Jimmy Carter & Margaret Thatcher: Papers Released

The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library has released some papers concerning his relationship with Margaret Thatcher, which are now available on the Margaret Thatcher Foundation Website.

Margaret Thatcher first met Jimmy Carter as President in May 1977 at Winfield House, the US Ambassador's grand residence in Regent's Park. (The request for the brief meeting came from her, the US Embassy in London recommending the President grant it "since there is a real possibility she may be Prime Minister by the end of April".) No record of what was said is currently available in the Carter Library. At that time she had been Leader of the Opposition for around a year and a half. She met him again only a few months later, that September, in Washington. The timing was a sign perhaps that the first meeting had not gone too badly, but their second encounter went disastrously wrong: the US record of the conversation is not yet open, but other papers show that Carter formed a poor impression of her, finding her outlook dogmatic and her manner hectoring. Afterwards he instructed staff never again to schedule him to meet an opposition leader. She was probably nervous; certainly, given her strong commitment to the British-American relationship, she will have tried to get along. In her letter of thanks she praised his conviction. Times change, however: the papers show that by the time of her election as Prime Minister, US officials had formed a better impression of Margaret Thatcher, seeing her as "cooler, wiser, more pragmatic", tempered by experience. Carter annotated his weekly NSC round-up brief to acknowledge a similar shift in his own perception.There is a hint also that the outgoing British Prime Minister, James Callaghan, who had been relatively close to Carter, was coming to seem a little time-expired from the American point of view. In fact when the British Government changed, there was concern that Carter might seem to have been too close to him, resulting in advice to the President to make a congratulatory phone call in addition to the "routine congratulatory cable". The following week an undisclosed source (doubtless the British Ambassador) briefed the National Security Advisor over lunch, revealing that Margaret Thatcher was "extremely energetic", slept "literally only three hours a night", and that in meetings she "tends to dominate and do most of the talking". More seriously, she was would support the President over the SALT II Treaty, though with reservations, and wanted closer involvement in NATO decision-making.

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