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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 200 years.

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.

(END)

More to come, but they need to set the front page first, because it is in color.

* Their copy desk did not do a thorough search & is very about "since early in the 19th C." They are pressing for "in the 20th Century."

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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 impression 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 *idem*, *approach* & *supranationalism* *are*

The leadership role of a British prime minister is more difficult to discover than that of an American President, since the British head of Government acts on behalf of the Cabinet and, in theory, has far less scope for unilateral decisions than the American 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 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

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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-assembled, 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 Christopher Boames, 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 past and elaborate set of parade ground maneuvers by

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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 with great profligacy 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 that she feels no need to explain them.

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

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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.<ws>[TH][OBX]

(END)

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<gfcol>

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

<gfreview>THE DOWNING STREET YEARS [MC]

By Margaret Thatcher.

Illustrated. 914 pp. New York:

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 Disraël, 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

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(END)

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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 impression 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 idea.

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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 Christopher 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

212 556 1320 #763 P04

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PAGE: 3

Sketches such as these are scattered with great
profligacy through the nearly thousand pages of text.
She admired Ronald Reagan, liked Jimmy Carter, felt
unappreciated by George Bush and distrusted Secre-
tary 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, espe-
cially 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.

Mrs. Thatcher's passionate views sometimes lead
her to excessive policy judgments. She correctly under-
stood the powerful, perhaps dominant, role that a unit-
ed 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, ac-
cording to her memoirs, tried to interest François
Mitterrand in maintaining two, albeit democratic, Ger-
man states; he, in turn, brought a similar proposition
before Mikhail Gorbachev. One has the impression that
both leaders shared her concerns but judged them-
selves too weak to sustain a permanent policy of con-
frontation in the center of Europe against a revisionist

1

Kissinger Review of Thatcher Memoirs 11/1/93

1794 WORDS

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 Great Britain's Conservatives. Disraeli showed
the Conservatives that they need not fear mass democracy;
Margaret Thatcher set out to demonstrate that the
Conservatives could prosper while dismantling the role of the
state and stressing individual responsibility.

CJ

[Y]

2

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 fifteen years later, British
politics had come full circle. Now it was the Labor Party
which 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 <u>Conservative program</u>.

Margaret Thatcher's style of domestic politics was as
important as its substance. She abandoned the contest for the
center which, 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

X

3

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 Thatcher's
achievement that she carried on for so long - hectoring,
unyielding - longer than any other British Prime Minister in
two hundred years.

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 America was both

0/0

[Y]

4

Thatcher took British reserve regarding European supranationalism to equally absolute lengths. For Great Britain, the move into Europe has always held a different significance than it has for the nations of the Continent. Historically, danger had always came to Britain from Europe and salvation, at least in the modern period, from across the ocean. No British Prime Minister - Heath excepted - felt comfortable in loosening ties with America as a way of increasing England's role in Europe.

But all postwar Prime Ministers sought to mitigate their reserve by a dose of pragmatism. Mrs. Thatcher took her stand

[Y]

5

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. Thatcher did not mind standing
alone; the impression is unavoidable 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 idea.

The leadership role of a British Prime Minister is more
difficult to discover than that of an American President since
the British head of government acts on behalf of the Cabinet

[Y]

6

and, in theory, unlike the American President, has far less
scope for unilateral decisions. 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 two hundredth anniversary of the 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 outcome. Believing these to be official

[Y]

7

policy, I asked Mrs. Thatcher later that day over tea which option she preferred. It proved to be an infelicitous inquiry, for 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 encountered the quest for compromise in the Cabinet. She resisted because she would not permit any change to be extorted from Britain by force.

Thatcher tells us that she would have resigned had the Cabinet gone along with any of the compromises outlined by Pym, or by the American Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, whose shuttle between Buenos Aires and London she describes with suspicion bordering on distaste.

[Y]

8

Nearly all the key political decisions are close; if the pros and cons were not fairly evenly divided, there would be no dilemmas. 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 account of a leader who has triumphantly

XX

[Y]

9

Mrs. Thatcher has been criticized in Great 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
them. But there is no doubt that she has an extraordinary gift
for conveying some of their essential attributes. She
described her dismissal of Christopher Soames, Churchill's
son-in-law, 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 long-time friend and warm admirer of Christopher's, this
sounds plausible). Or her view of veteran Italian Prime
Minister Andreotti: "He saw politics as an eighteenth century
general saw war: a vast and elaborate set of parade ground
maneuvers by armies that would never actually engage in

AA

[Y]

10

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 with great profligacy
through the nearly thousand pages of text. She admired Reagan,
liked Carter, felt unappreciated by Bush, and distrusted
Secretary of State Baker. Like many great leaders, Thatcher
had a better eye for the weakness 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 it is nearly
inevitable since their decisions represented their best
judgment at the time, and the passage of time rarely alters

[Y]

11

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 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 which brought her to the views she holds.

[Y]

12

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. Thatcher, according to her
memoirs, tried to interest Mitterrand in maintaining two,
albeit democratic, German states; he, in turn, brought a
similar proposition before Gorbachev. One has the impression
that both of her interlocutors shared her concerns but judged
themselves too weak to sustain a permanent policy of
confrontation in the center of Europe against a revisionist
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 which 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

AX

13

OCT-31-1993 12:26 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.01

1

*Kissinger Review of Thatcher Memoirs* 10/31/93

1832 WORDS

One of the curiosities of British politics is that the party
of the insiders - the Tories - should have produced two of the
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 Great Britain's Conservatives. Disraeli
showed the Conservatives that they need not fear mass
democracy; Margaret Thatcher set out to demonstrate that the
Conservatives could prosper while dismantling the power of the
state, and stressing individual responsibility

OCT-31-1993 12:26 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.02

in the seemingly inevitable rise in the role of the state - at
a slower pace than the Labor Party but in the same direction.
When she left office fifteen years later, British politics had
come full circle. Now it was the Labor Party which 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 <u>Conservative program</u>.

OCT-31-1993 12:27 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.03

OCT-31-1993 12:27 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.04

4
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.

Thatcher took British reserve regarding European
supranationalism to equally absolute lengths. For Great
Britain, the move into Europe has always held a different
significance than it has for the nations of the Continent.
Historically, danger had always came to Britain from Europe
and salvation, at least in the modern period, from across the
ocean. No British Prime Minister - Heath excepted - felt
comfortable in loosening ties with America as a way of
increasing England's role in Europe. And all postwar Prime
Ministers sought to mitigate their reserve by practicing
traditional British pragmatism. Mrs. Thatcher took her stand

OCT-31-1993 12:27 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.05

5

on principle. She would not permit the slightest step toward limiting British sovereignty in freedom of decision, nor make the tactical compromises urged by her dissident Cabinet colleagues to prevent British isolation. Thatcher did not mind standing alone; the impression is unavoidable 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 evolution of the European idea.

OCT-31-1993 12:28 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.06

I had some personal experience of this during the Falklands
crisis in 1982. On the occasion of a speech during the
celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the 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 outcome. At tea with Mrs. Thatcher later
I asked

OCT-31-1993 12:28 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.07

[Y]

CLG over tea 7

in the day I asked which option she preferred. It proved to be an infelicitous inquiry, for 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 encountered the quest for compromise in the Cabinet. And she She resisted because she would not permit any change to be extorted from Britain by force. Thatcher tells us that she would have resigned had the Cabinet gone along with any of the compromises outlined by Pym, or by the American Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, whose shuttle between Buenos Aires and London she describes with # suspicion bordering on distaste.

Mrs. Thatcher carried out all these various tasks with a zest that swept the doubtful along with her enthusiasm - even

OCT-31-1993 12:28 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.08

[Y]

8

as it infuriated her opponents. Nearly all the key political decisions are close; if the pros and cons were not fairly evenly divided, there would be no dilemmas. 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.

Mrs. Thatcher's memoirs are essential for an understanding of the times 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 detailed that even the reader who concentrates just on material of special interest to himself, will be rewarded by the gripping account of a leader who has

OCT-31-1993 12:29 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.09

[Y]

9

Mrs. Thatcher has been criticized in Great 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 them. But there is no doubt that she has an extraordinary gift for conveying some of their essential attributes. She described her dismissal of Christopher Soames, Churchill's son-in-law, 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 long-time friend and admirer of Christopher's, this sounds plausible). Or her view of veteran Italian Prime Minister

OCT-31-1993 12:29 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.10

10

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 with great profligacy
through the nearly thousand pages of text. Thatcher skitters
her opponents and less frequently extols her friends. She
admired Reagan, liked Carter, felt unappreciated by Bush, and
distrusted Secretary of State Baker. Like many great leaders,
Thatcher had a better eye for the weakness and foibles of her
contemporaries than for their virtues. Yet they 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 in their defense
of controversial policies. It is nearly inevitable that their

OCT-31-1993 12:29 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.11

[Y]

11

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. The fact that something may
not have worked out is unlikely to affect her judgment of its
merit. And, after all, there were not many failures. Most of
what she set out to do was achieved. The debate about
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 objectivity
with respect to her objectives. I believe Mrs. Thatcher made a
vast contribution to the public debate and to the direction of
our time. For this reason, I regret that she did not set out
at greater length the reasoning which brought her to the views
she holds. (So strong are her convictions that she feels no
need to explain them, perhaps even to herself.)

OCT-31-1993 12:30 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.12

Thatcher's 12
And sometimes his passionate views lead her to excessive policy judgments. She correctly understood 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 unification. Thatcher, according to her memoirs, tried to interest Mitterrand in maintaining two, albeit democratic, German states; he, in turn, brought a similar proposition before Gorbachev. One has the impression that both of her interlocutors shared her concerns but judged themselves too weak to sustain a permanent policy of confrontation in the center of Europe against a revisionist Germany.

OCT-31-1993 12:30 FROM

TO

1203 9270065 P.13

[Y]

13

describe a quality which 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 her.

Conclusion.

TOTAL P.13

1

Kissinger Review of Thatcher Memoirs 10/31/93

1832 WORDS

One of the curiosities of British politics is that the party
of the insiders - the Tories - should have produced two of the
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 Great Britain's Conservatives. Disraeli
showed the Conservatives that they need not fear mass
democracy; Margaret Thatcher set out to demonstrate that the
Conservatives could prosper while dismantling the power of the
state.

[Y]

2

X

[Y]

3

X

[Y]

4

[Y]

5

on principle. She would not permit the slightest step toward
limiting British sovereignty or freedom of decision, nor make
the tactical compromises urged by her dissident Cabinet
colleagues to prevent British isolation. Thatcher did not mind
standing alone; the impression is unavoidable 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 evolution of the European idea.

X

[Y]

6

I had some personal experience of this during the Falklands
crisis in 1982. On the occasion of a speech during the
celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the 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 outcome. At tea with Mrs. Thatcher later

X

[Y]

7

in the day, I asked which option she preferred. It proved to
be an infelicitous inquiry, for 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
encountered the quest for compromise in the Cabinet. And she
resented it because she would not permit any change to be
extorted from Britain by force. Thatcher tells us that she
would have resigned had the Cabinet gone along with any of the
compromises outlined by Pym, or by the American Secretary of
State, Alexander Haig, whose shuttle between Buenos Aires and
London she describes with a suspicion bordering on distaste.

[Y]

8

Mrs. Thatcher's memoirs are essential for an understanding
of the times 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 detailed that even the reader who concentrates
just on material of special interest to himself alone, will be
rewarded by the gripping account of a leader who has

X

[Y]

9

Mrs. Thatcher has been criticized in Great 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 them. But there is no doubt that she has an extraordinary gift for conveying some of their essential attributes. She described her dismissal of Christopher Soames, Churchill's son-in-law, 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 long-time friend and admirer of Christopher's, this sounds plausible). Or her view of veteran Italian Prime Minister Andreotti: "He saw politics as an eighteenth century general saw war: a vast and elaborate set of parade ground maneuvers

X

[x]

10

Sketches such as these are scattered with great profligacy
through the nearly thousand pages of text. Thatcher skewers
her opponents and - less frequently - extols her friends. She
admired Reagan, liked Carter, felt unappreciated by Bush, and
distrusted Secretary of State Baker. Like many great leaders,
Thatcher had a better eye for the weakness and foibles of her
contemporaries than for their virtues. Yet they illuminate her
approach to politics as a noble enterprise, a mixture of
principle and personality, of careful analysis and heady
conviction.

X

[Y]

11

It would be preposterous for me to pretend to objectivity
with respect to her objectives. I believe Mrs. Thatcher made a
vast contribution to the public debate and to the direction of
our time. For this reason, I regret that she did not set out
at greater length the reasoning which brought her to the views
she holds. So strong are her convictions that she feels no
need to explain them, perhaps even to herself.

X

[Y]

12

And sometimes her passionate views lead her to excessive policy judgments. She correctly understood 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 unification. Thatcher, according to her memoirs, tried to interest Mitterrand in maintaining two, albeit democratic, German states; he, in turn, brought a similar proposition before Gorbachev. One has the impression that both of her interlocutors shared her concerns but judged themselves too weak to sustain a permanent policy of confrontation in the center of Europe against a revisionist Germany.

[Y]

13

1

1613 WORDS

One of the paradoxes of British politics is that the party
of the insiders - the Tories - has produced two of the
greatest Prime Ministers of the last century from among rank
outsiders: Benjamin Disraeli, of Jewish origin; and Margaret
Thatcher, a grocer's daughter. Both were extremely
controversial; both helped to define a new role for Great
Britain's Conservatives. Disraeli proved that Conservatives
did not need to fear mass democracy; Margaret Thatcher set out
to demonstrate that democracy did not need to fear private
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 stood for slowing

[Y]

2

down but not reversing the seemingly inevitable increase in
the role of the state. When she left office fifteen years
later, British politics had turned full circle. Now it was the
Labor Party which was trying to slow down the seemingly
irreversible trend toward privatization and reduction of the
role of the state. So great was the transformation, that the
current official position of the Labor Party is not very
different from what Mrs. Thatcher inherited in 1975 as the
Conservative program.

Thatcher's style of domestic politics was as important as
its substance. She abandoned the contest for the center which,
in her view, homogenized democracy and deprived the public of
a real choice. She replaced it with an explicitly - sometimes
strident - Conservative ideology whose purpose was to
emphasize the dividing lines between the parties but permitted
the elaboration of distinctive issues. In the end, she was

X

[YJ]

3

defeated by that style, but that is no more than saying that
every political revolution sooner or later runs its course.
And Thatcher has lasted longer than any other British Prime
Minister in two hundred years.

In foreign policy, her break with the past was less
explicit. All British governments of both major parties had
emphasized the special relationship with America. Each had
been more cautious about a supranational Europe than their
partners on the Continent - especially after de Gaulle's
departure. Mrs. Thatcher elaborated both these strands of
British politics. She was an unreserved opponent of friendship
with America unconstrained by the tinges of neutralist
pacifism of the radical wing of the Labor Party. Especially
during the Reagan Administration, she achieved a nearly
unprecedented influence over American decisions, especially
with respect to NATO and arms control policy.

X

CJ

4

Thatcher gave an equally uniquely extreme cast to British reserve regarding European supranationalism. She would not take the slightest step toward limiting British sovereignty or freedom of decision, not even to make tactical compromises urged by her colleagues to prevent British isolation. Thatcher did not mind standing alone; the impression is unavoidable that she thrived on it and saw in it an endorsement of her rectitude. In the end, her intransigence on European supranationalism was 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 declined. And her basic instincts have been vindicated by the evolution of the European idea since her departure from office.

The leadership role of a British Prime Minister is more difficult to discover than that of American Presidents since

X

[Y]

5

the British head of government personally speaks on behalf of
the Cabinet and, in theory, unlike the American President, has
far less scope for unilateral decisions. Though often the
case, it does not apply to the really outstanding Prime
Ministers, who tend to carry their Cabinet with them by the
force of their personality and their 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 a comparable sweep or
to maintain them with such determination.

I had a personal experience of this during the Falkland[s] crisis. On the occasion of the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the 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 outcome.

X

[Y]

6

At tea with Mrs. Thatcher later in the day, I asked which option she preferred. It proved an unforgettable question. She was so vehement in rejecting the very concept of compromise, that I did not disturb her misapprehension that I was the originator of these compromises. And [it] temporarily deflected the wrath from her colleagues. But only temporarily. For, as she makes clear in her memoirs, she held fast against any modification of her determination not to permit any change to be extorted from Britain by force, to the point where she would have resigned had the Cabinet gone along with any of the compromises outlined by Pym, or by the American Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, whose shuttle between Buenos Aires and London she describes with suspicion bordering on distaste.

Mrs. Thatcher carried out these various tasks with a zest that conveyed the importance of what she was doing, and thus

X

[Y]

7

carried along the doubtful with her enthusiasm - even as it
infuriated her opponents.

Nearly all the key political decisions are close; if the
pros and cons were not fairly evenly divided, there would be
no dilemmas. Her bearing conveyed that, while Britain's
problems were difficult, they were soluble and that she, at
least, would not rather do anything else.

Mrs. Thatcher's memoirs are essential for an understanding
of the times because they embody all these qualities (and also
some of her defects). Extremely well-written, they are
opinionated, self-assured, wide-ranging, and indispensable.
She has chosen to cover all the principal decisions of her
tenure, which means that she includes some events of only
marginal interest to American readers. But the account is so
detailed that even the reader who concentrates only on
material of special interest to him, will be rewarded by the

X

[Y]

8

gripping account of a leader who has triumphantly answered the
question nagging at every political figure: did their actions
make any difference?

Mrs. Thatcher has been criticized in Great Britain for her
sharp portraits of some of her Cabinet colleagues. At this
distance, it is not possible to judge their accuracy. But
there is no doubt that she has an extraordinary gift for
conveying some of their essential attributes. She described
her dismissal of Christopher Soames 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." Or her view of long-time Italian Prime
Minister Andreotti: "He saw politics as an eighteenth 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

X

[Y]

9

Sketches such as these are scattered with great proficiency
through the nearly thousand pages of text. It is not necessary
to agree with all of them - I for one do not share her
judgment of some of the key figures she sketches and, now and
then, savages. Like many great leaders, Thatcher had a better
eye for the weakness and foibles of her contemporaries than
for their virtues. They illuminate her approach to politics as
a mixture of principle and personality, of careful analysis
and deep passion.

Memoir-writers tend to sound self-righteous in their defense
of controversial policies. On the other hand, their decisions
represented the best judgment when they were made, and the
passage of time rarely alters the conclusion. This is
especially true of a leader like Mrs. Thatcher, who eschewed

X

10

expediency and affirmed principle. The fact that something may
not have worked is unlikely to affect her judgment of its
merit. And she did achieve most of what she set out to do - so
the debate has to concern the nature of her objectives rather
than her ability to reach them.

It would be preposterous for me to pretend to objectivity
with respect to her objectives. I believe Mrs. Thatcher made a
vast contribution to the public debate and to the direction of
our time. For this reason, I regret that she did not set out
at greater length the reasoning that brought her to hold the
views she does. So strong are her convictions that she feels
no need to explain them, perhaps even to herself.

And sometimes her passionate views lead her to excessive
policy judgments. She correctly understood the powerful,
perhaps dominant, role that a united Germany would play in
Europe. But by the time the Communist regime in East Germany

[Y]

X

[Y]

11

collapsed, there was no longer an alternative to unification.

Thatcher, according to her memoirs, tried to interest
Mitterrand in maintaining two, albeit democratic, German
states; he, in turn, tried to interest Gorbachev in the
proposition. One has the impression that both of her
interlocutors shared her concerns but judged themselves too
weak to sustain a permanent policy of confrontation in the
center of Europe against a revisionist Germany.

But in the contemporary period, to say that a statesman had
the courage of her convictions, perhaps to excess, is to
describe a quality 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, 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.

X