The November 1992 cover of State Magazine references the pressing issue (at the time) of “going metric.” In 1988, Congress enacted a law that said metric was the way to go “as the preferred system of weights and measures for U.S. trade and commerce” and implementation of the metric system would improve the ability of the United States to compete in the global marketplace. Then-Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Administration Arthur W. Fort confirmed that the Department was moving along with the metric system, saying, “Our primary system is overseas, and it’s a metric world out there. With respect to all the rest of the world, it’s we Americans who up to now have been speaking a foreign language. Every major industrialized country in the world has gone over to metric.”
State Magazine archive
