You said: As a typist, you would know the pica or width value of each letter. A lower-case 'm' for instance, might be worth 5, while a lower-case 't' might be worth 2. As I recall, the widest of all letters on the old IBM Executives was 7 (upper case W). Then it's just a matter of totalling the value of each letter, adding an average of 3 picas between each word, dividing by 2, finding the center point, backspacing the required number of units, and then typing the line. The typist had the freedom to add or subtract units between words (or even units between letters in a word) so as to make an individual line or word come out "right."
Yes, but remember...this guy was just typing an address. Wouldn't "eyeballing" a center point work fine for that? Why on earth would he have gone to SUCH pains to make sure the thing was EXACTLY centered?
He wouldn't. It's a forgery. Fraud exposed! WTG freepers, and WTG Fox!
UPDATE 10: Reader Jon-Erik Prichard adds what strikes me as an especially persuasive point:[A]nother aspect of the type on [the August 18, 1973 memo] suggests, perhaps proves, forgery. 1. The type in the document is KERNED. Kerning is the typsetter's art of spacing various letters in such a manner that they are 'grouped' for better readability. Word processors do this automatically. NO TYPEWRITER CAN PHYSICALLY DO THIS.
To explain: the letter 'O' is curved on the outside. A letter such as 'T' has indented space under its cross bar. On a typewriter if one types an 'O' next to a 'T' then both letters remain separated by their physical space. When you type the same letters on a computer next to each other the are automatically 'kerned' or 'grouped' so that their individual spaces actually overlap. e. g., TO. As one can readily see the curvature of the 'O' nestles neatly under the cross bar of the 'T'. Two good kerning examples in the alleged memo are the word 'my' in the second line where 'm' and 'y' are neatly kerned and also the word 'not' in the fourth line where the 'o' and 't' overlap empty space. A typewriter doesn't 'know' what particular letter is next to another and can't make those types of aesthetic adjustments.
2. The kerning and proportional spacing in each of the lines of type track EXACTLY with 12 point Times Roman font on a six inch margin (left justified). Inother words, the sentences break just as they would on a computer and not as they would on a typewriter. Since the type on the memo is both proportionally spaced and kerned the lines of type break at certain instances (i.e., the last word in each line of the first paragraph are - 1. running, 2. regarding, 3. rating, 4. is, 5. either). If the memo was created on a typewriter the line breaks would be at different words (e. g., the word 'running' is at the absolute outside edge of the sentence and would probably not be on the first line).
3. The sentences have a wide variance in their AMOUNT of kerning and proportional spacing. Notice how the first line of the first paragraph seems squished together and little hard to read but the last line of the first paragraph has wider more open spacing. Even the characters themselves are squished in the first line (as a computer does automatically) and more spread out on the last line where there is more room.
There's no way a typewriter could 'set' the type in this memo and even a good typesetter using a Linotype machine of the era would have to spend hours getting this effect.
Hmmm...
Having been an enlisted man in the Army, let me assure you that some very talented people found themselves doing jobs very much below their highest capabilities.
Military life is not always fair. Some people get too much work and others get too little. When you get too little, sometimes a superior supplies more. Sometimes you get dismissed early instead. It was an art being able to predict which would be the case.
A clerk-typist might either tell his superior that he had too little to do, or he might figure out ahead of time the exact spacing required to center the unit's letter head. Once the numbers had been worked out the first time there would be no need to do it again.
The observation above, however, that the memo exhibits "kerning", that is that letter spacing is a function of specific adjacent letters, is, as has been stated, beyond the capabilities of the equipment available at the time.