Need to Be Careful
"It was never meant to be anything but a joke: But politicians are better to be careful as anything they say is likely to be somewhat incoherent and will inevitably be misinterpreted no matter what the intention was," former CIA senior analyst and station chief Philip Giraldi, founder and chair of the Council for the National Interest, said.
Giraldi agreed with reports that Reagan had not realized the microphone was still recording his comments at the time, although they were never broadcast.
"I think it was actually a joke and the mic was believed to be turned off," he said.
Giraldi confirmed that there was no sense in the US intelligence community or the Reagan administration at the time that any such attack was being contemplated at all.
"I was in Istanbul at the time and don't recall any particular chatter about it in either the embassy or station," he said.
However, the old story had important lessons for political leaders today, Giraldi advised.
"I guess the lesson to be learned in the current context is that we would be a lot better off if our so-called leaders would just keep their mouths shut as anything they say is likely to be somewhat incoherent and will inevitably be misinterpreted no matter what the intention was," he said.
Private Joke
Former senior CIA analyst Raymond McGovern, who personally briefed four US presidents — including Reagan — on the Soviet Union and Russia, is skeptical about Reagan having any intention for the story to circulate at all for any reason.
"Did he really mean it to go out live? I don't think so," he said.
There was no evidence anywhere that Reagan at the time knew the microphone was live or that he ever intended his remarks to circulate at all, McGovern pointed out.
Reagan made his comment "We begin bombing in five minutes" as the last sentence of a controversial, off-the-record joke that he gave while preparing for a scheduled radio address from his vacation home in California.
The Soviet Union criticized the joke, as did Reagan's opponent in the 1984 presidential election, former Vice President Walter Mondale. Mondale was defeated by Reagan in a landslide.