I wondered about its American origins too. I vaguely remember a little detail in the novel Cryptonomicon where one of the characters (a Lieutenant in the Imperi

I wondered about its American origins too. I vaguely remember a little detail in the novel Cryptonomicon where one of the characters (a Lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII) sets his watch with a radio time signal. So that got me thinking that maybe the idea arose in different places. Also I was wondering about the “forever” wording. I imagine the signal is very robust, but couldn’t American politics just one day decide that it’s not worth it to broadcast the time by radio signal anymore?