President Reagan’s instinctive anti-communism - and occasional graveyard humour - has embroiled him in another embarrassing incident. The White House was yesterday trying to calm reactions generated around the world by a bellicosely anti-Soviet presidential comment made into a live microphone.
It came as Mr Reagan was preparing for his weekly radio broadcast on Saturday. During a test to adjust the microphones for voice level, Mr Reagan intoned: ‘My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I have signed legislation to outlaw Russia for ever. We begin bombing in five minutes.’
The Democratic presidential nominee, Mr Walter Mondale, chided Mr Reagan for his joke, saying: ‘A President has to be very, very careful with his words.’
He told a press conference: ‘I am willing to accept he saw it as a joke...but others will think it is serious...I don’t think it is very funny...’
In Moscow last night the deputy manager of the Foreign Ministry press department, Mr Valentin Kamenev, responded to reporters’ questions with: ‘I have nothing to say.’ He added that he did not know if there would be any official reaction to the President’s remarks.
The Reagan comment was not transmitted on Saturday morning to White House reporters listening on a special line installed so that they can hear the broadcasts, which are only carried each week by selected local stations. But it was picked up by radio technicians on tape machines running in studios around the country as they prepared to take a feed of the statement.
All that actually went on the air was Mr Reagan’s planned declaration that ‘I am pleased to tell you that today I signed legislation that will allow student religious groups to begin enjoying a right they have long been denied - the freedom to meet in public high schools during non-school hours.’
But, inevitably, rumours of the bombing comment quickly spread and were then made public. The assistant Washington bureau manager for the CBS Network, Mr Peter Kendall, said yesterday that his technicians had recorded the remark but that it had been kept confidential ‘under the rule that what the President says prior to his statements on the air is off the record.’
The principal US television news channel, Cable News Network, also recorded the comment but decided not to broadcast it. The head of the company, Mr Burt Reinhardt, said later: ‘We talked about it a great deal. I’m told the President says lots of funny things from time to time. This was not something that everyone would consider in good taste.’
Another executive, Mr Ed Turner, added: ‘The President is a guy who drops oneliners. You would have thought he would know better in this case, however.’ Mr Reagan’s precise words were eventually published by the Gannett News Service, one of the country’s largest newspaper chains.
The White House press secretary, Mr Larry Speakes, said yesterday: ‘I don’t talk about off-the-record stuff.’ He denied that he had exerted pressure to stop publication of the remark. But reporters were once again reminded of the agreement not to publish such ad lib comments, made two years ago when Mr Reagan sparked a similar row.
This was in October, 1982, just before he went on the air to announce that he was cancelling Poland’s most favoured nation status in retaliation for the banning of Solidarity. Mr Reagan said during his voice test that the Polish military government was ‘a bunch of no-good, lousy bums.’ The tape, with the President’s voice, was aired by NCB.
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