It was claimed the documents he used were forgeries due to the use of a proportional font, but many printers back then, like the IBM Selectrics, had proportional font capabilities. They were just not as common as the uniform spacing printers.
Naaaaaah, I remember all that! I was very up on the typing of the time (were we up to printers?? I think it was about those word processors, IIRC). It was definitely fake. I remember being very shocked; Dan Rather was something of a hero to me, for excellent reasons, but he had a feet-of-clay moment there.
Hasn't he been in Hawaii all this time? Not quite as bad as Purgatorio, but still.
You are absolutely and completely wrong.
The documents were definitely NOT faked.
First
They clearly were written out by hand on an IBM Selectric typewriter, which used a ball that had proportional fonts.
Meaning that unlike most type writers, it used less space for skinny characters like in 'i', than a wide character like a 'w'.
Anyone who ever used an IBM Selectric type writer, which is most people, should know that.
There is absolutely no way to know whether someone used an IBM Selectronic typewriter or used a word processing program and a printer, by comparing the spacing.
Word processors deliberately copied the spacing of the IBM Selectronic type writer, as their attempted standard.
Second is that there were plenty of word processors by 1968.
{...
The word processor was a stand-alone office machine in the 1960s, combining the keyboard text-entry and printing functions of an
electric typewriter with a recording unit, either tape or
floppy disk (as used by the
Wang machine) with a simple dedicated computer processor for the editing of text.
[1] Although features and designs varied among manufacturers and models, and new features were added as technology advanced, the first word processors typically featured a
monochrome display and the ability to save documents on
memory cards or
diskettes. Later models introduced innovations such as
spell-checking programs, and improved formatting options.
As the more versatile combination of
personal computers and
printers became commonplace, and computer software applications for word processing became popular, most business machine companies stopped manufacturing dedicated word processor machines. As of 2009 there were only two U.S. companies, Classic and
AlphaSmart, which still made them.
[2][
needs update] Many older machines, however, remain in use. Since 2009, Sentinel has offered a machine described as a "word processor", but it is more accurately a highly specialised microcomputer used for accounting and publishing.
[3]
...}
Third is that if it were a word processor instead of an IBM Selectronic, then you would have seen a matrix of dots forming each letter, and there were no signs of that. The characters were smooth, like an IBM Selectronic.
Anyone claiming there is proof of faked documents, is just crazy.
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