I commented this morning that 8 x 10.5 was the government paper size in 1972, and I just saw this again in Kerry Spot. Here is the background, from the American Forest and Paper Association:

Not until World War I or shortly after was a standard paper size agreed to in the United States. Interestingly enough, within six months of each other, two different paper sizes were set as the standard; one for the government and one for the rest of us….

In 1921, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget established an interagency advisory group with the President’s approval called the Permanent Conference on Printing which established the 8″ x 10½” as the general U.S. government letterhead standard. This extended an earlier establishment made by the former President Hoover, the Secretary of Commerce at the time, who established the 8″ x 10½” as the standard letterhead size for his department….

Now, during the same year, a Committee on the Simplification of Paper Sizes consisting of printing industry representatives was appointed to work with the Bureau of Standards as part of Hoover’s program for the Elimination of Waste in Industry. This group came up with basic sizes for all types of printing and writing papers. The size for “letter” was a 17″ x 22″ sheet while the “legal” size was 17″ x 28″ sheet. The later known U.S. letter format was these sizes halved (8 ½” x 11″ and 8 ½” by 14″)….

Once these committees found out about each other a couple years later, they agreed to disagree until the early 1980′s when Reagan finally proclaimed that the 8.5″ x 11″ was the official standard sized paper.

Any military memorandum in 1973 would have been on 8 x 10 1/2, and the CBS memo’s clearly were not, showing once again the amateur nature of their forgery.

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