The Special Relationship with the US
Beyond Reagan: how Thatcher navigated the Anglo-American relationship from Carter through Bush, and what 'special' really meant.
Before Reagan: Carter and the Limits of Ideology
The Thatcher-Reagan partnership is so iconic that it obscures the full picture. When Thatcher entered Downing Street in May 1979, the US president was Jimmy Carter — a Democrat whose human rights-focused foreign policy and cautious Cold War stance were precisely what Thatcher found frustrating.
Thatcher and Carter had a correct but cool relationship. She privately considered him weak on the Soviet Union. He found her ideological rigidity difficult. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 hardened Carter's stance and brought them closer — Thatcher strongly supported the US-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. But the chemistry that would define her relationship with Reagan was entirely absent.
When Reagan won the presidency in November 1980, Thatcher was genuinely delighted. Here was someone who shared her Cold War hawkishness, her free-market convictions, and her visceral anti-communism. Their personal rapport was immediate and enduring. But the relationship was never between equals — Britain was the junior partner, and Thatcher sometimes discovered this painfully.