Tuesday 11 August 2026 4:35 am  |  Updated:  Monday 10 August 2026 12:13 pm

On this day: ‘We begin bombing in five minutes’ – Reagan’s accidental broadcast

By: Eliot Wilson

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On this day, 11 August, in 1984, a risqué joke from Ronald Reagan accidentally made his weekly radio broadcast, writes Eliot Wilson in his latest history instalment

Ronald Reagan was an old pro. By the summer of 1984, it was more than 50 years since he had made his radio debut as a sports broadcaster for WOC in Davenport, Iowa, commentating on baseball games.

In 1982, he had revived President Franklin Roosevelt’s routine of delivering weekly addresses to the nation on Saturday mornings, a practice which lasted until Donald Trump’s first presidency; it met its match in the 45th President’s New-York-minute attention span.

The start of Reagan’s radio broadcasts

Let us go back 20 years. A week before the 1964 presidential election, Reagan had delivered an electrifying television address in support of Republican candidate Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. A Time for Choosing had presented the conservative case in honest, straightforward, fiercely heartfelt terms. Although President Lyndon Johnson had crushed Goldwater by a margin of 16m votes, it had allowed Reagan to vault into the first rank of Republican conservatism. He had also caught the attention of William A. Rusher, the link man between Bill Buckley’s National Review and the wider conservative movement.

In March 1982, Rusher had written an article for Universal Press Syndicate entitled “Let’s Have ‘Fireside Chats’ by Ronald Reagan”, in which he explicitly linked Reagan to........

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