WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.519 So picture this. It's August 11, 1984. The president 00:00:05.519 --> 00:00:07.400 of the United States leans into a microphone 00:00:07.400 --> 00:00:10.960 and just casually announces that the bombing 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:12.960 of Russia is going to begin in five minutes. 00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:15.019 Yeah, just a totally normal Saturday, right? 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:17.559 Right. I mean, nine seconds of audio. There's 00:00:17.559 --> 00:00:19.899 no war room. There are no generals standing around. 00:00:19.980 --> 00:00:22.100 Just this terrible joke that accidentally slips 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:24.359 into the open architecture of Cold War radio. 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:26.679 And pushes the Soviet military into an actual 00:00:26.679 --> 00:00:29.879 state of high alert. Exactly. Which, you know, 00:00:30.019 --> 00:00:32.060 it just completely shatters our conventional 00:00:32.060 --> 00:00:34.840 understanding of how global crises begin. It 00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:36.920 really does. We're so conditioned to think of 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:40.359 Cold War brinkmanship as this highly formalized 00:00:40.359 --> 00:00:43.340 chess match. You know, red telephones, intense 00:00:43.340 --> 00:00:45.420 summit meetings. Yeah, lots of guys in suits 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:48.000 looking very serious. Right. But this isn't a 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:50.759 story about military strategy at all. It is fundamentally 00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:54.140 a story about information control. Well, it's 00:00:54.140 --> 00:00:56.640 an examination of what happens when the barrier 00:00:56.640 --> 00:00:59.539 between private banter and public policy just 00:00:59.539 --> 00:01:01.780 completely collapses. Especially in an era where 00:01:01.780 --> 00:01:04.159 the stakes were literally absolute destruction. 00:01:04.579 --> 00:01:06.799 Well, welcome to today's Deep Dive. We are thrilled 00:01:06.799 --> 00:01:09.700 to have you here with us. The mission today relies 00:01:09.700 --> 00:01:12.439 on a really detailed historical breakdown of 00:01:12.439 --> 00:01:16.079 that specific date in 1984. It's a fascinating 00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:18.840 timeline. It really is. We're going to unpack 00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:22.200 the anatomy of a monumental presidential gaffe, 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:25.260 map out the incredibly fragile state of Cold 00:01:25.260 --> 00:01:28.159 War communications, and try to extract a lesson 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:30.879 on the immense weight of a leader's words. And 00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:32.680 just to set the stage for you listening, we're 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:35.359 looking at this purely through the lens of historical 00:01:35.359 --> 00:01:37.359 and psychological analysis. Right. We are not 00:01:37.359 --> 00:01:39.579 here to take any political sides at all. Left, 00:01:39.579 --> 00:01:41.319 right, it doesn't matter. We're just tracing 00:01:41.319 --> 00:01:43.680 the mechanics of how information travels and 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:45.939 mutates. And the mutations of this particular 00:01:45.900 --> 00:01:49.319 piece of information are just astonishing. Because 00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:51.599 the origin point of all this couldn't be further 00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:54.359 from some tense crisis center. Okay let's unpack 00:01:54.359 --> 00:01:57.260 this. We're in August 84 at Rancho del Cielo, 00:01:57.379 --> 00:01:59.239 which is Reagan's California ranch. Beautiful 00:01:59.239 --> 00:02:01.939 spot, very relaxed. Yeah very relaxed. Reagan 00:02:01.939 --> 00:02:04.739 is gearing up for a standard Saturday radio address. 00:02:05.019 --> 00:02:07.260 He's preparing to announce his signing of the 00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:10.800 Equal Access Act. Which, for context, was legislation 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:12.979 allowing student religious groups to meet in 00:02:12.979 --> 00:02:15.240 public high schools outside of school hours. 00:02:15.620 --> 00:02:18.259 Right. So it is the definition of routine domestic 00:02:18.259 --> 00:02:20.639 policy housekeeping. It's the kind of legislative 00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:23.360 update that barely even leads the Sunday papers. 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:26.259 I mean, it's just not front page news. Exactly. 00:02:26.699 --> 00:02:29.159 So Reagan is sitting down to do a sound check 00:02:29.159 --> 00:02:31.840 with the National Public Radio Audio Engineers. 00:02:32.439 --> 00:02:33.860 And this is where it gets interesting. Yeah, 00:02:33.979 --> 00:02:35.719 because you'd think a global incident stemming 00:02:35.719 --> 00:02:39.849 from a sound check implies, I don't know. espionage, 00:02:39.849 --> 00:02:41.409 right? Right, like a spy in the bushes. Like 00:02:41.409 --> 00:02:43.669 someone sneaking a tape recorder into the room 00:02:43.669 --> 00:02:46.750 or a bug planted in a lamp or something. But 00:02:46.750 --> 00:02:49.189 the terrifying part is that this wasn't espionage 00:02:49.189 --> 00:02:51.810 at all. It was standard operating procedure. 00:02:52.069 --> 00:02:54.370 Yeah, it really was. The White House was basically 00:02:54.370 --> 00:02:58.189 piping raw live audio to local affiliates before 00:02:58.189 --> 00:03:00.990 the actual broadcast even started. The technical 00:03:00.990 --> 00:03:03.569 vulnerability was just built right into the system. 00:03:03.870 --> 00:03:06.129 In the minutes before Reagan delivered his official 00:03:06.129 --> 00:03:09.189 speech, an open live feed from the ranch was 00:03:09.189 --> 00:03:11.469 already transmitting to radio stations across 00:03:11.469 --> 00:03:14.409 the United States. Which is wild to think about 00:03:14.409 --> 00:03:17.349 now. Oh, totally. Local rebroadcasters would 00:03:17.349 --> 00:03:20.629 routinely hit record early on these feeds just 00:03:20.629 --> 00:03:22.590 to ensure they didn't miss the official start 00:03:22.590 --> 00:03:24.650 time. Right, they wanted to be safe. Exactly. 00:03:25.229 --> 00:03:27.229 But it meant they were effectively capturing 00:03:27.229 --> 00:03:29.189 an open pipeline of whatever was happening in 00:03:29.189 --> 00:03:31.530 that room. So if you think about it, this is 00:03:31.530 --> 00:03:35.069 the 1984 nuclear stakes equivalent of thinking 00:03:35.069 --> 00:03:37.669 you're muted on a Zoom call. That is the perfect 00:03:37.669 --> 00:03:39.490 analogy. You're just chatting and everyone can 00:03:39.490 --> 00:03:41.770 hear you because the president wasn't speaking 00:03:41.770 --> 00:03:44.069 into a dead mic. So instead of just counting 00:03:44.069 --> 00:03:46.650 to 10, you know, like testing one, two, three, 00:03:46.870 --> 00:03:49.250 Reagan decides to riff on his own prepared remarks. 00:03:49.710 --> 00:03:52.129 He does. He says, and this is a direct quote, 00:03:52.509 --> 00:03:54.550 My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you 00:03:54.550 --> 00:03:56.590 today that I've signed legislation that will 00:03:56.590 --> 00:04:02.150 outlaw Russia forever. We begin. And that phrase, 00:04:02.409 --> 00:04:05.430 we begin bombing in five minutes, he delivers 00:04:05.430 --> 00:04:08.849 it with total deadpan confidence. Which is just 00:04:08.849 --> 00:04:11.669 crazy. I always look at this and wonder, how 00:04:11.669 --> 00:04:14.409 does someone with the nuclear codes even let 00:04:14.409 --> 00:04:17.050 a sentence like that form in their brain while 00:04:17.050 --> 00:04:19.009 sitting in front of broadcast equipment? I mean, 00:04:19.290 --> 00:04:21.569 was this wildly out of character for him? Well, 00:04:21.569 --> 00:04:24.329 actually, no. Framing this as just a simple slip 00:04:24.329 --> 00:04:27.069 of the tongue really misses the context of who 00:04:27.069 --> 00:04:29.490 Reagan was. This was a deliberate performance. 00:04:29.550 --> 00:04:32.470 Like he planned it. You have to view this through 00:04:32.470 --> 00:04:35.189 the lens of his holo background. He was a veteran 00:04:35.189 --> 00:04:38.050 actor. He spent decades on sets. and in studios. 00:04:38.589 --> 00:04:41.689 For Reagan, a sound check wasn't a formal address. 00:04:41.990 --> 00:04:44.930 It was the green room. Oh, I see. Yeah. He frequently 00:04:44.930 --> 00:04:47.629 used dark humor and one -liners during outtakes 00:04:47.629 --> 00:04:50.089 and downtime. It was his way of breaking the 00:04:50.089 --> 00:04:52.490 tension with the technical crew. He was basically 00:04:52.490 --> 00:04:54.610 performing for the audio guys in the room. OK, 00:04:54.610 --> 00:04:56.649 so he treated the presidency like a movie set, 00:04:56.670 --> 00:04:58.829 and the mic check was just backstage banter. 00:04:59.050 --> 00:05:01.829 Exactly. But that brings us to the media ecosystem 00:05:01.829 --> 00:05:04.649 of the 1980s, which is almost unrecognizable 00:05:04.649 --> 00:05:07.259 compared to today. Oh, it's night and day. Because 00:05:07.259 --> 00:05:10.339 this open pipeline of raw audio, it gets recorded 00:05:10.339 --> 00:05:12.899 by those local stations, but it also gets recorded 00:05:12.899 --> 00:05:15.779 by the major networks who are tapped into the 00:05:15.779 --> 00:05:17.740 White House press pool. Right, the big players. 00:05:18.019 --> 00:05:20.839 And those major networks, specifically CBS News 00:05:20.839 --> 00:05:23.379 and CNN, they actually buried the recording. 00:05:23.740 --> 00:05:26.139 They sat on a tape of the president joking about 00:05:26.139 --> 00:05:28.639 thermonuclear war. They actively suppressed it. 00:05:28.819 --> 00:05:32.019 Wait, really? Major networks like CNN and CBS 00:05:32.019 --> 00:05:35.990 actually sat on a massive scoop. That feels absolutely 00:05:35.990 --> 00:05:38.430 unimaginable in today's media environment. What's 00:05:38.430 --> 00:05:41.110 fascinating here is that to understand why they 00:05:41.110 --> 00:05:43.089 did that, we have to look at the precedent set 00:05:43.089 --> 00:05:46.569 two years prior. In October 1982, Reagan had 00:05:46.569 --> 00:05:49.629 a very similar hot mic moment. He was preparing 00:05:49.629 --> 00:05:51.990 an address regarding the cancellation of Poland's 00:05:51.990 --> 00:05:54.829 most favored nation status. Which, just to jump 00:05:54.829 --> 00:05:57.730 in, canceling Poland's most favored nation status 00:05:57.730 --> 00:06:00.370 wasn't just a bureaucratic paper shuffle. It 00:06:00.370 --> 00:06:03.129 was a massive economic weapon used to punish 00:06:03.129 --> 00:06:05.870 the Soviet bloc for crushing the Solidarity Trade 00:06:05.870 --> 00:06:08.290 Union movement. Right. It was a highly sensitive 00:06:08.290 --> 00:06:10.750 geopolitical maneuver. Precisely the kind of 00:06:10.750 --> 00:06:13.649 thing you do not joke about. But during preparations, 00:06:14.189 --> 00:06:16.930 Reagan was caught on an open mic calling the 00:06:16.930 --> 00:06:20.050 Polish military government, quote, a bunch of 00:06:20.050 --> 00:06:24.040 no good lousy bombs. Wow. Tell us how you really 00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:27.220 feel. Yeah, exactly. And networks like ABC and 00:06:27.220 --> 00:06:30.600 NBC News, they actually aired that 1982 remark. 00:06:31.139 --> 00:06:33.980 The diplomatic fallout was severe. I can imagine. 00:06:34.100 --> 00:06:36.579 So in response to that specific leak, the White 00:06:36.579 --> 00:06:38.420 House Correspondents Association established 00:06:38.420 --> 00:06:41.139 a gentleman's agreement. They collectively agreed 00:06:41.139 --> 00:06:44.199 not to publish unprepared, off -the -record presidential 00:06:44.199 --> 00:06:46.730 remarks moving forward. Putting myself in the 00:06:46.730 --> 00:06:49.990 shoes of a modern listener, that dynamic is staggering. 00:06:50.290 --> 00:06:53.449 It really is. I mean, today, virality is the 00:06:53.449 --> 00:06:55.810 ultimate currency for media. If a leader says 00:06:55.810 --> 00:06:57.689 something controversial off the cuff, it is on 00:06:57.689 --> 00:06:59.709 the Internet in seconds. It's trending on social 00:06:59.709 --> 00:07:03.029 media. But in 1984, the ultimate currency wasn't 00:07:03.029 --> 00:07:05.949 virality. It was access. Exactly. It's an absolute 00:07:05.949 --> 00:07:08.610 clash of incentive structures. The White House 00:07:08.610 --> 00:07:11.600 press pool operated entirely on proximity. If 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:13.579 a network broke the gentleman's agreement, they 00:07:13.579 --> 00:07:15.899 risked losing their front row seat to the presidency. 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:17.899 They'd be kicked out of the briefing room. All 00:07:17.899 --> 00:07:20.899 right, so CBS and CNN. honored the deal. They 00:07:20.899 --> 00:07:22.819 prioritized the long -term relationship over 00:07:22.819 --> 00:07:25.000 the short -term scoop. But, you know, a gentleman's 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:26.860 agreement only works if everyone in the room 00:07:26.860 --> 00:07:29.560 is a gentleman. Exactly. And as we established, 00:07:29.779 --> 00:07:32.000 that raw audio feed wasn't just going to the 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:34.420 elite White House press corps. It was hitting 00:07:34.420 --> 00:07:37.699 local technicians and regional stations all over 00:07:37.699 --> 00:07:40.759 the country. Yep. Those independent rebroadcasters 00:07:40.759 --> 00:07:42.980 didn't sign any agreement with the Correspondence 00:07:42.980 --> 00:07:46.930 Association. The dam was destined to break. Once 00:07:46.930 --> 00:07:49.889 the audio was physically recorded by people outside 00:07:49.889 --> 00:07:53.230 that core press pool, a leak was inevitable. 00:07:54.230 --> 00:07:56.769 Rumors of the joke saturated the radio industry 00:07:56.769 --> 00:07:59.750 almost immediately. I bet. And by August 13th, 00:07:59.750 --> 00:08:02.290 so just two days later, the quote was officially 00:08:02.290 --> 00:08:05.529 published by Gannett. Because they were outside 00:08:05.529 --> 00:08:07.629 that protective bubble. And the White House press 00:08:07.629 --> 00:08:09.870 secretary, Larry, speaks. He delivers what might 00:08:09.870 --> 00:08:12.269 be the most impotent PR defense in history. Oh, 00:08:12.269 --> 00:08:14.230 it's classic. When reporters asked him about 00:08:14.230 --> 00:08:16.410 it, he just flatly stated, I don't talk about 00:08:16.410 --> 00:08:19.329 off -the -record stuff, which is basically confirming 00:08:19.329 --> 00:08:21.290 it happened without having to defend the content. 00:08:21.649 --> 00:08:24.829 It's the ultimate non -denial denial. Yeah. But 00:08:24.829 --> 00:08:27.329 the moment Gannett publishes that, quote, the 00:08:27.329 --> 00:08:30.970 story undergoes a radical metamorphosis. It stops 00:08:30.970 --> 00:08:33.070 being a debate about Washington media ethics 00:08:33.070 --> 00:08:35.429 and detonates into an international military 00:08:35.429 --> 00:08:38.289 crisis. And the Soviet reaction to this is a 00:08:38.289 --> 00:08:40.830 master class in calculated escalation. Yeah. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:43.059 It didn't happen all at once. Right. It was a 00:08:43.059 --> 00:08:45.299 slow build. It happened in very deliberate stages. 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:49.179 On August 13th, the day the story broke, reporters 00:08:49.179 --> 00:08:51.820 cornered Valentin Kamenev, the deputy minister 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:53.919 of Soviet foreign affairs. And what did he say? 00:08:54.700 --> 00:08:56.940 His response was a very measured, I have nothing 00:08:56.940 --> 00:09:00.299 to say. Very diplomatic, but... 24 hours later, 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:02.740 the tone completely flips. Completely. By August 00:09:02.740 --> 00:09:05.519 14, the state -run media apparatus, we're talking 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:08.600 Pravda, Izvestia, the TASS news agency, they 00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:10.740 simultaneously launched this coordinated attack. 00:09:10.899 --> 00:09:14.519 They denounced the joke as unprecedentedly hostile. 00:09:15.200 --> 00:09:17.379 They claim it proves the United States is secretly 00:09:17.379 --> 00:09:19.980 plotting war and abusing the office of the presidency. 00:09:20.279 --> 00:09:22.779 Now, Western diplomats analyzing the situation, 00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:25.220 they recognize this as a manufactured overreaction. 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:28.899 The Soviet leadership basically saw a geopolitical 00:09:28.899 --> 00:09:32.100 gift wrapped with a bow. Oh, for sure. They decided 00:09:32.100 --> 00:09:36.299 to squeeze the maximum possible propaganda value 00:09:36.299 --> 00:09:39.340 out of Reagan's gaff to manufacture leverage 00:09:39.340 --> 00:09:42.740 for upcoming arms negotiations. They wanted to 00:09:42.740 --> 00:09:45.220 force the United States onto the defensive. Which 00:09:45.220 --> 00:09:47.539 totally worked. I mean, U .S. officials were 00:09:47.539 --> 00:09:49.460 immediately scrambling. They were issuing statements 00:09:49.460 --> 00:09:52.000 to mollify the Soviets, promising that this offhand 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:54.340 remark did not reflect actual military doctrine. 00:09:54.340 --> 00:09:57.980 Right. Here is where the Soviet strategy horribly 00:09:57.980 --> 00:10:00.799 backfires. We can kind of think of their propaganda 00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:03.440 machine like an autoimmune response. How so? 00:10:03.740 --> 00:10:06.679 Well, the Soviet leadership intentionally injected 00:10:06.679 --> 00:10:09.919 this fake panic into their own media ecosystem, 00:10:10.100 --> 00:10:12.519 right, just to look tough globally. But their 00:10:12.519 --> 00:10:15.200 own system attacked the virus as if it were real. 00:10:15.460 --> 00:10:17.909 Yes. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:10:18.350 --> 00:10:20.669 you see the ultimate danger of a closed information 00:10:20.669 --> 00:10:23.549 loop. When you blast existential threat warnings 00:10:23.549 --> 00:10:26.590 across Pravda and Teh, the people on the ground 00:10:26.590 --> 00:10:29.190 consuming that media, your own military personnel, 00:10:29.610 --> 00:10:31.549 they don't know it's a bluff for diplomatic leverage. 00:10:31.809 --> 00:10:34.370 They take it literally, which brings us to August 00:10:34.370 --> 00:10:37.470 15th and the terrifying climax in Vladivostok. 00:10:37.929 --> 00:10:41.379 This is where things get genuinely scary. According 00:10:41.379 --> 00:10:44.279 to briefings later provided to U .S. Representative 00:10:44.279 --> 00:10:47.100 Michael D. Barnes by the National Security Agency, 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:51.220 a wayward operator in the Soviet Far Eastern 00:10:51.220 --> 00:10:54.460 Command in Vladivostok intercepted all this heightened 00:10:54.460 --> 00:10:57.360 rhetoric. OK. And this operator sent out a coded 00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:00.360 military message. And that message read, in part, 00:11:01.179 --> 00:11:03.659 we now embark on military action against the 00:11:03.659 --> 00:11:07.120 U .S. forces. OK. A joke leads to a coded message 00:11:07.120 --> 00:11:10.279 saying we embark on military action. That is 00:11:10.279 --> 00:11:12.899 literally like playing a prank with a sparkler 00:11:12.899 --> 00:11:16.159 inside a dynamite factory. It really is. So Japanese 00:11:16.159 --> 00:11:18.159 and U .S. intelligence agencies, they intercept 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:20.659 that transmission instantly, they decode it, 00:11:20.659 --> 00:11:22.639 and obviously they don't have the luxury of assuming 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:24.639 it's a misunderstanding. No, you can't take that 00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:26.460 chance. They immediately raise the alert state 00:11:26.460 --> 00:11:28.940 for U .S. forces in the North Pacific. And at 00:11:28.940 --> 00:11:31.799 the same time, Soviet naval vessels in the region 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:34.399 intercept that same message. They start frantically 00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:37.220 contacting Vladivostok, essentially asking for 00:11:37.220 --> 00:11:39.100 confirmation that World War III has just begun. 00:11:39.230 --> 00:11:42.730 So we have U .S. forces moving to elevated alert 00:11:42.730 --> 00:11:46.679 and Soviet ships scrambling in confusion. How 00:11:46.679 --> 00:11:49.399 long does this window of absolute terror last? 00:11:49.799 --> 00:11:52.379 30 minutes. Wow. Yeah, 30 minutes. The U .S. 00:11:52.740 --> 00:11:54.559 military command monitored the situation with 00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:57.059 intense scrutiny. They were looking for the physical 00:11:57.059 --> 00:12:00.259 signatures of war, you know, missile silos opening, 00:12:00.779 --> 00:12:03.740 bomber squadrons fueling up, submarine deployments. 00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:06.220 Right, the actual signs of an attack. Exactly. 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:08.620 And when none of those physical actions materialized 00:12:08.620 --> 00:12:11.159 to back up the radio chatter, the alert status 00:12:11.159 --> 00:12:13.899 was finally canceled. A 30 -minute window where 00:12:13.899 --> 00:12:16.179 the fate of the northern hemisphere rested on 00:12:16.179 --> 00:12:18.700 intelligence officers staring at radar screens. 00:12:19.259 --> 00:12:21.720 Just waiting to see if a terrible joke had actually 00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:23.740 triggered the apocalypse. It is staggering to 00:12:23.740 --> 00:12:25.759 think about. It really is. And the moment the 00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:28.220 military tension dissolves in the Pacific, the 00:12:28.220 --> 00:12:30.320 political warfare erupts back in the United States. 00:12:30.360 --> 00:12:33.120 Of course it does, because this is 1984. We are 00:12:33.120 --> 00:12:35.139 in the heat of a presidential election year. 00:12:35.740 --> 00:12:37.679 Walter Mondale, who's running against Reagan, 00:12:38.059 --> 00:12:40.240 he immediately seizes on this. He goes on the 00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:42.659 offensive, stating, quote, a president has to 00:12:42.659 --> 00:12:45.480 be very, very careful with his words, which is 00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:48.409 a statement that is objectively true. Especially 00:12:48.409 --> 00:12:50.409 given the 30 -minute alert that had literally 00:12:50.409 --> 00:12:53.210 just occurred. Exactly. And initially the polls 00:12:53.210 --> 00:12:55.870 reflected that. Reagan took a temporary hit in 00:12:55.870 --> 00:12:58.590 his approval numbers, which injected this massive 00:12:58.590 --> 00:13:01.090 surge of hope into the Mondale campaign. Right. 00:13:01.210 --> 00:13:03.309 And as a quick reminder for you listening, we 00:13:03.309 --> 00:13:05.289 aren't taking sides here between Mondale and 00:13:05.289 --> 00:13:08.450 Reagan or Republicans and Democrats. But as an 00:13:08.450 --> 00:13:11.549 observer, it's just wild to see how a gaffe can 00:13:11.549 --> 00:13:14.269 either sink a campaign or make the opponents 00:13:14.269 --> 00:13:16.629 look desperate purely based on how the public 00:13:16.629 --> 00:13:19.070 interprets the spin. Absolutely. Because the 00:13:19.070 --> 00:13:21.490 outrage completely backfired on the Democrats. 00:13:21.769 --> 00:13:24.009 And this is where the psychology of the 1984 00:13:24.009 --> 00:13:26.529 electorate becomes so fascinating, you would 00:13:26.529 --> 00:13:28.470 assume that nearly starting a war would sink 00:13:28.470 --> 00:13:31.990 an incumbent. But historian Craig Shirley analyzes 00:13:31.990 --> 00:13:33.950 this, and he concludes that the leak actually 00:13:33.950 --> 00:13:36.389 solidified Reagan's position. This raises an 00:13:36.389 --> 00:13:38.289 important question about how the public processes 00:13:38.289 --> 00:13:41.190 existential anxiety. Shirley points out that 00:13:41.190 --> 00:13:43.889 the relentless vocal criticism from Mondale and 00:13:43.889 --> 00:13:46.690 his surrogates, it actually made them appear 00:13:46.690 --> 00:13:49.090 hypersensitive and frantic to the average voter. 00:13:49.340 --> 00:13:51.759 Because the electorate was already living with 00:13:51.759 --> 00:13:53.960 the baseline anxiety of the Cold War, they didn't 00:13:53.960 --> 00:13:56.779 want a leader who amplified that anxiety. Precisely. 00:13:57.139 --> 00:14:00.220 Reagan's ultimate superpower was his Teflon persona. 00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:03.360 He simply brushed it off. He remained outwardly 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:06.379 calm and unbothered. And to a frightened public, 00:14:06.659 --> 00:14:09.720 that calmness read as strength. Mondale pointing 00:14:09.720 --> 00:14:12.419 out the danger just made Mondale look desperate, 00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:15.139 even though he was technically right. Journalist 00:14:15.139 --> 00:14:17.179 Andrew Glass actually wrote about this in Politico 00:14:17.179 --> 00:14:20.159 He said that most commentators eventually just 00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:23.429 dismissed the joke as poor taste Glass noted 00:14:23.429 --> 00:14:25.470 that the remark only gained geopolitical traction 00:14:25.470 --> 00:14:27.230 in the first place because of the suffocating 00:14:27.230 --> 00:14:29.590 tension of the era. Right. The public essentially 00:14:29.590 --> 00:14:32.990 decided to view Reagan not as a reckless commander, 00:14:32.990 --> 00:14:35.629 but as a guy who made a bad dad joke at the worst 00:14:35.629 --> 00:14:38.509 possible time. And nothing demonstrates how bizarrely 00:14:38.509 --> 00:14:41.289 the public processed this near miss with nuclear 00:14:41.289 --> 00:14:43.970 annihilation quite like the pop culture fallout. 00:14:44.090 --> 00:14:46.429 Oh, this is the perfect cultural artifact of 00:14:46.429 --> 00:14:50.269 the 1980s. It really is. So Jerry Harrison, who 00:14:50.269 --> 00:14:52.539 is the keyboardist and guitarist for the rock 00:14:52.539 --> 00:14:55.740 band Talking Heads, he manages to get his hands 00:14:55.740 --> 00:14:58.259 on a copy of the leaked audio. Incredible. He 00:14:58.259 --> 00:15:00.620 takes Reagan's voice saying, we begin bombing 00:15:00.620 --> 00:15:02.740 in five minutes, and he chops it up. He samples 00:15:02.740 --> 00:15:05.940 it over this driving funk dance beat, and he 00:15:05.940 --> 00:15:10.139 releases it as a single in 1984 called Five Minutes 00:15:10.139 --> 00:15:12.889 under the pseudonym. Bonzo goes to Washington. 00:15:13.370 --> 00:15:16.269 It illustrates a profound coping mechanism. You 00:15:16.269 --> 00:15:18.690 have an event that triggered a military alert 00:15:18.690 --> 00:15:21.389 in the Pacific Ocean and within weeks people 00:15:21.389 --> 00:15:23.990 are dancing to it in nightclubs. It's absurd. 00:15:24.289 --> 00:15:27.090 It is. But when the stakes of global politics 00:15:27.090 --> 00:15:30.070 are that impossibly high and the dread is that 00:15:30.070 --> 00:15:32.769 heavy, the culture often requires a release valve. 00:15:32.990 --> 00:15:35.470 Humor and art become the only ways to digest 00:15:35.470 --> 00:15:37.009 the absurdity of the threat. Yeah, that makes 00:15:37.009 --> 00:15:38.590 a lot of sense. So bringing us all back to you, 00:15:38.610 --> 00:15:40.850 the listener, why does an anecdote from a California 00:15:40.850 --> 00:15:44.110 ranch in 1984 matter to us today? I look at the 00:15:44.110 --> 00:15:46.529 story as the ultimate cautionary tale about the 00:15:46.529 --> 00:15:48.889 unintended consequences of communication. Absolutely. 00:15:48.950 --> 00:15:51.110 Think about the physical friction required to 00:15:51.110 --> 00:15:55.809 leak audio back in 1984. It required a live satellite 00:15:55.809 --> 00:15:58.789 feed, local tape decks, and a coordinated effort 00:15:58.789 --> 00:16:01.149 to circumvent a White House gentleman's agreement. 00:16:01.629 --> 00:16:04.879 And it's still caused a military alert. But today 00:16:04.879 --> 00:16:07.740 the friction of information travel has completely 00:16:07.740 --> 00:16:11.019 evaporated. Exactly. Imagine the permanence and 00:16:11.019 --> 00:16:13.259 the volatility of the things we say and record 00:16:13.259 --> 00:16:16.440 today. We all walk around with global broadcast 00:16:16.440 --> 00:16:18.600 devices in our pockets. Every microphone is a 00:16:18.600 --> 00:16:21.580 hot mic. Right. Every private joke has the potential 00:16:21.580 --> 00:16:23.919 to be stripped of its context and injected into 00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:26.220 the public bloodstream. The distance between 00:16:26.220 --> 00:16:28.759 a private thought and a public crisis has never 00:16:28.759 --> 00:16:31.639 been shorter. That's so true. And while you evaluate 00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:34.179 the weight of your own digital footprint, consider 00:16:34.179 --> 00:16:37.240 one final, really unexplored thought hidden within 00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:39.379 these historical records. What's that? Focus 00:16:39.379 --> 00:16:42.399 on that wayward operator in Vladivostok. We know 00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:44.879 the historical facts. The alert lasted 30 minutes 00:16:44.879 --> 00:16:47.019 before U .S. and Japanese intelligence stood 00:16:47.019 --> 00:16:49.620 down. But think about the deeply human element 00:16:49.620 --> 00:16:51.799 packed into that half hour. The people actually 00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:55.019 sitting at the consoles. Exactly. What is the 00:16:55.019 --> 00:16:57.360 psychological toll on the intelligence officer 00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:00.159 stationed in the North Pacific who intercepts 00:17:00.159 --> 00:17:03.019 that coded message? You're sitting in a room 00:17:03.019 --> 00:17:05.339 and a transmission crosses your desk stating 00:17:05.339 --> 00:17:07.359 that military action against the United States 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:09.839 has commenced. That's terrifying. You have to 00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:12.859 sit in that chair and decide, is this a clerical 00:17:12.859 --> 00:17:16.480 error? Is this a drill? Or is this the literal 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:19.680 end of human civilization? Wow. How much of our 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:22.460 survival throughout all of modern history relies 00:17:22.460 --> 00:17:25.140 not on treaties or deterrence policies, but on 00:17:25.140 --> 00:17:28.460 a single person somewhere taking a breath, holding 00:17:28.460 --> 00:17:30.900 their nerve, and deciding to just wait 30 minutes 00:17:30.900 --> 00:17:33.160 to see what happens next. That is an incredibly 00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:35.539 sobering thought to end on. The fate of the world 00:17:35.539 --> 00:17:38.059 hanging on a 30 minute pause. Well thank you 00:17:38.059 --> 00:17:40.279 so much for joining us as we unpack this incredible 00:17:40.279 --> 00:17:42.799 piece of history. Keep questioning the information 00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:44.960 around you. Keep looking for the story behind 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:48.079 the story and we will catch you on the next deep 00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:48.359 dive.