New Evidence On TANG Memos
Tue Sep 14, 2004 at 06:35:04 PM PDT
I know that "Typewriter-Gate" is getting rather old, but the Dallas Morning News seems to have another scoop on this. Basically, Killian's secretary has said that although the content is basically correct, the documents WERE NOT typed at the base. She mentions the incorrect terminology, as well as stylistic errors and that the base had an Olympia and later a Selectric, neither of which were variable type.
My theory is that somebody had to retype the memos without having an original copy (it being stored somewhere), and typed it in word. They probably made minor errors in recollection. Then, CBS thought those documents were authentic, and published them.
The one remaining question is the signature. Any thoughts on how that works?
(excerpted in Extended entry)
Full story is at URL (
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/091504dnpolnatguard.1185eb4ae.html
)
Former secretary says she didn't type memos
06:24 PM CDT on Tuesday, September 14, 2004
By PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News
HOUSTON - The former secretary for the Texas Air National Guard colonel who supposedly authored memos critical of President Bush's Guard service said Tuesday that the documents are fake, but that they reflect real documents that once existed.
Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1956 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, said she prided herself on meticulous typing, and the memos first disclosed by CBS News last week were not her work.
"These are not real," she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. "They're not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him."
...
But, she said, telltale signs of forgery abounded in the four memos, which contained the supposed writings of her ex-boss, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.
She said the typeface on the documents did not match either of the two typewriters that she used during her time at the Guard. She identified those machines as a mechanical Olympia, which was replaced by an IBM Selectric in the early 1970s.
...
"The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones," she said.
She said that the culture of the time was that men didn't type office-related documents, and she expressed doubt that Lt. Col. Killian would have typed the memos. She said she would typically type his memos from his handwritten notes, which she would then destroy.
...
For instance, she said, the use of the words "billets" and a reference to the "administrative officer" of Mr. Bush's squadron reflect Army terminology rather than the Air National Guard. Some news reports attribute the CBS reports to a former Army National Guard officer who has a longstanding dispute with the Guard and has previously maintained that the president's record was sanitized.
Mrs. Knox also cited stylistic differences in the form of the notes, such as the signature on the right side of the document, rather than the left, where she would have put it.
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