The New York Times
Book Review

Sunday, November 14, 1993

# The Right To Be Right

Mrs. Thatcher's memoirs are lucid, opinionated, self-assured, indispensable — like herself.

## THE DOWNING STREET YEARS

By Margaret Thatcher.
Illustrated. 914 pp. New York:
HarperCollins Publishers. $30.

By Henry A. Kissinger

ONE of the curiosities of British politics is that the party of the insiders — the Tories — should have produced two great Prime Ministers from among rank outsiders: Benjamin Disraeli, of Jewish origin; and Margaret Thatcher, a grocer's daughter. Both proved extremely controversial. Both helped to define a new role for Britain's Conservatives. Disraeli showed the Conservatives that they need not fear mass democracy; Mrs. Thatcher set out to demonstrate that the Conservatives could prosper while dismantling the role of the state and stressing individual responsibility.

Margaret Thatcher was one of the most remarkable British prime ministers of this, or any other, century. When she took over its leadership in 1975, the Tory Party was participating in the seemingly inevitable enhancement of the role of the state — at a slower pace than the Labor Party but in the same direction. When she left office 15 years later, British politics had come full circle. Now it was the Labor Party that was trying to slow down the seemingly irreversible trend toward privatization and reduction in the role of the state. So great was the transformation that the current official platform of the Labor Party is not very different from what Mrs. Thatcher inherited in 1975 as the Conservative program.

The style of Mrs. Thatcher's domestic politics was as important as the substance. She abandoned the contest for the center that in her view homogenized democracy and deprived the public of any real choice. She replaced it with an explicit — and at times strident — Conservative ideology whose purpose was to emphasize the dividing lines between the parties. In the end, her insistent elaboration of distinctive issues defeated her. But that is no more than saying that every political revolution sooner or later reaches its end after the public becomes exhausted from being jolted into one new effort after another. It is the measure of Mrs. Thatcher's achievement that she carried on for so long —

hectoring, unyielding — longer than any other British prime minister in the 20th century.

In foreign policy, her break with the past was less explicit. All postwar British Governments of both major parties had emphasized the special relationship with America, and had shown far more caution toward a supranational Europe than their partners on the Continent — especially after de Gaulle's departure from the scene. Mrs. Thatcher elaborated both these strands of British politics and gave them a cast of principle that was distinct from the typically pragmatic British style. Her friendship with the United States was both unqualified and unconstrained by the tinges of neutralist pacifism characteristic of the radical wing of the Labor Party. During the Reagan Administration, she achieved an influence over American decisions, especially with respect to NATO and arms control policy, not seen since Churchill's day.

MRS. THATCHER took British reserve regarding European supranationalism to equally absolute lengths. For Britain, the move into Europe has always held a different significance than it has for the nations of the Continent. Historically, danger had always come to Britain from Europe, and salvation, at least in the modern period, from across the ocean. No British prime minister — Edward Heath excepted — felt comfortable in loosening ties with the United States as a way of increasing England's role in Europe.

But all other postwar prime ministers sought to mitigate their reserve by a dose of pragmatism. Mrs. Thatcher took her stand on principle. She would not permit the slightest step toward limiting British sovereignty, nor make the tactical compromises urged by her dissident Cabinet colleagues to prevent British isolation. Mrs. Thatcher did not mind standing alone; the impres-

sion is unavoidable from "The Downing Street Years" that she thrived on it, and saw in it an endorsement of her rectitude. In the end, her intransigence on European supranationalism turned into the pretext for her downfall — though the comments on her memoirs by her colleagues leave little doubt that they would have found some other pretexts, if necessary, once her standing in the polls had begun to drop. In retirement, at least she has had the satisfaction of seeing her basic instincts vindicated by the fate of the Maastricht approach to a supranational Europe.

The leadership role of a British prime minister is more difficult to discover than that of an Amer-

> Her zest
> infuriated her
> opponents but
> swept the
> doubtful along.

ican President, since the British head of Government acts on behalf of the Cabinet and, in theory, has far less scope for unilateral decisions than a President. Though often the case, that truism has not applied to the really outstanding prime ministers, who tend to carry their Cabinets with them by the force of their personalities and convictions. In both domestic and foreign policy, it is difficult to imagine another prime minister from the ranks of the Tories who would have been prepared to adopt policies of comparable sweep or to maintain them with the same determination as Mrs. Thatcher did.

I had some personal experience of this during the Falklands crisis in 1982. On the occasion of a speech during the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the

(OVER)

-2-

founding of the British Foreign Office, I was invited to lunch with Francis Pym, the Foreign Secretary, and his top advisers. They proceeded to outline to me various alternatives for a negotiated compromise. Believing these to be official policy, I asked Mrs. Thatcher later that day over tea which option she preferred. It proved to be an infelicitous inquiry, for Mrs. Thatcher vehemently rejected the very concept of compromise — so vehemently, in fact, that I did not disturb her misapprehension that I, and not the Foreign Secretary, was the originator of the compromises. This temporarily deflected the wrath from her colleagues. But only temporarily. For, as she makes clear in her memoirs, she subsequently encountered the quest for compromise in the Cabinet. She resisted because she would not permit any change to be extorted from Britain by force. Mrs. Thatcher tells us that she would have resigned had the Cabinet gone along with any of the compromises outlined by Mr. Pym or by the American Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, whose shuttle between Buenos Aires and London she describes with suspicion bordering on distaste.

Nearly all key political decisions are close calls; if the pros and cons were not fairly evenly divided, there would be no dilemmas. Mrs. Thatcher's bearing conveyed that while Britain's problems were difficult, they were soluble, and that she, at least, would not rather do anything else. Her zest swept the doubtful along even as it infuriated her opponents.

Mrs. Thatcher's memoirs are essential for an understanding of her time because they capture all the qualities of her character and, inevitably, some of her defects as well. They are lucid, opinionated, self-assured, wide-ranging and indispensable. She has chosen to cover all the principal decisions of her tenure, which means that she has included events of only marginal interest to American readers. But the account is so full that even the reader who concentrates just on material of special interest to himself will be rewarded by the gripping tale of a leader who has triumphantly answered the question nagging at every political figure: whether his or her actions are making any real difference.

Mrs. Thatcher has been criticized in Britain for her sharp delineation of some of her Cabinet colleagues. At this distance, it is not possible to judge the accuracy of all of these portraits. But there is no doubt that she has an extraordinary gift for conveying essential attributes. She describes her dismissal of Christo-

pher Soames, Churchill's son-in-law, as leader of the House of Lords in this way: "I got the distinct impression that he felt the natural order of things was being violated and that he was, in effect, being dismissed by his housemaid." (As a longtime friend and warm admirer of Christopher's, I found this plausible.) Or her view of the veteran Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti: "He saw politics as an 18th-century general saw war: a vast and elaborate set of parade ground maneuvers by armies that would never actually engage in conflict but instead declare victory, surrender or compromise as their apparent strength dictated in order to collaborate on the real business of sharing the spoils."

SKETCHES such as these are scattered in great profusion through the nearly thousand pages of text. She admired Ronald Reagan, liked Jimmy Carter, felt unappreciated by George Bush and distrusted Secretary of State James Baker. Like many great leaders, Mrs. Thatcher had a better eye for the weaknesses and foibles of her contemporaries than for their virtues. Yet the standards by which she judges them illuminate her approach to politics as a noble enterprise, a mixture of principle and personality, of careful analysis and heady conviction.

Memoir writers tend to sound self-righteous, especially when they defend controversial policies. But this is nearly inevitable, since their decisions represented their best judgment at the time, and the passage of time rarely alters the conclusions. This is especially true of leaders like Mrs. Thatcher, who eschewed expediency and affirmed principle. And, after all, there were not many failures. Most of what she set out to do was achieved. The debate about Mrs. Thatcher's tenure has to concern the nature of her objectives rather than her ability to reach them.

It would be preposterous for me to pretend to neutrality with respect to her objectives. I believe Mrs. Thatcher made a vast contribution to the public debate and to the direction of our time. It is a pity that she did not set out at greater length the reasoning that brought her to the views she holds. So strong are her convictions

(cont'd.)

-3-

## The Likable Mr. Gorbachev

Mr. Gorbachev... insisted on the superiority of the Soviet system. Not only did it produce higher growth rates, but if I came to the U.S.S.R. I would see how the Soviet people lived — " joyfully." If this were so, I countered, why did the Soviet authorities not allow people to leave the country as easily as they could leave Britain? ...

If at this stage I had paid attention only to the content of Mr. Gorbachev's remarks — largely the standard Marxist line — I would have to conclude that he was cast in the usual Communist mold. But his personality could not have been more different from the wooden ventriloquism of the average Soviet apparatchik. He smiled, laughed, used his hands for emphasis, modulated his voice, followed

an argument through and was a sharp debater. He was self-confident and... he did not seem in the least uneasy about entering into controversial areas of high politics. This was even more so in the hours of discussion which followed. He never read from a prepared brief, but referred to a small notebook of manuscript jottings. Only on matters of pronunciation of foreign names did he refer to his colleagues for advice. His line was no different from what I would have expected. His style was. As the day wore on I came to understand that it was the style far more than the Marxist rhetoric which expressed the substance of the personality beneath. I found myself liking him.

From "The Downing Street Years."

that she feels no need to explain them.

Mrs. Thatcher's passionate views sometimes lead her to excessive policy judgments. She correctly under-

> So strong are Mrs. Thatcher's convictions that she feels no need to explain them to her readers.

stood the powerful, perhaps dominant, role that a united Germany would come to play in Europe. But, in the end, foreign policy must relate analysis to what is

possible. By the time the Communist regime in East Germany collapsed, there was no longer a practical alternative to German unification. Mrs. Thatcher, according to her memoirs, tried to interest François Mitterrand in supporting two, albeit democratic, German states; he, in turn, brought a similar proposition before Mikhail Gorbachev. One has the impression that both leaders shared her concerns but judged themselves too weak to sustain a permanent policy of confrontation in the center of Europe against a resurgent Germany.

In the contemporary period, to say that a statesman had the courage of her convictions, perhaps even to excess, is to describe a quality that is in regrettably short supply. When all is said and done, what Margaret Thatcher stood for was that man is not the product of circumstance but of choice, and that politics is not about expediency but about purpose. Her book bears witness to that message, for which free peoples owe her a debt of gratitude — whether or not they agree with all her conclusions. ☐

Henry A. Kissinger is working on a book about the history of diplomacy, to be published next spring.

NOV-01-'93 MON 16:55 ID:NY TIMES-BOOK REVIEW TEL NO:

212 556 1320 #762 P02

Front Page changes requested

SL: HENRYII QU: COPY-BKS

HJ: Y011.79/0080

FM:

FG: xbk

BY: BOHARR;11/01,11:23 OF: BAGEWE;11/01,15:47

FR: COPY-BKS ;11/01,15:47

NOTE: BOOKS/KISSINGER 1 bg dk?

PRINTED: 15:49 01-NOV-93

<gfcol>

<gfauthor>Henry A. Kissinger is working on a book about the
his... diplomacy, to be published next spring.
... stet

<gfreview>THE DOWNING STREET YEARS [MC]

By Margaret Thatcher.

HarperCollins Publishers. $30. [MC]

<gfbyline>By Henry A. Kissinger [MC]

<gfdo>O[MC]NE of the curiosities of British politics is that
the party of the insiders - the Tories - should
have produced two great Prime Ministers
from among rank outsiders: Benjamin Disrae-
li, of Jewish origin; and Margaret Thatcher, a grocer's
daughter. Both proved extremely controversial. Both
helped to define a new role for Britain's Conservatives. "Great" deleted
Disraeli showed the Conservatives that they need not
fear mass democracy; Mrs. Thatcher set out to demon-
strate that the Conservatives could prosper while dis-
mantling the role of the state and stressing individual
responsibility.

Margaret Thatcher was one of the most remark-
able British Prime Ministers of this, or any other,
century. When she took over its leadership in 1975, the
Tory Party was participating in the seemingly inevita-
ble enhancement of the role of the state - at a slower
pace than the Labor Party but in the same direction.
When she left office 15 years later, British politics had
come full circle. Now it was the Labor Party that was
trying to slow down the seemingly irreversible trend
toward privatization and reduction in the role of the
state. So great was the transformation that the current
official platform of the Labor Party is not very differ-
ent from what Mrs. Thatcher inherited in 1975 as the
Conservative program.
changed from "which"

The style of Mrs. Thatcher's domestic politics was
as important as the substance. She abandoned the
contest for the center that in her view homogenized
democracy and deprived the public of any real choice.
She replaced it with an explicit - and at times strident
- Conservative ideology whose purpose was to empha-
size the dividing lines between the parties. In the end,
her insistent elaboration of distinctive issues defeated
her. But that is no more than saying that every political
revolution sooner or later reaches its end after the
public becomes exhausted from being jolted into one
changed from "which"

"They prefer to your" MT's style of domestic politics
was as important as its substance."