In 2016 I was intrigued by the story of a 1985 “college radio network” visit to the White House, in which students had the opportunity to interview President Ronald Reagan. At the time, there was scant information at my fingertips, so I wasn’t able to ascertain whether an official college radio organization was involved with the project. A decade later, a document popped up in the course of my research, leading down another rabbit hole in search of more context.
Ten years ago, in College Radio Watch: Who’s on First?, I wrote about the September 9, 1985 “Interview With Representatives of College Radio Stations,” which was held in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. Organized by the North American Network, questions “focused on war in Central America, tax reform, liberal arts education, US-Soviet relations, education and more.” At the time, I found a transcript on the Internet Archive, which described the student interviewers as “college radio network representatives.” The resulting interview was to have been distributed by radio to stations in the United States and Canada. Yet it was never clear to me what exactly this “college radio network” was and if it had connections to existing college radio organizations like the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System.
This week, I ran across a mention of this event and that sparked my curiosity again. Thanks to the Internet Archive’s microfiche digitization efforts, government documents are becoming more easily discoverable. That was the case for me this week, when one of my regular college radio searches uncovered a reference to the interview with President Reagan within a freshly scanned piece of microfiche.
Soviet News Coverage and Reagan’s Diary
Amid the September 11, 1985 daily report about the Soviet Union from the United States Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) is a news piece in which a correspondent from the Soviet Union’s state-owned news agency TASS reports on the college radio interview. The article reads in part, “President Reagan, in an interview with American college radio network students, has made an attempt to distort the Soviet Union’s foreign policy line and its domestic policies.” President Reagan’s remarks about the Soviet Union in the interview with college students generated criticism in several Russian print publications and over Russian television in the days to follow. A report (translated from Russian), from the Moscow-based newspaper Izvestiya on September 12, 1985, argues that the remarks are evidence of the administration’s “anti-Soviet campaign.” The article states, “In this interview, he crudely distorted the essence of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy course and assailed Soviet society with attacks which are unpardonable from the leader of a country.”
After reading through these news accounts drawn from remarks made by President Reagan during the 1985 “college radio network” interview, my interest in the event was reignited. Since more material is being regularly scanned and added to the Internet, I decided to dig into this mystery once again. With a little sleuthing, I found President Reagan’s daily diary and schedule on the Reagan Foundation website. In a diary entry on September 9, 1985. Reagan writes, “A very enjoyable interview for the 1300 College & U. radio stations conducted by 3 students from 3 different campuses—2 girls 1 male. They were fine young people & I enjoyed myself immensely.” The accompanying schedule, describes the interview with a “college radio network.” Although the specifics of this “network” are vague, the schedule unlocked crucial details. It noted that student participants included a senior political science major from John Carroll University, a political science graduate student from Indiana University and a junior majoring in broadcast journalism from University of Miami.
Combing through Student Newspapers and Archives
With that information in hand, I took my search to the John Carroll University Archives, hoping that I might find digitized student newspapers from 1985. I started with John Carroll University because I know that the school has a long-standing student radio station. And I was in luck. An article in The Carroll News from September 18, 1985 unravels the mystery even further, stating that student Jean Whalen participated in the interview as part of an internship with North American Network. According to the piece, the ensuing interview was to air on September 19, 1985 “on 300 public radio stations and over 1,300 colleges, including John Carroll’s WUJC.” So based on this tidbit of information, it appears that North American Network wasn’t representing a specific college radio group or organization during that visit to the White House in 1985, although the interview later aired on college radio stations.
My next step was to try to learn more about the North American Network. Again, I kept wondering if they had connections with college radio organizations like Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS). So I did a text search within the IBS collection that I’ve been assembling over the past two years within the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC) on the Internet Archive. North American Network came up in my search, as two representatives from the organization spoke at an IBS convention in March 1985, six months before the visit to the White House. Oddly, one of those speakers is a friend of mine. While he didn’t have scoop on the Reagan interview, he did mention that North American Network was launched from a dorm and that he was one of the original staff members, having majored in radio and television production. So the plot thickens.
North American Network’s Correspondence with the White House
Still an active organization, North American Network’s website includes details from the group’s history, including a photo gallery with images from the 1985 White House interview as well as correspondence related to that meeting. In a letter to President Reagan dated April 30, 1985, Thomas Sweeney talks about the radio network that he started and offers a proposal. He writes, “I would like a college student to conduct an interview with you. A program that will be distributed to the over one-thousand college radio stations that exist in this country.” On June 12, 1985, the Director of White House Television, Elizabeth Broad, responds to Sweeney saying that his request has been granted.
Returning to student newspaper archives, I was able to find a few more details. West Georgia College newspaper The West Georgian covered the interview, describing it as a “radio publicity play” that “developed into a ‘first time ever’ college journalists’ interview of President Reagan.” The article stated that tapes of the interview were to be supplied to college radio stations, with “European Colleges” receiving the interview by satellite. White House spokeswoman Elizabeth Board is quoted in the piece, saying “…we knew of no other college radio station network.”
Intercollegiate Broadcasting System Connection Comes to Light
An article in the September 13, 1985 issue of the Miami Hurricane, lent credence to my speculation that IBS had to have somehow been involved with the project. The final paragraph of the article, “UM Student Interviews Reagan,” notes that “The Intercollegiate Broadcasting System will work in conjunction with the North American Network to distribute copies of the taped interview — free of charge — to all college radio stations across the United States and Canada. The show will be distributed by satellite to European college audience [sic] an willl [sic] be made available after Sept. 24 to all public and private media.”
A few years later, IBS was offering member and non-member stations tapes of that interview for a fee ($6 for members, $8 for non-members). In its March-April 1987 issue of Journal of College Radio, a page promoting IBS taped programs includes a blurb about the “Symposium for the Future – President Reagan.” The tape is described as a half hour program in which “3 college students interview President Reagan in an unrehearsed, non-partisan program recorded in September of 1985. Produced by North American Network.”
My final stop was to the archives of The Indiana Daily Student. The third student in the trio interviewing President Reagan in 1985 was a reporter for the paper and wrote a straight-up news story for the September 10, 1985 issue covering the content of the interview. In contrast with the anti-Soviet slant that USSR outlets described, student Steve Sanders characterizes Reagan as talking more in terms of peace and mutual understanding. Sanders writes, “In an interview with the Daily Student and two other colleges, Reagan…said he dreams of the day when both superpowers eliminate their arsenals of nuclear weapons.”
To judge for yourself, you can listen to the entire interview (including off-air banter) and read a transcript of the meeting. Reagan even jokes around with the students and reminisces about his time as a sports announcer in college.
