WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- The Cybercast News Service reported Thursday documents casting doubt on the U.S. president's national guard service might be fakes.
CNS, an Internet-based news organization affiliated with a conservative media watchdog group, said the 32-year-old documents used by CBS to cast "a negative light on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, may have been forged using a current word processing program."
The news organization said three independent typography tests indicated "they were suspicious of the documents" because they used a modern Microsoft Word font feature that was not available in 1972 or 1973.
The documents were featured Wednesday on "60 Minutes II" and allegedly came from the personal files of former Bush squadron Cmdr. Jerry B. Killian, now dead. CBS will not say how it obtained them.
John Collins, the chief technology officer of Bitstream, Inc., cited the use of a superscript "th" in one document as a reason to be suspicious.
"That would not be possible on a typewriter or even a word processor at that time," Collins said. "It is a very surprising thing to see a letter with that date (May 4, 1972) on it. There's no question that that is surprising. Does that force you to conclude that it's a fake? No. But it certainly raises the eyebrows."
