Mikus Grinberg presumes Dr. Hailey's conclusions are more probable

> Mikus Grinbergs wrote: Sorry, Jules. Despite your arguments, I find Dr. Hailey more persuasive. His website imrl.usu.edu is currently down for reconstruction, but interested readers can find a copy of his draft document at http://wizbangblog.com/docs/Bush_Memos_v2.pdf. Get him to show you a 1972-73 typewriter with a 5 like the one in the memos. He will never be able to do it, because it is specific to Times and is the identifier for the font. The shape survives all distortions. > Hey -- get him to show you that 5 in his own specimens. Very odd, but there aren't any, even though the 5 appears in several places in the memos.> Hailey is persuasive only to people who don't know much about the technical issues. > > Thomas Phinney presented his case to a hundred typographers at the St Bride typography conference in London. Although there were many> questions, no one disagreed with his conclusions. > > He says, "I offered a $1000 cash reward to anybody present who could find a typewriter or low-end typesetting device from 1972 that can match the relative line endings of all the memos. Despite typographers as a group being a relatively time-rich and cash-poor bunch of people, I have had nobody come back to me with a proposed device." > JULES SIEGEL Apdo. 1764 77501-Cancun Q. Roo Mexico > http://www.cafecancun.com/portfolio You find Mr. Phinney more persuasive. I find Dr. Hailey more persuasive. Let's agree to disagree. I know next to nothing about typography (or typewriters), but my favorite candidate for the machine which produced the memos is the IBM Executive (which uses old-fashioned typebars), not one of the new-fangled "selectrics" that feature a "typeball". Military typists used lots of carbons; the IBM Executive had the reputation of producing easily readable carbon copies. Back in October I read someplace that one of __several__ typefaces could be ordered for the IBM Executive. If that is true, that implies to me that __several__ sets of typebars were available in the factory's parts bin. I am not convinced that the '5' which you find so unusual would NEVER have been installed in an IBM Executive. Actually, there still ought to be paperwork (non-Bush related) left over from that Air Force base from that time period. It ought to be feasible to search for such paperwork, and compare it with the memos. If similarities are found (perhaps in the '5'?), there goes that "it's not possible for the memos to be authentic" conclusion. mikus