“I stand before you tonight in my red chiffon evening gown, with my face delicately made up and my hair slightly curled, the Iron Lady of the Western World. Cold War warrior /…/ Yes, I am the Iron Lady, after all it wasn’t so bad being the Iron Duke (Duke of Wellington, n.d.); yes, it is true, if that is the term used to describe my defence of the freedoms on which our way of life is based.”
With these words, which drew enthusiastic applause and laughter from her Conservative Party colleagues, Margaret Thatcher responded to her new nickname. It was given to her by the Soviet Red Army’s Red Star newspaper after she publicly attacked the Soviet communist regime in 1976 during one of her first high-profile speeches as the new leader of the British opposition. Contrary to the authors’ expectations, Thatcher was proud of the nickname, which she used as a bulwark against Bolshevik ideology.
Margaret Thatcher was the second longest-serving elected Western leader and British Prime Minister in the 20th century, after Golda Meir. She ruled with an iron hand for a whopping eleven years (1979-1990). The 1980s were undoubtedly Margaret Thatcher’s heyday.
There has been and will be no consensus on her personality, her way of governing, her economic and political legacy, but the only generally accepted fact is that she has never left anyone indifferent. Hated and adored at the same time, she won the elections a record three times in a row, allowing her to fulfil a deep-rooted right-wing personal political vision.
It was called ‘Thatcherism’, and its essence was opposition to the excessive role of the state in the economy, to high taxes and the deficit, to the political power of the trade unions, to socialism on home soil and to communism on the world stage. It advocated the free market, the privatisation of state industry, the abolition of subsidies and the downsizing of the public sector, and opened wide the door to the neoliberal doctrine, which many believe has buried the welfare state and further deepened class divisions.
“I was an individualist, I believed that individuals are ultimately responsible for their own actions and should behave accordingly.” For her, society should be based solely on meritocracy, and the poor and disadvantaged are to blame for their own problems.
It has relentlessly taken on the privileges of the workers’ unions and ‘won’ the almost year-long war with the miners, even though headlines such as The Lady Nobody Likes or Why Mrs Thatcher is So Unpopular have been splashed across the front pages. But Margaret Thatcher always kept her poise and her belief in what was right. Even after the failed assassination attempt by the Irish Republican Army, when she escaped death by a hair’s breadth, she remained almost cold-bloodedly forthcoming, and the day afterwards she was already addressing a party conference.
She has not only radically transformed British society, but has also left her distinctive mark on the European and international stage. During the Falklands War, she showed the world her leadership skills and nerves of steel. She viewed the integration of continental Europe with suspicion. An outcast among the pro-European leaders of the then European Economic Community, she often caused fear and trembling among them with her implacable posture and tireless repetition of Demand My Money Back. More often than not, they were fed up with it.
It played a more positive and consensual role in the Reagan-Gorbachev-Thatcher trio, which undoubtedly accelerated the peaceful end of the Cold War. Thus, when she left, the political picture of the world was completely different. Proverbially stubborn and unyielding, it was in her attitude towards the Soviet Union and communism that she showed the most flexibility towards the end of her political career.
She became the Iron Lady because of her aggressive anti-Soviet stance, but she softened her stance, especially after meeting the charming, cosmopolitan and sensible Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom she developed an almost friendly relationship. They were cordial friends with US President Ronald Reagan, not only an ideological soul-mate but also a charismatic and stately gentleman with the same values. In her relations with both, she tactfully used a mixture of her feminine charm and her unrivalled intellect to get what she wanted.
While its reputation around the world grew, its policies, its unwillingness to compromise and its increasingly autocratic stance at home led to numerous public protests, as well as divisions within the party. And it was her party colleagues who snatched the reins of power from her.
The relentless march to the political stage
Margaret Hilda Roberts (1925-2013) was of humble origins, the younger daughter of a grocer and a seamstress. But there was political blood in the family and her father, for many years a city councillor, encouraged his daughter from an early age to read and discuss difficult and diverse local, national and global economic and political issues.
Laughter was rare in their home and the family was constantly on their feet. The girls’ daily routine consisted of school, helping out in the shop, religion, voluntary work and reading. The conservative home upbringing included a glorification of the British monarchy and empire. Despite its decline, Margaret worked hard throughout her life to preserve pride in its former glory. A passionate royalist, she was in regular contact with the Queen in her official capacity during the years of her reign and retained an almost incomprehensible degree of awe for her.
Margaret grew up with the work discipline she was known for throughout her life. Years later, her daughter Carol said with a touch of irony: “My mother never experienced emptiness.” She was terrified of wasting time and used every minute to work or run errands. She learned that she needed only four hours of sleep a night. In addition to her hyperactivity and perseverance, she had an incredible dose of ambition and tenacity. Multi-talented, she studied chemistry at Oxford, but her heart was in politics.
While still at university, she became President of the Oxford Conservative Students’ Union and devoted all her free time to political activism. She bravely tackled the problems of British society and attacked the policies of the ruling Labour Party. She knew then that what she wanted most of all was to become an MP. She was also becoming increasingly noticed by influential Conservatives – a young, attractive, smart girl with no pedigree and not a hair on her tongue was not exactly a constant among Conservative influencers.
Everything in her life has always been fast and efficient. So, after studying, she worked for a while as a researcher in a laboratory, but quickly married Denis Thatcher, a wealthy entrepreneur, and had twins. As she later admitted in her autobiography, she was terrified immediately after giving birth of the thought of remaining ‘just a mother’ or ‘just a housewife’. So she eagerly embarked on a law degree, as it suited her political ambitions, and even worked for a while in a law firm.
She has stood twice unsuccessfully, but strongly and convincingly, for the House of Commons in a traditionally Labour constituency. Both times, despite her defeat, she brought the Conservatives far more votes than previous candidates. Eventually, they were obliged to offer her the nomination in a constituency where she could win as a Conservative. During the candidate selection process, she was a victim of the prevailing misogynist environment and of the degrading attitude towards ambitious women. The most frequent questions did not concern her abilities, but she had to defend that she would be able to do a ‘man’s job’ in spite of her children and household responsibilities.
She was diligent and with an incredible ability to concentrate, she immersed herself in her files so that she eventually knew them by heart. Throughout her career, she surprised those around her time and again with her mastery of all subjects down to the smallest detail. She was impatient and dismissive of those who were not so committed. She never liked holidays and, to the horror of her colleagues, often returned early from them. Once, after four days of holiday, she called her secretary from Heathrow. She was scared that something was wrong, but Margaret explained: “No, no, everything is fine. We’ve seen everything. I’m coming to the office!”
Her husband supported her throughout, and when the children were six years old, Margaret Thatcher became an opposition MP before the age of 30. Initially she was mainly responsible for ‘women’s’ issues, social affairs, education and health, and even when the Conservatives took power in 1970 she was Education Secretary.
But she also excelled in economics and finance, which helped her better understand the problems of the British economy. Indeed, at that time, Britain was the ‘sick man of Europe’ because of the dire economic situation. In 1976, with Labour back in power, the government even had to apply for the biggest ever IMF loan. Thatcher was already Leader of the Opposition after winning the election for party leader over the obnoxious and haughty Edward Heath, with whom she never really clicked.
Tired of constant strikes and trade union violence, people voted the Conservatives back in after the ‘winter of discontent’ in 1979. Margaret Thatcher’s relentless campaign against ‘incompetent Labour’ bore fruit and she became Prime Minister with an overwhelming parliamentary majority.
The Iron Lady attacks communism
But Thatcher was not only interested in the situation within the country, she also wanted it to play a significant role in the world. She knew that if she was ever to become Prime Minister, she needed to establish herself on the international stage as soon as possible. She had always seen communism as the greatest threat to the values and way of life in the free Western world that she herself had so strongly advocated. In her first speeches as Leader of the Opposition, she focused a lot on the Cold War and her aggressive rhetoric immediately became controversial. This was a period of détente, of rapprochement between East and West and of numerous international disarmament initiatives.
It also highlighted the worrying reduction in defence spending in the British budget due to austerity measures and pointed to the military imbalance between the West and the Soviet Union in favour of the latter. The Soviets were steadily building up their military arsenal and had, for example, more nuclear submarines than all the other nuclear powers put together. Although the true figures were kept from the world, estimates of the Soviet defence budget were astronomical, between 25 and 30%. NATO, in which the US played the most important role, was for Thatcher the main pillar of European defence. That is why she also began to look increasingly across the Atlantic.
It was even suspicious of the Helsinki Process (1973-1975) and its Final Act, which was signed by thirty-five countries, including the Soviet Union, and represented an attempt at West-East rapprochement. The Charter included principles on respect for human rights, non-aggression, inviolability of borders, non-interference in internal affairs, compliance with international law and so on. It was welcomed by the British Conservatives, but not by Thatcher. The Soviet Union was the number one mortal enemy in the early years of her political career.
True to her habits, she wanted to learn as much as she could about this mortal enemy. She was helped by renowned historians and academics, whom she regularly invited to talks and seminars, and even by the well-known and outstanding scholar Robert Conquest, who helped her to write speeches. She called on the government to increase the defence budget, and in particular for the preservation and strengthening of Britain’s nuclear weapons.
The speech she gave at Kensington in January 1976, after British troops visited West Germany, will go down in history for all time. But not because she pointed out the imbalance between NATO and the Warsaw Pact – the latter was supposed to have 150,000 more troops, 10,000 more tanks and 2,600 more planes. Nor because it threatened Britain’s downfall because of socialism and accused the left, which at the time was even in favour of total disarmament, of collaborating with the Soviets, and the Soviets of wanting world domination.
After this speech, the Red Star newspaper nicknamed her the Iron Lady. This was intended to insult her and compare her to the Iron Chancellor Bismarck, but it achieved the opposite. This was the image of herself that she wanted to present to the world. Thus, in the midst of the Cold War, the Iron Lady entered the international arena. She left it only at its end.
Despite its efforts to work more closely with the US, it has not been able to find contact with Jimmy Carter, the Democratic President since 1976. For him, human rights were paramount and he fervently advocated mutual disarmament and a ban on the use and testing of nuclear weapons. His relaxed administration – even senior officials walked around the White House in jeans and sandals – could not find any common ground with the conservative and austere British one.
When the Red Army invaded Afghanistan in 1979, all Thatcher’s relentless warnings seemed justified. In her memoirs, she wrote that she was not the least bit surprised by the action of this ‘monster’. The Soviets intervened on the side of the installed communist regime in the war against the Muslim guerrilla and remained in the country for ten years. The invasion was an important turning point in the Cold War.
Margaret and Ron
At that time, on the other side of the Atlantic, a new Republican political star was rising, the glamorous ex-Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan. His election was also an important turning point in the Cold War, and a new era in British-American relations was dawning. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan became key allies on most major international issues, often helped by their personal chemistry.
Margaret has been attracted to the consumerist, capitalist and meritocratic society of the USA since her first official visit. That was in 1967, when she took part in a programme for young foreign emerging leaders from the worlds of politics and business to learn about as many aspects of American society as possible. She spent six weeks travelling around the country and, as her enthusiasm for it grew by the day, she became increasingly aware of Britain’s backwardness. She felt that British entrepreneurship was hampered mainly by over-regulation and over-taxation.
When she became Leader of the Opposition in 1975, she immediately visited the US again. Her gender, her personality, her carefully groomed appearance and, above all, her clear and vocal convictions, gave her a great deal of media attention. But nothing very encouraging was written about Britain. For the ‘sick man of Europe’, the government of the day did not and could not find the right cures, and as well as the deteriorating economic situation, national self-confidence was also declining. Margaret Thatcher had already begun to draw up her political manifesto in her mind, which would propel her to the highest office a few years later.
1975 was marked by another event, the first meeting with Ronald Reagan. Her husband Denis had warned her about him a few years earlier when he heard him at a conference. He said to his wife, “You have to meet this man. He talks and thinks just like you.” And Reagan agreed with this assessment. As soon as he met Margaret, he felt that they were ideological soul mates with a similar philosophy of governance – more freedom, less state interference, lower taxes and a stronger defence against communist regimes.
Reagan’s rhetoric on the Soviet Union, or the ‘evil empire’ as he called it, was similar to Thatcher’s. He was also a charming, charismatic and upright man, direct and with a sense of humour. Despite her stern and serious appearance, looks and humour were very important to her, and it was men like this that she liked best. Even though she herself was said never to have told a joke.
Like Thatcher, Reagan was initially branded as a maverick with no serious chance of making it to the top, but he did it in 1980 and served two terms in the White House. The first foreign statesman Reagan invited for an official visit was Margaret Thatcher. “I would like to do something in the US similar to what Margaret Thatcher did in Britain,” he said. Such an honour boosted her prestige at home, where in the early years of her reign, despite the introduction of immediate decisive reforms, the economy continued to sink and unemployment to rise.
Reagan instructed his staff to give the British delegation as grand a reception as possible, in the style of the Hollywood glamour he was used to as a movie star. Thatcher had to tell him that unfortunately her entourage did not have tails and white bow ties, so the Americans changed the dress code for the gala dinner at the last minute.
Their relationship was quickly labelled a ‘political marriage’ by their contemporaries and, as in any marriage, problems and disagreements arose. This was particularly the case when the two countries had different foreign policy objectives and interests. But as true spouses, they solved the problems away from the public eye, and in front of the public, they showed style and mutual respect.
They also differed in many respects in the way they governed – she always had a comprehensive overview of all the details and rarely needed the support of her colleagues in discussions, while he was relaxed and focused only on the main guidelines, always delegating the more technical matters. He enjoyed his free time and did not let himself be disturbed during holidays. This was not something that was possible for a British Prime Minister.
She was also aware that intellectually he was not even up to her knees. One day, in a conversation with her confidant and Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, the subject of Reagan came up. She looked at her interlocutor, tapped her forehead and said, “Peter, there is nothing in there.” But of course that did not change the fact that the US President was her most important and influential ally.
She also needed his support during the first serious crisis that put her future at stake. The Falklands War proved to be one of the most important milestones of Margaret Thatcher’s reign.
Falklands War
At the beginning of 1982, Margaret Thatcher was the most unpopular Prime Minister of the last fifty years in the opinion polls for her so far ineffective measures and her high and unyielding stance. There was no sign that she would be re-elected next time.
Then, on 2 April, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British territory in the South Atlantic, thirteen thousand kilometres from the mother country, with a population of just 1 800 people of British origin. Since 1690, the archipelago has been ruled by a succession of rulers – British, French, Spanish, Argentine – and since 1833 by Great Britain. The Argentines have never accepted this status and have claimed that, as heirs to the Spanish Crown, they are entitled to all the territories that it held during the period of Argentine colonisation. Thus, the legal status of the Falklands remained unclear.
Although strategically important because of their favourable location and proximity to Cape Horn and its many harbours, at the time of the invasion most Britons had no idea where the islands were located. “Somewhere in Scotland”, they said. Even the Prime Minister herself could not locate them on a map.
General Galtieri’s military junta has been in power in Argentina since 1981, and the takeover of the Malvinas, as the Falklands are called by the Argentines, is intended to promote national unity among Argentines and to divert attention away from the regime’s domestic problems.
Despite warnings from the secret services, the British government has remained indifferent for (too) long. But when the invasion came, Margaret Thatcher had no hesitation in authorising a special naval task force, over the objections of the Foreign Office, which was in favour of an immediate peaceful solution. She wanted to preserve British pride and freedom, but even so, she never flinched in the face of dictatorial and terrorist threats. The special force immediately set off on a long journey across the Atlantic to reclaim the archipelago for the mother country. In the end, it consisted of 127 ships and 25,000 soldiers.
Meanwhile, there have been heated and nervous international negotiations, both at the United Nations and through bilateral attempts. Margaret Thatcher reluctantly agreed to them, and was even prepared to make a number of concessions to Argentina on governance in return for the withdrawal of troops. The UN resolution called on the Argentinians to withdraw, although the mood among many of the members, former British colonies, was very anti-British. The British ships, however, continued on their way in full readiness to attack.
The US reaction was initially rather lukewarm, because it had close economic relations with Argentina, but also saw the right-wing junta as a bulwark against the spread of communism in South America. Reagan’s relative indifference and evasiveness was a real disappointment for Thatcher. He even publicly declared that the US was on friendly terms with both countries.
But when he realised that the conflict could bring down the Thatcher government, he supported it more wholeheartedly. Margaret was pleasantly surprised by the European Economic Community’s sanctions against Argentina, and even more so by French President Mitterrand’s condemnation of Argentine aggression. Despite her disagreements on the future of European integration, she was eternally grateful for this crucial support.
Argentina has not accepted any of the seven offers of compromise with the UK. They were frivolous negotiators, and Galtieri was often drunk during his telephone conversations with world leaders, including Reagan. This left the British Special Forces, then already in Argentine waters, with no choice but to attack the archipelago.
After ten weeks of fighting on land and many tense battles between warships, the British won and Argentina capitulated on 15 June. The Argentine government fell and the country slowly returned to democracy. This was one of the most emotionally difficult periods for Margaret Thatcher and she was often in tears at the news of the deaths of British soldiers.
At home, the triumph was a complete euphoria and she became a national heroine. The British people could once again be proud of their exhausted and decaying homeland. Thatcher proved that she was indeed an iron lady with exceptional leadership skills, she won admiration among her opponents at home and overnight became the world’s most famous leader.
The ‘Falklands Factor’ changed the British political scene, and the Conservatives, even with a slight improvement in the economic situation, gained support and easily won the 1983 elections. At the same time, a period of a much more independent and assertive British foreign policy began.
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A difficult relationship with Europe
The desire for British independence was most evident in her difficult relationship with the European Economic Community (now the European Union). Margaret Thatcher’s attitude towards Europe changed over the years. Initially, she was actually enthusiastic about economic integration, as she was a free-marketeer, and the common European market promised many new opportunities for economic growth for the British people.
It has become more sceptical in parallel with ever closer integration, which has included elements of political union and transferred many competences to common European institutions. In addition to its economic advantages, it saw European integration as a bulwark against the spread of communism, but early on rejected the then-popular idea of a US-style federal Europe. This was seen as a threat to Britain’s much-cherished sovereignty.
Britain wanted to join the European Community as early as the 1960s, but French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed its application twice, suspicious, among other things, of the credibility of Britain’s pan-European aspirations. After his departure from the Elysée Palace, she finally became a member in 1973.
Interestingly, the enthusiasm at the time was much greater among the Conservatives than among Labour. In fact, because they were divided on the issue, they called for a referendum on ‘continued membership’ in 1975, and it was on this issue that Margaret fought her first major political campaign. True to the party’s programme, she was publicly enthusiastically ‘in favour’ and the public overwhelmingly supported membership.
When she took the reins of government, her biggest frustration quickly came to light, related to the terms of membership of the European Economic Community. For she was convinced that Britain was contributing too much money to the common European budget compared to what it was getting back.
It has become her constant obsession, and the one issue she has stubbornly insisted on in all her meetings with other European leaders. At the regular summit meetings, the so-called European Councils, she became a real pariah and regularly blocked negotiations on new proposals and initiatives until the issue of the British budgetary contribution was settled.
All the other European leaders were furious, Kohl pleaded with her to “think about the future”, but she was adamant. “No, sorry. I want my money back,” she insisted. Mitterrand described this relentless negotiator as having “the lips of Brigitte Bardot and the eyes of Caligula”.
Her arguments were based on the fact that the vast majority of European money at the time was for the Common Agricultural Policy, of which France had the most and the UK the least. It was also one of the Member States with the lowest GDP. After years of persistence, Thatcher succeeded in 1984 in winning for the UK a so-called rebate, or permanent reimbursement of part of the budget contribution, which remained in place until the country left the European Union.
At the very first Council it participated in, in Strasbourg in 1979, it also showed its disagreement with the Franco-German proposal for a European monetary system, of which the exchange rate mechanism was a central part. She came under considerable pressure from party colleagues and ministers who wanted to peg the pound to other units in this voluntary scheme, but she was firmly opposed. As she wrote in her autobiography, she was also nervous about the Keynesian view of the economy in continental Europe, while she was in favour of financial deregulation.
Thatcher often clashed with her cabinet, but most of the time she got her way through skilful and tactful political gamesmanship. Often she did not inform ministers of her intentions at all, and if they disagreed, she took it upon herself to take over their powers. This was particularly the case in the area of foreign and European policy. Over the years, a lot of resentment has built up on her benches and in her ministerial ranks.
Margaret Thatcher had another unpleasant characteristic. She harbored deep-seated prejudices against foreigners, and this was also true of her European counterparts. She made no secret of it. By nature, she was most sceptical of Germans, a feeling which she herself openly linked to her experience of the Second World War. She retained a fear of a too-powerful Germany and was one of the few opponents of the unification of East and West Germany after the end of the Cold War.
When Helmut Kohl came to power in West Germany, they never managed to establish a friendly relationship, although he was always cavalier with her and often even gave her a precious brooch. She was aware that good relations with Germany were important as a counterbalance to the close Franco-German friendship, but it was clear that she and Kohl stood on their own side of the river on the future of European integration. He was pushing for European integration, where decisions should be taken by qualified majority rather than unanimity, for new and greater powers for the European institutions and for higher common expenditure.
But the almighty “no, no, no” could neither stop nor slow down the European project. Thatcher’s biggest ‘mistake’ was to back the able Frenchman Jacques Delors as President of the Commission in 1985. Although she regarded him as extremely capable, the two became increasingly hostile to each other as the years went by. In her own words, she despised his ‘socialist’ leanings and was annoyed that he had too many powers as an unelected official. That is why she never addressed him as President, but ‘only’ as Monsieur Delors. But what horrified her most was his insistence on the beginnings of a European government.
Delors wanted to achieve more Europe, and a more effective Europe. He spearheaded the biggest reform process of European integration ever. This led to the adoption in 1986 of the Single European Act, a treaty that extended the powers of the Community, introduced more qualified majority voting, increased the legislative role of the European Parliament and committed Member States to completing a fully functioning internal market by 1993. Nothing but the last was in line with Margaret Thatcher’s wishes. But she had no choice but to sign the Treaty, and the British Parliament approved it.
However, she never openly campaigned for Britain to leave the EU, because as a great economist she was well aware of its advantages. How Margaret Thatcher would have viewed the events of recent years can therefore only be speculated.
Mikhail Gorbachev takes the stage
Margaret was much more popular, successful and flexible on the international stage than on the European one. Her most far-reaching contribution to humanity was undoubtedly the role she played in hastening the end of the Cold War. She and her great friend Reagan shared a contempt for the communist Soviet Union, but both were prepared to de-escalate tensions when the time was right. They wanted an end to the differences between the Western and Eastern blocs, even if they did not necessarily agree on methods.
Margaret Thatcher, when elected, focused on the military imbalance between the Warsaw Pact and NATO, and fought against calls and negotiations on arms limitations, especially on nuclear arms. She was a firm believer in the principle of deterrence in peacekeeping. Reagan’s lifelong dream was a world without nuclear weapons. For years they debated the ‘right’ approach and finally settled on limiting nuclear capabilities rather than abolishing them altogether.
The General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party at the time was Leonid Brezhnev, the author of the ‘famous’ Brezhnev Doctrine, under which the Soviets intervened in all Eastern regimes where the communist regime was threatened. Although he advocated a policy of appeasement and signed a number of arms control treaties and the Helsinki Final Act, he was a staunch ideologue. He was also responsible for the occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989) and for supporting many communist regimes around the world.
After Brezhnev’s death in 1982, both he and Reagan hoped for improved relations with the Communist bloc. Thatcher, in keeping with her habits, again organised a seminar at which pundits predicted the arrival of a new generation of Kremlin leaders and warned her of the rising star of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev. As usual, she wasted no time and invited Gorbachev to an informal meeting.
Their first meeting in 1984 was a great success, again thanks to their personal chemistry. Before her he was a cultured man, open, smiling, attractive, completely different from the typical wooden Soviet apparatchik, even though this was his first visit to a Western capitalist country. She was also impressed by his highly educated and attractive wife, Raisa.
Gorbachev was well versed in the details of Thatcher and it turned out that he had read all her speeches. They debated for long hours and often got upset because they had different world views. But this was only the beginning, and it was a promising one. Her assessment of the meeting is well known: “This is it. A man I can do business with.”
Gorbachev took over as General Secretary three years after Brezhnev’s death, and in the meantime two of Brezhnev’s successors, Andropov and Chernenko, have died. Thatcher attended both funerals and used the occasion to meet Gorbachev and conduct personal diplomacy. An interpreter present during the meeting said that she tried to “charm him and he reacted in the same way. Apparently this is her way of ‘doing politics’. /…/ She likes to use her feminine wiles and play especially with Gorbachev.”
After this meeting, the Prime Minister began to encourage Reagan to meet Gorbachev regularly in correspondence. She assured him that he represented a break with the previous tradition of Soviet leaders and that he was speaking out about the defeated state of the Soviet economy and the need for economic and political reforms. But Reagan remained sceptical for a long time.
She pressed so hard that the US administration softened and Colin Powell – later Secretary of State in the Bush Jr. administration 2001-2005 – said, “Jesus, if dear old Margaret thinks there’s something to it, we’d really better take a closer look. /…/ And then Gorby appeared – he was like no one before him – with his fine suits, his French ties and his beautiful wife who was as smart as he was.”
The ice was broken at the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva in November 1985.
The fall of the Iron Lady
After the meeting, which was mainly of symbolic value, Reagan said, “Maggie was right. This is a man we can really work with.” Dialogue between the three leaders has thus become a constant feature of international relations, with Thatcher often playing a mediating role. Reagan and Gorbachev soon turned to a subject where they saw the possibility of agreement, namely the phasing out of nuclear weapons.
Both had serious intentions, for Reagan it was a lifelong vision, but Gorbachev was only too well aware that the Soviet Union was falling further and further behind in the arms race. If he wanted to radically transform the Soviet economy, he had to radically cut the defence budget. Of course, the Americans knew very well that the days of Soviet arms race parity were over.
Margaret Thatcher, a passionate advocate of nuclear weapons, tried to play the role of devil’s advocate, sowing doubt on both sides about the credibility of their intentions. But she also still did not fully trust the Soviet Union, convinced that it wanted to keep the weapons despite its formal commitment, thus further endangering European security.
When Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavik in 1986, just before the agreement on the total abolition of nuclear weapons, Thatcher was horrified. To her relief, the talks collapsed because Reagan refused to give up the programme to build an anti-nuclear shield, popularly known as Star Wars. Be that as it may, a new era of thawing relations has certainly dawned. Reagan’s famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate echoed his words: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
The Soviet leader was by then fully committed to a policy of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reconstruction), and in 1988 he announced at the United Nations the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe, renouncing the Brezhnev Doctrine.
Thatcher herself saw the changes in the Soviet Union. She was greeted as a heroine, followed at every turn by crowds of thousands, and her visit and television interview were completely uncensored. She also met many dissidents. She was so popular that women even started wearing hairstyles à la Margaret Thatcher.
Similarly, during her visit to Poland, she met Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa. It was in Poland in 1989 that the first free elections in the Eastern world were held, and the Solidarity movement won. Thatcher said it was the most welcome political change of her life.
At the end of the Reagan presidency in 1988, it seemed to the international community as if the Cold War was already over. Margaret Thatcher was the guest of honour at the President’s last State Dinner. She danced her last dance with the outgoing President.
But Margaret Thatcher would not have been Margaret Thatcher if she had not caused problems in this period of history. Even she herself wrote: “On a day when I am not causing controversy, I am not doing much.” Indeed, when it became clear that the reunification of East and West Germany would come sooner or later, she was the only Western leader who was bitterly opposed. While she was happy to see the fall of the Berlin Wall, she found German reunification difficult to accept, not least because of her envy.
She lobbied her European colleagues, the US administration and even Gorbachev, but they all turned their backs on her and ostracised her, not least for statements such as “The Germans have beaten us twice and now they are here again”. Reagan’s successor, Bush, supported both German-American friendship and European integration. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, this gained momentum and the dream of a united Europe was able to flourish.
‘The woman with the power’, as she was called by her opponents at home, did not get the chance to stand in the fourth election. She was undermined by her party colleagues through political intrigue and found it difficult to relinquish the premiership. This most important British Prime Minister of the second half of the 20th century left behind a controversial legacy. But as the only woman in an all-male world, she proved that gender is never a guarantee of success.
