The CBS Killian Memos

This is a story from September of 2004. We don't yet know all the details. The overall view is that CBS News was given some memos purporting to pertain to President Bush's National Guard service. After a few of days of analysis by bloggers, it became apparent that the memos as released by CBS were modern forgeries, not documents typed in 1973. The fake documents were an attempt to deceive (successful for a while) and are rightfully called a hoax. This hoax had as its ultimate target all of us - it appeared to be an attempt to influence the upcoming election. Before that deception could occur the hoaxer had to fool CBS News. Seems that was not difficult.

Some, but not all, details are reasonably well-known.

  1. CBS got the memos from one Bill Burkett, a former Texas Guardsman who strongly dislikes Mr. Bush.
  2. Mr. Burkett claims that he got the memos from someone else, who he refuses to identify.
  3. Mr. Burkett initially lied to CBS about his source for the documents.
  4. Document examiners engaged by CBS gave warnings about the authenticity of the documents.
  5. The memos can be shown to be fakes on the basis of typographical evidence alone. Analysis of the content is not necessary.
  6. CBS used the documents in their story in spite of the warnings.
  7. CBS defended the authenticity of the documents even as evidence of forgery piled up in the blogosphere.
  8. The documents are low-grade forgeries; the fakery was obvious.
  9. CBS issued a statement acknowledging that the documents might be fakes and apologizing for using them.

There are still important details that are not known.

  1. Who actually created the forged memos?
  2. Was Mr. Burkett aware that the memos were fake when he gave them to CBS?
  3. What was the motive for the hoax?
  4. Why were the documents such low-grade forgeries?
  5. Why did CBS fall for those low-grade fakes?
  6. Why did CBS continue to defend the memos after it became obvious that they were fakes?
We'll have to keep following the story to see if anyone can come up with any answers to these and other questions.

If you would like to see the fake memos for yourself, here they are.

Suggestion: study them closely to see if you can see the signs that screamed HOAX to those with enough background to recognize them.
For reference, here is a Bush personnel record released from DOD archives; it WAS prepared on a typewriter. Look at the format carefully.

For deep details of the typographical analysis, see Dr. Joseph Newcomer's excellent dissection of the typography of the memos. He demonstrates quite scientifically that the memos were forgeries. He actually outlines, then uses, the scientific method to do it.

The Washington Post studied the memos and found numerous reasons to conclude that the memos were fakes (thelink is now gone).

Report of the Independent Review Panel headed by Dick Thornburgh







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