(no subject)

"Thatcher was able to use forceful tactics, occasionally rough ones, for a simple but important reason: Reagan didn’t mind. He liked her, admired her abilities, was prepared to tolerate strong expressions of disagreement within the context of overall support, and was even amused by her occasional outbursts. One time when she was thundering disagreement down the phone line from London, he held up the telephone so that the rest of his meeting could hear and said, “Isn’t she wonderful?” But their partnership, however close, ultimately depended on each partner being able to deliver. While Thatcher was prime minister, she was almost invariably able to deliver."

(no subject)

"The political implications were clear: where Reagan’s staff saw a need to distance him and the administration from Thatcher’s difficulties, he saw a need to give her the strong public backing she needed to survive them. He was risking political capital on her behalf. That was a more solid commitment than any number of diplomatic compliments. This protectiveness went in two directions. Later in the year, at the Ottawa summit, where Reagan was both making his G-7 debut and recovering from Hinckley’s gunshot, Thatcher gave him support he badly needed by speaking out strongly in favor of his economic strategy to a conference that was still largely skeptical. She also ensured that the communiqué reflected their economic views rather than the statist solutions of their host, Canada’s Pierre Trudeau. Later that year Thatcher joined Reagan in torpedoing any idea of placing the IMF and the World Bank under UN control at a UN summit in Mexico that had been billed as the start of a “North–South dialogue.” That brought to an effective end the 1970s campaign by Third World countries for a “new world economic order” built around such ideas as directed investment and controlled raw material prices. Thereafter Thatcher consistently gave Reagan loyal backing at G-7 meetings. “When there were disagreements between the seven,” Reagan said after leaving office, “we found we were always on the same side". "