The bond between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, both in office in the 1980s, has become a kind of gold standard, showing what the â??special relationshipâ? between Britain and the United States can be when their leaders share a political creed.
But even though the two shared a belief in the virtues of the free market and the need to face down the Soviet Union over Afghanistan and other cold war issues, the Thatcher-Reagan embrace had its thorny passages â?? perhaps never more so than during the 1982 Falklands war in the South Atlantic.
Just how thorny was revealed on Friday by the publication of British government papers covering the period, under a rule that mandates the release of hitherto secret documents after 30 years. The papers, including records of the Thatcher cabinet and her occasional prickliness toward Reagan, have added spice to what was previously known about rocky patches in their relationship.
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