We Begin Bombing In Five Minutes
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"We begin bombing in five minutes" is the last sentence of a controversial, off-the-record joke made by
U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
in 1984, during
the Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
. While preparing for a scheduled radio address from his vacation home in California, Reagan joked with those present about outlawing and bombing Russia. The joke was not broadcast live, but was recorded and later leaked to the public. The Soviet Union criticized the joke, as did Reagan's opponent in the 1984 United States presidential election,
Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928April 19, 2021) was the 42nd vice president of the United States serving from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976. ...
.


Speech

At 9:06a.m. on August 11, 1984,
U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
made his weekly radio address from
Rancho del Cielo Rancho del Cielo is a ranch located atop the Santa Ynez Mountain range northwest of Santa Barbara, California. For more than 20 years, it was the vacation home of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The ranch's Spanish name translates to Sky's Ranch or ...
, his ranch near
Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara (, meaning ) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting A ...
. The live address began with the president announcing his signature on the
Equal Access Act The Equal Access Act is a United States federal law passed as Title VIII of the Education for Economic Security Act in 1984 to compel federally funded public secondary schools to provide equal access to extracurricular student clubs. Lobbied fo ...
: "My fellow Americans: I'm pleased to tell you that today I signed legislation that will allow student religious groups to begin enjoying a right they've too long been denied—the freedom to meet in public high schools during nonschool hours, just as other student groups are allowed to do." Before the speech, while Reagan was joking with NPR's
audio engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduc ...
s during a
soundcheck A soundcheck is the preparation that takes place before a concert, speech, or similar performance to adjust the sound on the venue's sound reinforcement or public address system. The performer and the audio engineers run through a small po ...
, he riffed on his own speech, saying, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." This sort of levity was common for Reagan; he injected his humor into soundchecks, outtakes, and
downtime In computing and telecommunications, downtime (also (system) outage or (system) drought colloquially) is a period when a system is unavailable. The unavailability is the proportion of a time-span that a system is unavailable or offline. This is ...
throughout his careers in
show business Show business, sometimes shortened to show biz or showbiz (since 1945), is a vernacular term for all aspects of the entertainment industry.''Oxford English Dictionary'' 2nd Ed. (1989) From the business side (including managers, agents, produce ...
and politics.


Leak

In the minutes before Reagan gave his speech, a live feed from Rancho del Cielo was being transmitted to radio stations around the United States. Many rebroadcasters were already recording the feed to be ready for the official transmission, and thus recording Reagan's pre-speech joke. Many in the media heard Reagan's impromptu remarks as he gave them, but they were not broadcast live. In October 1982, President Reagan had made similarly impolitic remarks about the
Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...
. As he prepared to announce his cancellation of Poland's
most favored nation In international economic relations and international politics, most favoured nation (MFN) is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. The term means the country which is the recipient of this treatme ...
status (in retaliation for suppression of the Polish
trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
Solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...
), Reagan called the military government "a bunch of no-good, lousy bums." This was later aired by the
American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American Commercial broadcasting, commercial broadcast Television broadcaster, television and radio Radio network, network that serves as the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division ...
and
NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...
. Because of this leak, members of the
White House Correspondents' Association The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the president of the United States. The WHCA was founded on February 25, 1914, by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor ...
agreed not to publish such unprepared, off-the-record presidential remarks in the future. Both
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...
and
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
recorded the 1984 joke, but they kept Reagan's remarks under wraps in accordance with the White House agreement. However, rumors of the joke quickly spread, and by August 13 the quotation had been published by outlets such as
Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. ( ) is an American mass media holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation. It owns the national newspaper ''USA Today'', as well as several ...
. The
White House Press Secretary The White House press secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the executive branch of the United States federal government, especially with regard to the president, senior aides and ...
, Larry Speakes, declined to comment that same day, saying, "I don't talk about off-the-record stuff."


Reactions


Soviet

On August 13, the deputy minister of Soviet foreign affairs, Valentin Kamenev, told reporters, "I have nothing to say." The next day, President Reagan's leaked comments were denounced by the
Soviet government The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the executive and administrative organ of the highest body of state authority, the All-Union Supreme Soviet. It was formed on 30 December 1922 and abolished on 26 December 199 ...
, ''
Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...
'', ''
Izvestia ''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, r=Izvestiya, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in February 1917, ''Izvestia'', which covered foreign relations, was the organ of the Supreme Soviet of th ...
'', and
TASS The Russian News Agency TASS, or simply TASS, is a Russian state-owned news agency founded in 1904. It is the largest Russian news agency and one of the largest news agencies worldwide. TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterpri ...
as "unprecedentedly hostile", evidence of the United States' insincerity at trying to improve
Soviet Union–United States relations Relations between the Soviet Union and the United States were fully established in 1933 as the succeeding bilateral ties to those between the Russian Empire–United States relations, Russian Empire and the United States, which lasted from 1809 ...
, and as abuse of the office of the president. Western diplomats described the Soviet response as over the top, suggesting that it was an effort to give themselves more collateral at the negotiating table with the United States. U.S. officials were compelled to mollify the Soviet Union and assure the United States' Cold War adversary that "Reagan's offhand remark did not reflect White House policies or U.S. military intentions." In 2003, ''
Moskovskij Komsomolets ''Moskovskij Komsomolets'' (''MK''; ) is a Moscow-based daily newspaper with a circulation approaching one million, covering general news. Founded in 1919, it is famed for its topical reporting on Russian politics and society. History The news ...
'' Mikhail Rostovsky said that " Soviet propaganda then squeezed the maximum possible out of this joke of the state leader." By August 14, the recording of Reagan's joke had become world news. On August 15, someone, whom the
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...
described to U.S. Representative Michael D. Barnes as "a wayward operator in the Soviet Far Eastern command", sent a coded message from
Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...
that said, in part, "We now embark on military action against the U.S. forces." Japanese and U.S. intelligence decoded the message and raised the
alert state An alert state or state of alert is an indication of the state of readiness of the armed forces for military action or a state against natural disasters, terrorism or military attack. The term frequently used is "on high alert". Examples scales ...
in that part of the world; Soviet naval vessels in the
North Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
contacted Vladivostok in confusion. The U.S. never saw any evidence of Soviet attack preparations, and the alert status as promulgated by Vladivostok was canceled within 30 minutes.


Domestic

Reagan's poll numbers took a hit from the political gaffe, temporarily raising the hopes of
Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928April 19, 2021) was the 42nd vice president of the United States serving from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976. ...
's supporters in the 1984 United States presidential election campaign. Mondale said of Reagan's joke, "A esident has to be very, very careful with his words." However, in the analysis of Reagan historian Craig Shirley, the leak of Reagan's joke was poorly used by the Democratic Party: " riticism of the jokeactually worked against the Democrats and for Reagan as they came across as hypersensitive, and Reagan as calm, cool and collected." In 2010, ''
Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American political digital newspaper company founded by American banker and media executive Robert Allbritton in 2007. It covers politics and policy in the Unit ...
'' journalist Andrew Glass wrote, "Most commentators dismissed the joke as, at worst, poor taste. Nonetheless, it got geopolitical traction because it came at a time of heightened Cold War tensions between Washington and Moscow — which largely dissolved during Reagan's second term." In 2011, the ''
Deseret News The ''Deseret News'' () is a multi-platform newspaper based in Salt Lake City, published by Deseret News Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Deseret Management Corporation, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS ...
'' listed Reagan's microphone gaffe as his sixth-best quote, expressing surprise that it was leaked only 87 days before the election.


Other uses

Jerry Harrison, of the American rock band
Talking Heads Talking Heads were an American Rock music, rock band formed in New York City in 1975.Talking Heads
, obtained a copy of the recording and used it in the 1984 song " Five Minutes", which he performed under the name Bonzo Goes to Washington.


See also

*


References

{{Soviet Union–United States relations, state=collapsed 1984 controversies in the United States 1984 in American politics 1984 in California 1984 in international relations 1984 in radio 1984 quotations anti-Russian sentiment August 1984 in the United States Cold War broadcasting Cold War history of the United States diplomatic incidents jokes mass media-related controversies in the United States political quotes quotations from radio Reagan administration controversies Soviet Union–United States relations