ABSTRACT
Appearances, however, can be deceptive. Thatcher was a more cautious, and certainly more temporizing, world leader than the strident image implies. She also developed a perceptive understanding of what was achievable. When she came to power, she wanted a resolution of the long-running dispute over the independence of Southern Rhodesia which since 1965 had been governed by white colonials led by Ian Smith, in what the Foreign Office prissily told the BBC to refer to as ‘the illegal Smith regime’. Among the nationalist leaders queuing to take over when negotiations brought ‘majority rule’ Thatcher much favoured Abel Muzorewa, a moderate black bishop she trusted, over Robert Mugabe, a black Marxist she did not. Additionally, Muzorewa had been the only senior black politician to stand in an election arranged by the Smith government in April 1979. Mugabe, who had been leading a civil war against Smith, had boycotted the elections.
