From A Research Project Report by David E. Hailey, Jr., Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director Interactive Media Research Laboratory.

ABSTRACT: The following evidence from a forensic examination of the Bush memos indicates that they were typed on a typewriter:

1. The specific font used is from a typewriter family in common use since 1905 and a typewriter capable of producing the spacing has been available since 1944.
2. The characters "e," "t," "s," and "a" show indications of physical damage and/or wear consistent with a well used typewriter.
3. The characters that are seldom used show no signs of damage or wear.
4. The quality of individual characters is inconsistent throughout the memos beyond expectations from photocopying and/or digitizing but quality is consistent with worn platen and variations in paper quality.
5. Overlapping characters occasionally indicate paper deformation consistent with hammered impressions.
6. Critical indicators of digital production or cut and paste production are missing.

Implications are that there is nothing in this evidence that would indicate the memos are inauthentic. Furthermore, from the point of view of the physical evidence in the documents (excluding any rhetorical evidence or external evidence, which is not examined in this study) no amount of additional research on the part of CBS would have lead them to exclude the documents from their 60 Minutes report.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: There are a number of reasons for identifying the physical source for the recently released memos indicating that President George Bush failed to meet his obligation to the Air National Guard and disobeyed both written and spoken orders to take a flight physical.

A careful forensic examination of even the worst copies may provide some evidence of the documents' authenticity or disprove their authenticity. For example, if the evidence demonstrates that the documents were originally digitally produced, it would disprove their authenticity.

On the other hand, if evidence indicates they were typewritten, it lends support to the credibility of CBS in general and to Dan Rather and his producers in particular. If evidence demonstrates that the memos were typewritten using a font usually available in the military, but less common among civilians, at least on this evidence they were right to air the memos.

Given the current extent of political animosity, the voice of indisputable evidence can be useful. In short, there is justification for a qualified, independent lab to examine the documents and make the results publicly available.

Forensic Evaluation on the CBS Documents.

Regardless how much we wish to believe that CBS's CSI - Crime Scene Investigation television series is real and that answers to forensic evidence are 100% correct, they are not.

Forensics is a method of determining probabilities - the highest attainable - in order to then leverage other factors, such as eyewitness testimony, to produce more exact answers. It is not an exact science in most of its realms. Of those realms the least exact; in fact, the most subjective are the analysis for type and signature.

Case in point, the vast number of so-called experts that have now surfaced concerning the CBS documents. But even after scores, yes, scores of experts have stated their case, there is no certainty that either the documents are 100% authentic or 100% fake.

After the surge of Internet blogger experts, who tend to have far fewer academic credentials and tested skill, weighed in to bully the effort, noted experts are now returning to say that indeed the documents show increasing signs of validity. For the first time in modern history, the vaunted experts didn't have to prove their legitimacy and credentials within this debate. And for all of the vaunted expertise given to modern computer technology, no one has of yet been able to recreate the documents to 100% standards. According to the highest qualified experts, this is not only possible, but would be expected since computer technology is a 100% replicated format.

But once the document experts are able to whiff at the prospect, we venture back to the functional experts. Within this group of people, we find Killian's own secretary who said she didn't type the documents, and they look fake, but that the contents were accurate and absolute. And while Killian's son said the documents were fake, the secretary openly attested that the lad just didn't know what was going on.

Whenever it all boils down, access or 'opportunity' as they say in forensic science, is the primary foundation for determining authenticity.

Who knew about what was going on? That question all comes back to LTC Killian and LTC Harris, both of whom are deceased. Then COL Bobby Hodges, when read the documents attested that the documents reflected the way Killian felt at the time and reflected documents that he had seen. The secretary, Mrs. Knox, attested that though she did not type the documents, the content was real and accurate. Who else would have had such access to the truth? Continued: http://imrl.usu.edu/bush_memo_study/index.htm

Bob Fertik of Democrats.com writes: Look what Paul Lukasiak found - a Proportional-Spaced document from the Texas Air National Guard in 1971! http://democrats.com/images/rose-proportional.gif. He found it among the documents (page 6) released by the Pentagon last Friday: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records/24sep04release.pdf and created a one-page version here: http://www.glcq.com/docs/(71-02-19)recognition_memo.pdf.

This is clearly not the identical font as the one in the "Killian" memos - the giveaway is the capital J, which drops well below the line in this "Rose" memo. http://democrats.com/images/killian-1a.gif

The "Rose" typewriter was probably in Austin, while the "Killian" typewriter was probably in Houston. However, it does prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Texas Air National Guard had a proportional-spaced typewriter in February 1971 - one full year before the first "Killian" memo!

Note: this is a must-read analysis of the "Killian" memos, which concludes they were typed on an IBM machine using the "Typewriter" font. http://imrl.usu.edu/bush_memo_study/index.htm.

David Hailey, Bob Fertik and Paul Lukasiak are all correct. Although the Bush cover-up squad and their allies in the media want to brush this under the rug, the troubling questions about Bush's special treatment and failure to serve honorably will not go away.