Martin Tytell - Forensic Analysis

Forensic Analysis

Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury in 1950 based on evidence that extensively relied on claims that documents passed to Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers had been created on a typewriter Hiss and his wife had owned, after the prosecution showed that the typewriter's unique combination of printing pattern and flaws matched those on the documents in question. Hiss's lawyers then hired Tytell to create a typewriter that would be indistinguishable from the one the Hiss's owned. Tytell spent two years creating a facsimile Woodstock typewriter whose print characteristics would match the peculiarities of the Hiss typewriter, which was used as one of the primary justifications for an unsuccessful appeal of the verdict in the case.

The senior Tytell retired from the typewriter business in 2000, and his son closed the repair shop in 2001, converting the Fulton Street space for use by the forensic document research business that the family operated.

Tytell's son Peter is a forensic document expert, a practice that father and son developed to trace anonymous letters and documents such as wills to their source, using the unique "fingerprint" of each particular typewriter. Peter testified for the prosecution to help gain a conviction in a case that involved documents that were said to connect President John F. Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe and mobster Sam Giancana, and made use of typewriters owned by the Tytell's repair store. His son's expertise was utilized in the investigation of the Killian documents controversy, which involved six documents critical of President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard and the use of four of these documents which were presented as authentic in a 60 Minutes Wednesday broadcast aired by CBS on September 8, 2004.

Martin Tytell's daughter, Pamela, earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York City. She lives in Paris, France where she publishes and teaches. Author of numerous articles on psychoanalysis which have appeared in Encyclopaedia Universalis, Magazine Littéraire,etc., her book La Plume sur le Divan: psychanalyse et littérature en France was translated into Japanese and Italian. She is Maître de Conférences in the French University system and "Grandes Ecoles".