Reagan and Thatcher: Making the Relationship Special Again

Rating: HHH

President Ronald Reagan was worried the destruction of the Argentine military would destabilize Latin America. In a secret phone call, Reagan asked Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, would she break off the British attack in the Falklands for a cease-fire? “I didn't lose some of my best ships and some of my finest lives, to leave quietly under a cease-fire without the Argentines withdrawing,” said Thatcher. The Falklands victory solidified Thatcher’s position, helped make her dominant in British politics for the next decade.

     Falklands aside, Reagan said, “I believe a real friendship exists between the P.M., her family and us.” Thatcher said, “It may be that one reason why President Reagan and I made such a good team was that, although we shared the same analysis of the way the world worked, we were very different people.”

     Reagan’s readiness to take Thatcher’s advice gave Britain a voice in American politics without modern precedent. Of course, Reagan didn’t always take Thatcher’s advice. But the two always reconciled no matter their differences. Margaret Thatcher left an indelible impression on Ronald Reagan. Thatcher took her alliances seriously and felt that she owed her friends her best advice however uncomfortable or unwelcome it might be.

     When the national archives were opened, documents there confirmed that their ideals and beliefs were so in tune and the two leaders had a rare friendship in the political world. The book covers when they were children, the similarities of their formative years. Both their fathers were in the retail trade. Both considered themselves outsiders socially. Neither had an ambition as children to be politicians. The book tells of recent past history and you get a good sense of what these two leaders felt for their countries and each other. During the time their terms overlapped there were hundreds of confidential letters and calls to confirm this belief that there was a marriage of minds.

     Author Nicholas Wapshott is an editor at the New York Sun Times and former New York bureau chief of the Times of London. He was a founding editor of the Times Magazine. As political editor of the Observer, Wapshott covered Margaret Thatcher’s final years in office. Wapshott says, “When they first met in 1975, when Reagan was already 65 and Thatcher 50, it was like H. M. Stanley stumbling across Dr. Livingstone. They finished each other’s sentences from the moment they met.”

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher A Political Marriage. Hardback 319 pages. Publisher: Sentinel a division of Penguin (November 8, 2007). Language: English. ISBN- 978-1-59523-047-8 $25.95

Gabrielle Pantera is the book reviewer for the British Weekly and a screenwriter.