Was the Truman Memo Typed on a Later Machine?

Introduction

The claim that the alleged 24 September 1947 Truman-to-Forrestal memorandum was typed on a machine that did not yet exist sounds like one of the cleanest possible arguments against the MJ-12 documents. Questioned-document examiner Peter Tytell was reported to have identified its typography with a Corona or Smith-Corona style introduced in the 1960s. If that identification were secure, the memorandum could not have been typed in 1947.

The difficulty is that another questioned-document examiner, James A. Black, later reached the opposite conclusion. In a paid examination in 1998, Black said the visible type matched an Underwood Standard exemplar from May 1940. The dispute therefore does not yield a simple typographical anachronism. It leaves two incompatible expert identifications, made under different circumstances and apparently without a published independent third examination capable of resolving them. Even Philip J. Klass, who strongly rejected the MJ-12 documents, acknowledged the conflict and argued that another expert should examine the question.[Center for Inquiry]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comCenter for Inquiry SKEPTICS UFO NEWSLETTER By Philip J. Klass…

Peter Tytell’s reported Corona identification

Peter Tytell was not simply a UFO commentator offering an impression about an old typewriter. He was a questioned-document specialist whose expertise was taken seriously by sceptical writers and, initially, by MJ-12 researchers themselves. Stanton Friedman acknowledged that copies of the Eisenhower Briefing Document and Truman memorandum had been sent to Tytell. The disagreement concerns what evidential weight should be attached to the conclusions Tytell subsequently communicated.[Medium]medium.comBook Review: Kevin D. Randle’s CASE MJ-12: THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE GOVERNMENT’S UFO CONSPIRACIES | by Richard Geldreich, Jr. | Ph…

Philip J. Klass reported Tytell’s conclusion in particularly definite terms: the supposed 1947 memorandum had been typed using a Corona typewriter first produced in 1963. Klass regarded this as an independently fatal chronological problem. His Skeptics UFO Newsletter later juxtaposed Tytell’s finding directly with Black’s Underwood identification, making clear that the two experts had reached incompatible conclusions about the same disputed memorandum.[Center for Inquiry]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comCenter for Inquiry SKEPTICS UFO NEWSLETTER By Philip J. Klass…

Kevin Randle gave a somewhat more specific version of Tytell’s opinion. According to Randle’s account of his conversations with him, Tytell considered the typeface most consistent with a Smith-Corona P102 used on machines after 1966. The exact date therefore varies in retellings — 1963 in Klass’s account, later in Randle’s more specific description — but the crucial claim is the same: Tytell placed the relevant typography well after 1947.[Scribd]scribd.comKevin D. RandleKevin D. Randle - Case MJ-12 - The True Story Behind The Governments's UFO Conspiracies-Speaking Volumes, LLC (2018) | PDF | Securi…

That distinction between a general resemblance and a secure identification matters. A typewriter style demonstrably introduced in 1963 or 1966 would establish an anachronism; merely saying that the typing looks like a later Corona would not. The surviving published discussion makes Tytell’s view important, but less transparent than an ideal forensic finding because the underlying comparative work is not available as a detailed formal report.

Friedman repeatedly stressed this weakness. His account says that Tytell made no formal written statement because he wanted to be paid for a full study; Friedman consequently characterised the conclusion as an informal or casual opinion. Randle disputed the implication that Tytell’s judgement was therefore casual in substance, saying Tytell had examined the material carefully but would not provide the written report without payment. In other words, even the participants disagree over how to characterise the status of Tytell’s examination.[Medium]medium.comBook Review: Kevin D. Randle’s CASE MJ-12: THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE GOVERNMENT’S UFO CONSPIRACIES | by Richard Geldreich, Jr. | Ph…

This is more than a procedural quibble. Without Tytell’s full report, readers cannot readily inspect which characters he regarded as diagnostic, which Corona exemplars he compared them with, how reproduction quality affected the comparison, or why similar-looking earlier type designs were excluded. The public argument largely consists of other researchers reporting his conclusion rather than a published forensic demonstration by Tytell himself.

James Black’s pre-war Underwood alternative

The strongest direct challenge to the Corona chronology came from James A. Black. Robert and Ryan Wood, who were attempting to establish the authenticity of various alleged MJ-12 documents, commissioned Black to examine the Truman-Forrestal material. On 13 November 1998 he concluded that the memorandum was likely produced by an Underwood Standard and that the visible portions of its type matched an Underwood exemplar typed in May 1940.[The Black Vault]theblackvault.comThe Black Vault Update on Operation Majestic 12 DocumentsThe Black VaultUpdate on Operation Majestic 12 Documents - The Black Vault Case FilesJanuary 17, 2024…Published: January 17, 2024

That conclusion changes the chronological argument completely. An Underwood type style demonstrably represented by a May 1940 specimen presents no inherent problem for a memorandum dated September 1947. Black’s identification does not prove that the memorandum was actually typed in 1947, much less that its MJ-12 contents are genuine. It establishes a narrower point: if Black’s identification is correct, the typography cannot be rejected simply because the relevant typewriter style was unavailable in 1947.

The Woods’ published account said that Black maintained a large reference collection of typewriter impressions and compared questioned typing with exemplars from that collection. Their summary of the forensic work consequently treated the Truman memorandum as consistent with the 1940 Underwood specimen. A published table describing the examination likewise says that all the visible typing was consistent with the May 1940 Underwood Standard exemplar.[CiteSeerX]citeseerx.ist.psu.eduOpen source on psu.edu.

There is an important caution in Black’s own wording, however. His reported statement says the memorandum was “likely” typed by an Underwood Standard and that the portions of the font that could be clearly seen matched the 1940 exemplar. That is more qualified than later promotional descriptions saying he had “definitely identified” the typewriter. The distinction matters when the evidence being examined is reproduced rather than an unquestionably original typed sheet.[The Black Vault]theblackvault.comThe Black Vault Update on Operation Majestic 12 DocumentsThe Black VaultUpdate on Operation Majestic 12 Documents - The Black Vault Case FilesJanuary 17, 2024…Published: January 17, 2024

Black’s conclusions also cannot reasonably be dismissed merely because his examination was commissioned by researchers sympathetic to MJ-12. Klass himself described Black as a Fellow of the Questioned Documents section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Rather than claiming that Black lacked relevant credentials, Klass framed the problem as an unresolved disagreement between specialists.[Center for Inquiry]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comCenter for Inquiry SKEPTICS UFO NEWSLETTER By Philip J. Klass…

Nor was Black simply willing to endorse every feature of the memorandum. In the same examination he reportedly considered Truman’s signature most likely to be a reproduction, citing characteristics of the reproduced ink line. That finding is outside the narrow Corona-versus-Underwood question, but it is useful when assessing Black’s role: his examination did not simply produce uniformly authenticity-friendly conclusions.[The Black Vault]theblackvault.comThe Black Vault Update on Operation Majestic 12 DocumentsThe Black VaultUpdate on Operation Majestic 12 Documents - The Black Vault Case FilesJanuary 17, 2024…Published: January 17, 2024

Why the disagreement blocks a simple anachronism claim

The Corona argument is sometimes repeated in compressed form: the memorandum uses a 1960s typeface, therefore it is a forgery. The published record does not support stating the first half of that proposition as an uncontested forensic fact.

There are instead two materially different expert claims:

• Tytell: according to Klass and Randle, the typography corresponded to a Corona or Smith-Corona style that post-dated the memorandum by well over a decade. If correct, that would be a decisive chronological contradiction.[Center for Inquiry]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comCenter for Inquiry SKEPTICS UFO NEWSLETTER By Philip J. Klass…
• Black: the legible typography was consistent with an Underwood Standard exemplar typed in May 1940. If correct, the alleged 1947 date presents no typographical anachronism of this kind.[The Black Vault]theblackvault.comThe Black Vault Update on Operation Majestic 12 DocumentsThe Black VaultUpdate on Operation Majestic 12 Documents - The Black Vault Case FilesJanuary 17, 2024…Published: January 17, 2024

The asymmetry in the documentation makes neither proposition a satisfactory one-line verdict. Black’s actual conclusion has been repeatedly reproduced in writing, including its cautious wording and the date of his comparison exemplar. Tytell’s conclusion comes principally through Klass, Randle and other participants describing what he told them; Friedman says Tytell never produced a formal report, while Randle maintains that the absence of a report reflected Tytell’s requirement for payment rather than uncertainty about his judgement.[Medium]medium.comBook Review: Kevin D. Randle’s CASE MJ-12: THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE GOVERNMENT’S UFO CONSPIRACIES | by Richard Geldreich, Jr. | Ph…

Klass’s reaction to Black is particularly revealing. In 2001 he did not resolve the contradiction by demonstrating that Black’s Underwood comparison was technically impossible. Instead, Skeptics UFO Newsletter explicitly noted that Black disagreed with Tytell and proposed obtaining a third opinion. Klass pointed to Speckin Forensic Laboratories, which had expertise in dating typed material and a large typewriter-font database, as an obvious candidate for such a comparison.[Center for Inquiry]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comCenter for Inquiry SKEPTICS UFO NEWSLETTER By Philip J. Klass…

That is a considerably more defensible description of the evidence than either side’s strongest rhetoric. The Woods subsequently declared the typewriter question settled in favour of the Underwood, while sceptical accounts continued to present the Corona identification as evidence of forgery. The primary dispute visible in the published record was never eliminated merely by repeating either conclusion.[Bluebook Files]files.bluebookfiles.orgBluebook Files(THE ROADTO RECOVERY 113Bluebook Files(THE ROADTO RECOVERY 113

What the typography can and cannot establish

The evidential logic is straightforward even though the identification is not. Typewriter dating is potentially powerful because it can establish a terminus post quem: a document cannot have been typed before the technology or type design that produced it existed. A secure identification of the Truman memorandum with a post-1960 Corona design would therefore be much stronger than saying its formatting looks unusual for a White House memorandum.

Black’s Underwood alternative does not reverse that logic and authenticate the paper. A 1940 typewriter could obviously still have been used by somebody making a false 1947 document decades later. Compatibility with a pre-1947 machine removes one proposed impossibility; it does not establish when the typing actually occurred.

The surviving material also illustrates why reproduction quality matters in typewriter attribution. Black’s reported wording specifically limits his comparison to portions of the type font that can be clearly visualised, while the Woods’ summary identifies the examined material as a photograph of the Truman-Forrestal page from the Eisenhower Briefing Document. That is a less favourable evidential situation than examining an undisputed original sheet, where impressions, ribbon characteristics and fine type defects may provide additional diagnostic information.[CiteSeerX]citeseerx.ist.psu.eduOpen source on psu.edu.

There is a related typographical complication in the date. Black’s examination reported that the numerals in “September 24, 1947” sit above the text line, which he interpreted as consistent with the paper having been removed and later reinserted for part of the date. Earlier critics also noticed differences within the date and regarded them as evidence of construction using more than one typing operation. This is interesting, but it is logically separate from the Corona claim: using two machines or reinserting a sheet does not by itself establish that either machine was unavailable in 1947.[CiteSeerX]citeseerx.ist.psu.eduOpen source on psu.edu.

The careful conclusion is therefore narrower than either “the typewriter proves MJ-12 is fake” or “the Underwood proves the memorandum is genuine”. Tytell’s reported Corona identification would be devastating if demonstrated conclusively, because it would create a genuine chronological impossibility. Black’s documented Underwood comparison supplies a technically relevant pre-1947 alternative, preventing that impossibility from being treated as settled fact. The typography of the Truman memorandum remains evidence in dispute rather than a stand-alone resolution of the document’s authenticity.

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