Expert cited by CBS says he didn’t verify memos
WASHINGTON – The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush’s former squadron commander in the National Guard said Monday 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 Monday night’s “CBS Evening News,” 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’ 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.
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. Monday, 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.
In its broadcast Monday 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.