Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium

It is well known that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were close allies and kindred political spirits.  During their eight overlapping years in office, the U.S. President and the UK Prime Minister worked together to promote lower taxes, deregulation, free trade, and an aggressive stance against the Soviet Union.  Nicholas Wapshott would argue, however, that their relationship was much deeper than an alliance of mutual interests.

Drawing on interviews with those closest to them, as well as on hundreds of recently declassified private letters and telephone calls, Wapshott depicts a more complex, personal, and sometimes argumentative relationship than has previously been revealed.  Over the years, they discussed and debated strategies, took strength from each other, celebrated each other’s triumphs, and commiserated with each other’s failures. 

Nicholas Wapshott is an editor at The New York Sun and the former New York bureau chief for The Times of London.  He was previously editor of the Saturday Times of London and founding editor of The Times Magazine.  As political editor of The Observer, Wapshott covered Margaret Thatcher’s final years in office.