Reagan and Thatcher: The Friendship that Changed the World

As the United States and the United Kingdom share a common relationship, so have the President and the Prime Minister. But none has been as well known or enduring as the friendship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. This relationship was able to transcend the usual politics and differences in personal styles. It was first and foremost about not merely about influence, with the goal of bending the other country to their will, as so many were. At the crux of the Reagan-Thatcher relationship was a deep commitment to shared principles, mutual support, and a genuine personal friendship.

President Reagan and Thatcher’s first face to face meeting, held in London in April 1975 when Ronald Reagan was touring Europe to increase his understanding of foreign politics, was supposed to last only a few moments. They talked instead for over ninety minutes. They quickly found they had the same conservative principles. They were both outsiders, dismissed as a woman and a mere entertainer, and each had something to prove. They both decried the decline in their nations, the economic weakening and general malaise, and saw the potential for something better. Though neither truly expected at that time they would lead their respective nations, the bond that they forged beginning that day truly changed the world.

In 1997 Thatcher described their connection: “Fate decided that Ronnie should be in charge of the great United States when I was in charge politically in Britain…We had almost identical beliefs. From very different backgrounds, very different circumstances, we had come to this passionate belief that the world is not created by governments, it is created by the creativity of man.”