In presidential politics, words matter.
On August 11, 1984, President Ronald Reagan was at his California ranch preparing to address the nation in his weekly Saturday morning radio broadcast. During the sound test before the program went live, the president riffed on his remarks that day and jokingly said, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation to outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
His comments, which were later leaked to the media, came at a fraught moment in the Cold War. Tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States had been escalating throughout President Reagan’s first term, in part due to his administration’s hostile stance toward Richard Nixon’s policy of détente, which aimed to ease US-Soviet relations through arms agreements and diplomacy.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Long View to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.