WHY THE TRUMAN - FORRESTAL MEMO IS NOT A FAKE

by Stanton Friedman

"One of the most serious charges made by Klass towards the end of 
1989 and in early 1990 was that the signature on the Truman-Forrestal 
(TF) memo is identical to that on a brief letter from Truman to Bush 
(TB) on October 1, 1947.  The reasoning is that no two signatures are 
identical.  If they are, one is a forgery of the other.  In some of his 
writing, he admits that the Truman-Forrestal signature is 3.2% longer 
(hardly identical) than that on the Truman-Bush memo, but explains it 
away on the basis that it would have taken three xeroxings to get the 
fake done.  In a Skeptical Inquirer article (Ref.17) he shows part of 
each memo even including the measurements of the lengths of different 
portions of the signature as done by William L. Moore, but only for the 
Truman-Forrestal memo.  He doesn't show the ones for the Truman-Bush 
nor the top portions of either which include the letterhead markings of 
White House, Washington, and he also doesn't include the date on the 
Truman-Forrestal.

Frankly this is deceptive on Klass' part because, if he had included 
the measurements on Truman-Bush and the ratios of the lengths on the
Truman-Forrestal to those on the Truman-Bush signatures, the reader 
would know that Klass had apparently misrepresented the facts:

(1) The signatures are clearly NOT identical.  Klass says hold them 
    up to light.  I did.  They DO NOT MATCH.

(2) The ratio of the lengths of the "Harry" portions is only 1.012 
    while it is 1.032--1.04 for the "Truman" portions and most 
    important, EXACTLY 1.000 for the letterhead portions.

(3) Clearly, xerox stretching has to be by the same ratio on all parts 
    of a sheet of paper.

(4) Klass provides no comparisons or even a claim that a comparison 
    had been made between other pairs of Truman signatures.  Clearly,
    Truman would have signed a great many letters, memos, etc. If there
    are other pairs equally similar, then the similarity between the 
    Truman-Forrestal and Truman-Bush signatures means nothing.

(5) Klass makes a big deal about the slip of the fountain pen to create 
    a little extra line at the upper right portion of the "H" on both 
    signatures, though of different thickness. He doesn't bother to point 
    out that there are at least three other signatures in our posession 
    showing the same kind of extra mark.

(6) Klass also claims that a forensics expert (a former CIA man at that!) 
    says the type is that of a Smith Corona typewriter not available until
    the mid-1960's.  This is a very difficult call and other examiners 
    disagree.  There seems to be no doubt, however, that the typwriter 
    used for the "24, 1947." portion of the date does predate 1947. 
    Surely if a forger had such an old typwriter, why would he use it 
    only for that portion of the date instead of for the whole memo? 
    This makes no sense at all.  

[The typewriter issue has since been resolved.  Other White House memos
from the same era have been found with the same type font and style.]

(7) Klass appears to be guilty of misrepresentation in his writings about
    the signatures and other aspects of the MJ-12 documents.  He speaks 
    of a "smoking gun" in both a Sept. 20 1989, "White Paper" and an 
    article "New Evidence of MJ-12 Hoax" in the Skeptical Inquirer 
    (Winter 1990).  I am preparing a detailed critique but wish to 
    emphasize certain points here in addition to those noted above.  His
    seemingly impressive scholarly reference is the book "Questioned 
    Documents" by Albert S. Osborn, 1978, from which he extracts this 
    sentence: "The fact that two signatures are nearly alike is not alone
    necessarily an indication of forgery of one or both but the question
    is whether they are SUSPICIOUSLY alike."  (his emphasis).  He goes on 
    about the extra scratch in the H in "Harry."