We begin bombing in five minutes

In the minutes before the president gave his speech, a live feed from Rancho del Cielo was still being transmitted to radio stations around the United States. Many rebroadcasters were already recording the feed to be ready for the official transmission, therefore also recording the president's pre-speech joke. While many in the media heard the president's impromptu remarks as he gave them, they were not broadcast live.[5]

In October 1982, President Reagan had made similarly impolitic remarks about the Polish People's Republic. As he prepared to announce his cancellation of Poland's most favoured nation status (in retaliation for suppression of the Polish trade union Solidarity), Reagan called the military government "a bunch of no-good, lousy bums." These recorded comments were aired by "NCB". As a result of this leak, members of the White House Correspondents' Association agreed not to publish such unprepared, off-the-record presidential remarks in the future.[5]

White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes (September 19, 1983)

Both CBS News and Cable News Network recorded the 1984 joke, but kept the president's remarks under wraps in accordance with the White House agreement. However, rumors of the joke quickly spread, and by August 13 the actual quotation had been published by outlets such as Gannett. Then-White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes declined to comment on August 13, saying, "I don’t talk about off-the-record stuff."[5]

By August 14, the recording of Reagan's joke had become world news. On August 15, someone who the National Security Agency described to US Representative Michael D. Barnes as "a wayward operator in the Soviet Far Eastern command" sent a coded message from Vladivostok that said, in part, "We now embark on military action against the U.S. forces." Japanese and US intelligence decoded the message and raised the alert state in that part of the world; Soviet naval vessels in the North Pacific, on the other hand, contacted Vladivostok in confusion. The US never saw any evidence of Soviet attack preparations, and the alert status as promulgated by Vladivostok was canceled within 30 minutes.[3]

Initially, on August 13, the deputy minister of Soviet foreign affairs (Valentin Kamenev) told reporters, "I have nothing to say."[5] By the next day, though, President Reagan's leaked comments were denounced by the Soviet government, Pravda, Izvestia, and TASS as "unprecedentedly hostile," as evidence of the United States' insincerity at trying to improve Soviet Union–United States relations, and as abuse of the office of the president. "Western diplomats" described the Soviet response as over-the-top, suggesting it was an effort to give themselves more collateral at the negotiating table with the US.[6] US officials were compelled to mollify the Soviet Union and assure the United States' Cold War adversary that "Reagan’s offhand remark did not reflect White House policies or U.S. military intentions."[7]

Reagan's poll numbers took a hit from the political gaffe, temporarily raising the hopes of Walter Mondale supporters in the run-up to the 1984 United States presidential election.[7] Mondale said of Reagan's joke, "A President has to be very, very careful with his words."[5] However, in the analysis of historian Craig Shirley and Ozy author Sean Braswell, the leak of Reagan's joke was poorly utilized by the Democratic Party; "[criticism of the joke] actually worked against the Democrats and for Reagan […] as they came across as hypersensitive, and Reagan as calm, cool and collected."[4]

In 2010, Politico journalist Andrew Glass wrote, "Most commentators dismissed the joke as, at worst, poor taste. Nonetheless, it got geopolitical traction because it came at a time of heightened Cold War tensions between Washington and Moscow — which largely dissolved during Reagan’s second term".[7] In 2011, the Deseret News listed Reagan's microphone gaffe as his sixth-best quote, expressing surprise that it was leaked only 87 days before the election.[1]