Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality (116 page)

‘He likes women, you know’ was Margaret Thatcher’s comment to her Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong after her first meeting with President François Mitterrand of France. Charles Powell, her closest and longest serving Private Secretary, 1983–1990, is on the right behind Mitterrand.

Visiting ‘Our Boys’ at Port Stanley in January 1983, seven months after the liberation of the Falkland Islands.

Welcoming Mikhail Gorbachev to Chequers, December 1984. Sparks flew during their five-hour lunch, but they built a relationship, which helped bring about the ending of the Cold War.

The Iron Lady test-drives Britain’s new Challenger tank September 1986. As usual she had a photogenic eye for striking attire and a patriotic setting.

Taking Russia by storm and charm. Margaret Thatcher’s visit to Moscow (seen here with monks from the Trinity Sergius Monastery at Zagorsk) established her as an icon of Western freedom to the people of the Soviet Union, March 1987.

Facing questions from the media in 1986 alongside her formidable Press Secretary Bernard Ingham. ‘You and I, Bernard, are not smooth people,’ she told him.

The President and the Prime Minister enjoying each other’s company on the patio of the White House, July 1987. Together they strengthened the Special Relationship to a level unequalled since the days of Roosevelt and Churchill.

Deceptively warm smiles from her Cabinet in July 1989. But away from the camera the personality clashes were becoming explosive. They resulted in the resignation of her Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe and her Chancellor Nigel Lawson.

(
Top
) Speaking at her No. 10 Downing Street dinner in honour of President Reagan with Secretary of State George Shultz on her left , July 1988. (
Bottom
) Leaving Downing Street for the last time as Prime Minister, 28 November 1990.

The Queen arrives at Claridge’s to attend Margaret Thatcher’s 70
^th
Birthday party on 16 October 1995.

Windswept on Rannoch Moor. Margaret Thatcher on ‘The Craiggie’, the highest peak on the Scottish estate of Lord Pearson of Rannoch. The expression on her face may reflect the pain and poignancy of her enforced retirement years.

‘I just want to show him we won’, said Margaret Thatcher as she posed for this photograph in front of a statue of Lenin in the woods of Sir James Goldsmith’s estate at Montjeu in France, in 1997.
Left to right
: Denis Thatcher, Biddy Cash, Margaret Thatcher and Sir James Goldsmith. Amateur picture taken by Bill Cash MP.

Arriving early for the opening of Parliament, the recently widowed Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven looks a lonely figure in the House of Lords, 26 November 2003.