Reagan's Bombing Joke

Witness History

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals, History

4.5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2017

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"We have outlawed Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes". It was just an unscripted joke by US President Ronald Reagan but it terrified ordinary Russians. Reagan's advisor Morton Blackwell tells Dina Newman about the president's love of anti-Soviet jokes and his determination to destroy Communism.

Photo: American president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s at his desk in the White House, Washington DC. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
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0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC
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0:38.4	Choosing what to watch.
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0:41.1	The flicking through. The endless searching is a nightmare. We want to help you. On our
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0:50.3	Cladie aider. Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming, lovely.
0:55.0	Off the telly with me Joanna Paige and me, Natalie Cassidy,
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1:02.0	and a lot more watching.
1:03.4	Listen on BBC Sounds.
1:05.4	Hello you're listening to the Witness Podcast.
1:08.2	History is told by the people who were there with me, Dina Newman.
1:12.1	Today we go back to August 1984 when the US President
1:17.3	Ronald Reagan told an off-the-cuff joke which triggered a wave of anxiety in the USSR about a possible nuclear attack.
1:26.0	Testing the microphone before his weekly address to the nation,
1:29.0	this is what President Reagan said.
	...

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