Killian Documents Controversy - Authentication Issues

Authentication Issues

No generally recognized document experts have positively authenticated the memos. Since CBS used only faxed and photocopied duplicates, authentication to professional standards is impossible, regardless of the provenance of the originals.

Document experts have challenged the authenticity of the documents as photocopies of valid originals on a variety of grounds ranging from anachronisms of their typography, their quick reproducibility using modern technology, and to errors in their content and style.

The CBS independent panel report did not specifically take up the question of whether the documents were forgeries, but retained a document expert, Peter Tytell, who concluded the documents used by CBS were most likely produced using modern technology.

Tytell concluded ... that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle the Killian documents were not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.

Dr. David Hailey, director of the Interactive Media Research Labs in the English Department of Utah State University has argued that the Killian documents were not in Times New Roman, and were produced on an unspecified typewriter, though he does not assert their authenticity.