Hitler's Forged Diaries

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indentations made by a pen. A more sophisticated device called a Verisign was developed by the same team. A pen attached to a computer retraces a writing sample; the computer analyzes 16 separate writing tendencies, such as the pace, spacing and crossbars in key letters. In one recent test, 5,000 forged signatures were fed to the machine, which compared them with authentic ones. In only a single instance did a fake go undetected.

The prevalence of typewriters has complicated the forgery detective's task. "When I first started out in this business, I had most of the information about typewriters in my head," recalls James Conway, a retired U.S. Postal Service examiner in private practice in Alameda, Calif. "There were only five or six major typewriter manufacturers." Now there are more than a dozen. The widespread use of photocopiers gives the forger easy access to the handwriting of individuals or to documents he wishes to imitate.

Another new headache for the experts: government officials, executives and various celebrities who permit their names to be signed to routine papers by secretaries. In older times, secretaries usually attached their initials to such signatures. They rarely do that now, and often can imitate their employers' writing so well that even the bosses cannot tell except by remembering whether they signed a document. John Kennedy was the first President to let a secretary sign his routine papers. He also introduced the Autopen, a writing robot that can reproduce a signature several thousand times a day. Autograph Analyst Benjamin had to disillusion an ex-serviceman whose letter from J.F.K. to his parents would have been worth $1,000 if signed by the President. She found that a secretary had provided the signature, rendering the paper worthless.

Who is gaining in the ceaseless war between forger and detective? Most document analysts contend that modern techniques, plus the accumulated expertise of so many specialists, make the forgery of an extensive literary work or a historical document Like the Stern diaries much more difficult to carry out successfully. They doubt that any such hoax has gone undiscovered—although if it has, of course, they would not be aware of it.

It is in the more mundane, but often lucrative, field of forged checks, false signatures on credit cards and the fabrication of bogus passports, driver's licenses and other identification documents that the contemporary forger may be outrunning his pursuers. Los Angeles Graphologist Andrea McNichol blames the carelessness of banks and other institutions for making the forger's life easier. "Banks take no steps to protect themselves," she contends. "You could sign your name 'Jesus Christ,' and they would pass it." Sergeant Russell Meltzer of the Los Angeles police forgery division agrees. Says he: "Sometimes the victims should be prosecuted for stupidity, instead of the crooks for the crime."

One thing seems certain. In an age in which record-keeping and the resulting blizzard of paper keeps growing, the forger's furtive art is bound to flourish. "You can't be born or die or do much in between without a lot of paper," says Conway. Indeed, each bureaucrat seems unable to resist converting his musings to writing, each official transaction produces a document, each personal