MARGARET ROBERTS THATCHER - UNITED KINGDOM

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06239545
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: March 16, 2022
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2016
• Case Number: F-2014-01469
• Publication Date: November 20, 1989

Approved for Release: 2014/10/24 C06239545
Margaret Roberts THATCHER
Prime Minister
Addressed as: Prime Minister
have changed everything," Margaret
Thatcher announced when she became Prime
Minister in 1979. A woman of relentless energy,
she proceeded to use a combination of grit,
determination, and overwhelming self-confidence
to place her stamp on the decade that followed. Her
supporters pay tribute to her command of detail,
her directness, and her iron will. Her detractors
claim that she is autocratic, inflexible, and
narrowminded; the Labor Party's Dennis Healey
has accused her of practicing "Rottweiler politics."
UNITED KINGDOM
Thatcher prefers the counsel of a small "kitchen cabinet," claiming that the presence of
such personal advisers ensures that she and other ministers do not end up "in a prison of civil
service advice." The practice has, however, prompted public allegations that she is
increasingly isolated and unable to work effectively with her Cabinet. Reliance on her
personal economic adviser, Sir Alan Walters, generated a widely known dispute with
longtime Chancellor Nigel Lawson that culminated in Lawson's resignation in October
1989. (Walters also quit.) Labor Party leaders claimed that in explaining her conduct in the
incident Thatcher was "economical with the truth," a phrase that was also applied to her
handling of the Westland helicopter crisis in 1985.
"I Am a Warrior"
Sir Crispin Tickell, Thatcher's Permanent Representative to the UN, has said that he
has always seen a substantial likeness between his boss and Queen Elizabeth I. Thatcher
herself has taken Abraham Lincoln as a model, noting that, like her, he had to fight for what
he believed in. "I have to fight every day still," she told an interviewer earlier this year. A
self-described conviction politician, she battles constantly�to eliminate socialism in Britain,
to augment free market principles, to maintain UK sovereignty as the EC moves toward a
single market in 1992, to privatize Britain's water and electricity, to ensure a strong
Western defense in the face of a changing Communism, and to secure international
cooperation to save the environment. London is currently rife with rumors, denied by Tory
politicians, that next month she will face a challenge to her 15-year leadership of the
Conservative Party. Although Thatcher�currently in her third term as Prime Minister�
recently indicated that she would not seek a fifth term, she insists that she will contest a
fourth election
Observers note that Thatcher loves to argue and relishes a debate with someone worthy
of her mettle. she especially likes her meetings with Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev because he gives as good as he gets. "Get me a drink," barked
Alexander Haig after one encounter, "That's a hell of a tough lady." Tory stalwart Lord
Whitelaw, who served Thatcher for eight years, says that she uses exchanges with her
colleagues to test the strength of her own case.
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"99.5 Percent Perfect"
"Margaret is 99.5 percent perfect," her father once reportedly said. "The other
1/2 percent is that she could be a little warmer." A notorious workaholic, she has little
patience or talent for relaxation or chitchat. In social settings, she gravitates to the company
of men and talk of business. She has a legendary lack of humor and claims that vacations
interfere with one's working rhythm and cause colds. Even during her schooldays, says a
childhood chum, she was obsessed with work and politics. During the early 1950s she
squeezed part-time legal study into a schedule already filled with work as a research
chemist, party duties, and responsibilities as a wife and mother: she passed the bar exam
only four months after giving birth to twins Carol and Mark. According to the press, she still
sleeps only three to five hours a night.
The daughter of the late Alfred Roberts, a greengrocer and local politician, Thatcher
was born on 13 October 1925. She was greatly influenced by her father: "I owe just about
everything to him," she says. The doting Roberts often took schoolgirl Margaret to
university lectures, where he encouraged her to stand up and question speakers. By contrast,
Thatcher's mother, who died in 1960, was a stolid homebody whom Thatcher rarely
mentions. Thatcher's older sister, by far the more popular of the two girls, also plays little
part in her life. Alfred Roberts instilled in his daughter a respect for independence and hard
work, and, encouraged by him, she secured admission to Oxford. There she became the first
woman to head the Oxford University Conservative Association; she used the post as a
springboard to local and national Tory politics.
Thatcher began campaigning for a seat in Parliament in 1950, but it was nine years
before her attempts proved successful. Two years later, in 1961, Prime Minister Harold
Macmillan appointed her joint parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and
National Insurance. In 1964, when the Conservatives were defeated by Labor, she moved
into the Tory shadow cabinet, handling gas, coal, electricity, and nuclear energy; then
transportation; and finally education and science. When the Conservatives returned to
power in 1970, she retained the education and science portfolio�the only woman to serve in
the Cabinet of Prime Minister Edward Heath. Heath resigned the prime-ministership in
1974 and was deposed as Tory leader almost a year later�Thatcher then made her bid for
the party leadership.
"Eyes of Caligula, Mouth of Marilyn Monroe .. .99
... or so Francois Mitterrand reportedly quipped. Thatcher has made conscious efforts
to improve both her appearance and her delivery. Once strident and shrill in Parliament, she
has been turned by experts from the National Theater into a more polished and versatile
combatant. Her proper suits have, under the influence of her daughter, given way to power
dressing
Downing Street insiders say that she lives on vitamin C, coffee,
and royal jelly. (A colleague once recalled, however, that she made the best lemon meringue
pie he had ever eaten.)
Thatcher's husband, Denis, is a blunt, rightwing conservative. According to the press,
he refers to his wife as "The Boss" or "M." A retired oil company executive, he sometimes
accompanies her on her travels. His sense of practicality keeps her on an even keel, and one
observer has commented that he is probably the only person who would "tell the empress the
truth about her new clothes." The Thatchers became grandparents for the first time in
February.
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