ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the realities of Margaret Thatcher's relationship with the Washington administration. It considers the nature of her contribution to the development and eventual ending of the Cold War. It was easy to caricature her and Ronald Reagan as dogmatic anti-communists, who is prepared to take risks with global peace and is described by miners' leader. Thatcher's ingrained adherence to the American camp means that she never plays the part of an intermediary between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and came to an agreement to eliminate all nuclear weapons. In common with other west European leader's, she feared that Reagan's enthusiasm might place in the American nuclear umbrella, under which they had sheltered from the Soviet threat for forty years. The situation called on all her resources of diplomatic skill to find a way of guaranteeing European security without alienating her most powerful global partner.
