1 rich Libsyn https://www.libsyn.com 90 600 The president woke early at his ranch. It was August 11, 1984, a Saturday, and Ronald Reagan had his weekly radio address to tape. Before the taping he did what broadcasters do. He leaned into the microphone and gave the engineers a voice level. What he gave them was a joke. He kept a straight face and announced that he had signed legislation outlawing Russia forever. Then came the punch line. &quot;We begin bombing in five minutes.&quot; The technicians laughed. The networks had a line open, and they recorded it all. Within days the tape had circled the planet. American officials scrambled to assure the Kremlin that a joke was not policy. The Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Soviet forces in the Far East went on alert for half an hour. In his diary the president wrote that he had been doing a voice level, with no thought that anyone beyond the few people in the room would ever hear it. &amp;nbsp; Human Meme https://humanmeme.com <iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/43381404/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/88AA3C/" height="90" width="600" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe> https://assets.libsyn.com/secure/item/43381404