WASHINGTON — It’s the open secret that nobody in government wants to talk about: That cherished presidential signature that’s tucked away in a scrapbook or framed for all to see might never have passed under the president’s hand.
For decades, presidents of both parties have let an autopen do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to scrawling their signatures. The machine was recently put to use signing a bill into law, apparently a first.
Overseas and out of reach when lawmakers passed an extension of certain provisions of the Patriot Act, President Barack Obama employed the autopen to sign it, a step the White House has been mum about ever since.
“I always heard the autopen was the second-most guarded thing in the White House after the president,” says Jack Shock, who had permission to wield former President Bill Clinton’s autopen as his director of presidential letters and messages.
Jim Cicconi, who oversaw the use of autopens for President George H.W. Bush, recalls that the plastic signature templates for the machines — yes, there was more than one autopen — would wear out from repeated use.
Ronald Reagan had 22 signature templates, including “Ron,” “Dutch” and other iterations, to boost the aura of authenticity surrounding his fake signatures, says Stephen Koschal, an autograph authenticator who two years ago published a guide to presidential autopen signatures.
Obama took the presidential autopen out of the closet and into a new realm.
While traveling in Europe last month, Obama directed his staff in Washington to use an autopen to sign into law an extension of certain Patriot Act powers to fight terrorism. The legislation had been approved by Congress at the last minute, and there was no time to fly it to France for Obama’s signature before the anti-terrorism powers expired.
It was believed to be the first time a president had used an autopen to sign legislation, and that didn’t sit well with a number of Republicans. Twenty-one GOP House members sent Obama a letter June 17 asking him to re-sign the legislation with his actual signature because use of the autopen “appears contrary to the Constitution.” Obama’s team relied on a 29-page legal analysis crafted during the administration of President George W. Bush to argue that the faux signature passed constitutional muster.
While a number of White House aides from administrations past were willing to discuss the presidential autopen, that kind of talk is frowned upon while a president is in office.
“You want to preserve the president’s semblance of reaching out and being connected,” says Shock. “But the cold hard facts are that when you get 10,000 letters a day, he can’t possibly handle all that kind of correspondence himself.”
Bob Olding, whose company is the leading manufacturer of autopens, won’t discuss his clientele.
“I’m not going to help you,” he said. “Our customers do not want anyone else knowing they have these machines.”
Olding did reveal, though, that “when there’s a major change in government, we get an uptick in business.”
Olding is president of Rockville, Md.-based Damilic Corp., whose signature machines run from $2,000 to $10,000.
Autopens have been used by presidents since Dwight Eisenhower, says Koschal, and President John Kennedy put them to heavy use. Many presidents have had secretaries sign their names to correspondence and documents, he says.
So how to tell the difference between a real signature and an autopen version? Koschal says the best way to detect a fake is to lay the signature in question over a known autopen version and hold the two documents up to a light. If they’re exactly the same, chances are that the top one was created with an autopen. But presidents often create multiple autopen signatures to make it less obvious when they’re letting a machine do the work.
As for Obama’s autopen signature on the extension of Patriot Act powers, it may pass the constitutional test but not Koschal’s.
“I’d pay peanuts for it,” the autograph authenticator said. “It’s not a real signature.”
Did you know?
Autopens have been used by presidents
since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.
Older versions look like a drafting table
and are too big to fit through a doorway.
Newer models, with microprocessors and
digital controls, can sit on a tabletop.
Bob Olding, president of Damilic Corp.,
the leading autopen manufacturer, won’t
say he produces the automatic signing
machines for the White House. He did say
there is an uptick in sales when a change
in government happens. In the photo below,
Olding anchors paper as the Atlantic Plus
tabletop autopen produces a signature.
In May, President Barack Obama authorized
the use of an autopen to sign legislation
while he was in France. It was believed
to be the first use of an autopen to
sign legislation, and the move was poorly
received by some. The White House won’t
discuss the use, however, and emphasizes
Obama’s personal signature on the 10 letters
he mails each day to citizens.
