Reagan took a handbagging for less than total support

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June 27, 2005

Reagan took a handbagging for less than total support
By Michael Evans and Alan Hamilton



WHEN Margaret Thatcher read out the secret telegrams from Washington during the Falklands war she could not conceal her anger at President Reagan’s less than total support for her.

“Mrs T has not yet consigned me to the Tower, but I am told that her voice drops two dangerous decibels when she goes through my telegrams during inner Cabinet meetings,” Sir Nicholas Henderson, the British Ambassador to Washington at the time, noted in his diary.

The Prime Minister was incensed at a message sent by Mr Reagan on May 2, 1982, to Latin American leaders in which he expressed “understanding” for Argentina’s national commitment to recover the Falklands. She told him so in no uncertain terms.

General Alexander Haig, the United States Secretary of State, reported to Sir Nicholas: “The President, while full of admiration for the Prime Minister’s uninterruptible flow (to the point where he held up the phone to allow his aides to listen), has been frustrated by his inability to get a word in edgeways to transmit his admittedly complex message.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-1670774,00.html