BOOK REVIEW: THE IRON LADY

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 00624363
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2017
• Case Number: F-2017-00160
• Publication Date: June 1, 1991

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TITLE: BOOK REVIEW: The Iron Lady
REVIEWER: John T. Kirby
VOLUME: 35 ISSUE: Summer YEAR: 1991
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DIES I
INTELLIGENCE
N .
A collection of articles on the historical, operational, doctrinal, and theoretical aspects of intelligence. -
All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed in Studies in Intelligence are those of
the authors. They do not necessarily reflect official positions or views of the Central
Intelligence Agency or any other US Government entity, past or present. Nothing in the
contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government endorsement of an
article's factual statements and interpretations.
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Book Reviews
The Iron Lady: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher.
By Hugo Young. The Noonday Press, Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, New York; 1990; 580 pp.
This model political biography is the best book on
Margaret Thatcher to appear to date. It was pub-
lished just before her defeat as prime minister, and
it will therefore not be the last. For Anglophiles,
students of political intelligence, current histori-
ans, or just plain biography buffs, this is a superb,
detailed study of arguably the most famous British
leader since Churchill. It is beautifully written,
with great style and considerable humor.
The author, a veteran London political columnist,
has had a wide range of contacts among leaders of
the Conservative Party throughout the Thatcher
years. Readers of ciirrent intelligence and follow-
ers of political developments affecting the US-UK
"special relationship" will learn fascinating details
of the Reagan-Thatcher entente, from their initial
meeting in California in the 1960s through her
visit to Washington for the first Reagan inaugural
(she was the new President's first official guest)
and beyond�well into her almost 12-year rule.
Lord Carrington, who accompanied Thatcher on her
first visit to Washington and who later resigned as
her foreign minister when the Falldands War erupt-
ed, told a friend that Thatcher had loved the trip and
that it had "gone off very well indeed. She liked the
Reagan people very much. They're so vulgar." The
remark was described by Young as "not a serious
evaluation but merely a demonstration of Caning-
ton's incorrigible upper-class frivolity."
Students of intelligence on the Falklands War,
described by Young as "a seminal event in the life
of the Thatcher Administration," will be interest-
ed to learn that between January 1981 and April
1982 there was no meeting of the Defence Com-
mittee of the Cabinet to discuss the Falklands and
that the Latin America Current Intelligence Group
met 18 times between July 1981 and March 1982,
when the Argentine invasion began, and did not
once discuss the Falklands.
The Reagan administration's assistance contribut-
ed substantially to Thatcher's successful pursuit of
the war. Sir Nicholas Henderson, British ambassa-
dor to Washington at the time, later wrote: "It is
difficult to exaggerate the difference that Ameri-
ca's support made to the military outcome." The
support included everything from the extensive
use of transport aircraft to providing Sidewinder
missiles and, according to Young, "most crucially,
a measure of very close collaboration on signals
and intelligence that was quite indispensable." No
wonder, then, that Reagan was royally saluted on
his subsequent visits to London and Windsor.
And yet, not long after the Falklands episode and
all it meant to London-Washington relations, the
Reagan White House had not told Whitehall about
US plans to invade the British Commonwealth
island of Grenada. Actually, Reagan later admit-
ted to Young that the information was withheld on
security grounds out of fear of a leak. Former
Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill recounts in his
autobiography that he raised the question of That-
cher's views of invasion plans when he was briefed
by Reagan on the eve of the landings. He quoted
Reagan as saying: "She doesn't know about it."
From what O'Neill heard of Reagan's quick phone
call to Thatcher, "it was obvious that she was
enraged on being told after the fact." As she ripped
through piles of telegrams on the invasion next
day at 10 Downing Street, she told a cabinet
secretary that she "simply could not understand"
why she had not been taken into Reagan's trust;
"Anglo-American relations will never be the same
again." Her anger was described as
"incandescent."
Young amply documents the degree to which
Thatcher held the Foreign Office in great con-
tempt, although there were a few ambassadors in
whom she had confidence and from whom she
occasionally sought advice or guidance. Nonethe-
less, the "despised" Foreign Office discovered
Gorbachev in 1984 before anyone else in the
Western world did. His first visit to a Western
capital was to London, and Thatcher made her
famous comment subsequently on the BBC: "I like
Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together."
Young makes the point repeatedly that Thatcher
made a strong effort to know the government's
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Book Reviews
security and intelligence chiefs over her long ten-
ure. For example, she formed a close and mutually
admiring relationship with Sir Maurice Oldfield,
head of MI6, from 1973 to 1979. She later ac-
knowledged in response to a parliamentary ques-
tion that Sir Maurice had been identified in an
official investigation as a homosexual. Young
notes that she maintained her interest in security
and intelligence affairs throughout the years far
more than many, if not most, of her predecessors.
In November 1979, shortly after becoming prime
minister, she made the longest and most revealing
statement any prime minister had ever offered to
Parliament on a security matter when she con-
firmed that Anthony Blunt, the former Keeper of
the Queen's Pictures, had admitted in 1964 to
being a Soviet agent. Yet from 1985 to 1988, the
Spycatcher affair epitomized the worst aspects of
Thatcher's approach to government management
in general and security matters in particular. She
made an enormous effort to suppress Peter
Wright's book of vengeful revelations on British
security activities but failed in the courts to stop
'publication in Australia and the US. The London
Sunday Times thus was able to publish long ex-
tracts without fear of prosecution. In 1983, she
became involved in a serious labor flap when she
banned labor unions from service in a government
security agency, GCHQ, NSA's counterpart.
Young's handling of what he refers to as "the
gender factor" in Thatcher's political career makes
for fascinating reading. He points out that there
were highly contradictory aspects of her woman-
hood as it related to her rise to the top and how
she handled herself when she got there. Young
describes politics as a male world, and he empha-
sizes that Thatcher always prided herself in peace
and war on her toughness. But she was not
ashamed to weep on TV when talking about her
father's loss of his town council job, or when
commenting on British casualties in the Falklands.
The author suggests that gender was "incontest-
ably a conscious part of Thatcher's personality as a
political leader." In 1965, she told a political
forum: "If you want something said, ask a man; if
you want something done, ask a woman." At a
1969 party conference, quoting Sophocles, she
said: "Once a woman is made equal to a man, she
becomes his superior." Nonetheless, as Young
observes, Thatcher frequently cited her role as a
housewife when discussing the national economic
problems she faced.
After her removal from party leadership in No-
vember 1990 following Michael Heseltine's unsuc-
cessful challenge, Thatcher vacated 10 Downing
Street for a rented flat in London. Her replace-
ment, John Major, immediately reversed some of
her pet policies. She will be missed by many,
including her most astute biographer, Hugo
Young.
John T. Kirby
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