed with which the story broke in the BlogWorld and made it to the general media arena, the MSMİ. I found the story Thursday at mid morning on my office computer and by the time I watched the ABC Evening News with Peter Jenkinsİ mention had been made of the anamolies in the documents [kudos, for once to ABC]. By the time I did my at home evening perusal of my usual Blogs, the story was all over the web...and with 100's of helpful comments.
Now to my take of the documents...and in particular the main one in question, the LTC. Killian "CYA" memo.
Much has been said, and rightly so, about the fonts, kerning, spacing and so on...the formatting of the document. This is important, especially the superscripted "th" which was not available on any known typewriter of the early 70's and of course is an automatic feature [unless disabled] of modern day MS Wordİ. But my doubts were based on things more basic, things I know about and have experience with.
One of the first Blog articles I read had side by side comparisons of the NAFD memo and a newly created copy of the memo done on MS Wordİ. They were identical and what are the odds of that occuring by chance? Nil to zilch. Having written 100's of letters on a typewriter, the telling feature for me was the placement of the date, just to the right of center above the body of the text,exactly where MS Wordİ places it by default. To do this on a typewriter, the operator would have to either set a tab at that particular spot, release the carriage and move it over to that exact spot or use the space bar about 40 times to achieve that position. I can tell you as an ex manual typewriter user...we just didn't do that. We normally set the date at either the left or right margin...and more often the left margin, because that was were the carriage was by default.
Another basic and telling clue to me was the neatness of the CYA memo. I'm betting that LTC. Killian was in his mid to late 40's when he supposedly wrote the note. Back in the good old days, older guys didn't type, or if they did they were completely inept at it. Most did the "hunt and peck" technique although some like myself had taken typing in high school and were only partially inept. I can almost guarantee that even in a memo as short as this one, a guy would have had at least one mistake. And a mistake in those days, meant you left a reminder of that error on the page. In the early 70's one either used an old fashion eraser or the "high tech" strip of tape with white dust on the back that imprinted the correct letter over the old mistake. In either case, it was visible. And today my suspicions were confirmed by Killian's family who say that indeed he couldn't and didn't type.
Of course, one could suppose that the memo was typed by someone else such as the unit's clerk typist. Typically the unit clerk was a lower ranking soldier or airman and I don't believe that the commander, a Lieutenant Colonel, would want a 19 or 20 year old typing up personal correspondence designed to "cover his ass". There has been a hypothesis set forth that perhaps this Texas Air Guard unit had access to one of the latest super typewriters that did do some magic things with fonts and spacing, but to this I say Hooey. [I like the word hooey and don't get to use it enough]. No Regular Army or National Guard unit that I had contact with ever had the latest in office equipment or anything else for that matter. In fact, I remember in my National Guard unit, having to use a completely manual typewriter for our work. For younger readers that means even without electricity!
So as I write this, better scribes than I are further dissembling this story and CBS has called for an "internal investigation". But for me, the case is open and shut. I'm betting that some under 30ish demon of the Democratic Party is the author of these NAFD's and hadn't a naive clue that typewriters didn't function like computer word processors. To bad. This might have worked if he'd consulted a baby boomer.
