Hitler's Forged Diaries

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later learned about one incident in Irving's text that only Dietrich could have provided, and Dietrich had not talked to Irving. Phalen protested. Meanwhile, Hughes had broken years of silence, using a speaker-telephone to address a group of reporters who knew his voice, and had denounced Irving's work as a hoax. Squads of detectives joined in the hunt. Irving's deception collapsed. He and his wife confessed to conspiracy and grand larceny and served prison terms of about 18 months.

Why were respected experts in the art of forgery detection initially taken in by the fabrications of such prolific deceivers as Irving and the two mother-daughter teams? Irving contends that hired experts tend to render the favorable judgments that publishers seeking their guidance wish to hear. Once a forger masters his subject's handwriting idiosyncrasies and ways of thinking, Irving claims, sheer quantity is no problem. "Once you do one page," he says, "you can do 20. Once you do 20, you can do a book."

Most forgery detectives disagree. They believe they have too many weapons to let any manuscript, long or short, escape detection—once they have a fair chance to compare fully the real and the suspect writing. Many are convinced that their trained eyes, aided perhaps only by the magnification of microscopes or enlarged copies projected onto white screens, can spot even the most skilled forgery.

What do they look for? First, for the flow of the handwriting. Writing in which each letter of the alphabet is too carefully consistent over too many lines or over different periods of time is a telltale sign of forgery. In writing naturally and quickly, people tend to vary the formation of most characters ever so slightly, often subconsciously. Even their writing posture or how they feel about what they are writing can create minute variations. "Your signature on a $50,000 mortgage, is a little more careful than on a $10 check," notes FBI Special Agent James Lile, an expert in the documents section of the bureau's crime laboratory.

Lile says revealing information can be found even in the letter of the alphabet that is simplest to reproduce: e. "You look at the size of the loop, the length of the elongation. Is it broad or narrow? Is the pressure greatest going up or down?" New York Autograph Dealer Mary Benjamin watches for ampersands, which, she says, she has never seen vary when made by the same hand.

There is a usually unspoken professional admiration between the masters of such analysis and the masters of the fabrications. In his revealing account, Great Forgers and Famous Fakes, Autograph Dealer Hamilton quotes a letter from Forger Arthur Sutton, whom Hamilton had helped to expose, causing Sutton to plead guilty to fraud. "I have always had the greatest respect for you," wrote Sutton, who crafted the signatures of famous figures from Sitting Bull to Richard Nixon and Marilyn Monroe. "I am glad I have been caught and can promise I will never forge any autographs ever again." Admitted Hamilton, in a public aside to Sutton: "It is the forgeries and fakes that give piquancy and excitement to the chase. Without them, philography would be a pretty dull pursuit."

The slippage of handwriting standards, particularly in the U.S., has made the modern forgery detective's task easier.