"Freedom Is Working"

Awaiting the outcome of last week's balloting, Margaret Thatcher, elegantly dressed for the victory celebration that was to come, sat on a brocade sofa in the handsome white drawing room at 10 Downing Street and talked with TIME London Bureau Chief Bonnie Angela. Excerpts from the interview:

On her first term. It is quite a lot for a politician to be able to take the long-term view, knowing that it is going to give you immense short-term trouble. That was the great decision, and we held together over it. The achievement in inflation is not just that it has come down to 4% from 21%, but that it has been done without the panoply of prices and incomes or exchange controls. Freedom is working.

On the Atlantic Alliance. After our election, I think we are much more likely to get disarmament negotiations going, and that would be a very cohesive thing in the alliance. I think the Russians are desperately hoping that their efforts will have some effect on our public opinion. [Chancellor] Helmut Kohl's election was immensely important to the NATO alliance in West Germany, so mine here is immensely important. I think it is only after the Russians know that the main legs of the alliance are staying absolutely firm that we might get some genuine disarmament negotiations going in Geneva. There has been a tremendous feeling this year that the most important thing [at Williamsburg] was cohesiveness and unity among the Western alliance.

On the European Community. I am a passionate believer in Europe because the democracies of the world have got to show they can stand together. Whatever the differences that divide them, and there can be many, they have got to be subordinate to the overwhelming need to stand together. It is a very uncertain world in which we live, and it always will be.

On summitry. It is very important that the seven of us [leaders of the U.S., Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada] get together. It is not so much the great communiques that came out, although the two communiques that came out [in Williamsburg last month] were very good and absolutely right for the Western world at this time. The thing is that we cannot meet in private. That is what all of us hanker after: to meet and have a good talk in private without the world press being there. But if two or three of us were to talk together it would leak out, and there would be some false significance attached to it. I think it is a great pity.

On Britain's nuclear weapons. So long as there are immense ballistic missiles in the world, we have to have an independent nuclear deterrent. It adds to the general deterrent effect of the NATO alliance, just as the French force does. But if, between the two big powers, the numbers went down massively and enormously and we moved into a totally different world--a far greater reduction than I can foresee certainly within the next five years--then there may be circumstances when ours will have to be counted [in arms negotiations]. But I cannot foresee that at the moment.

On the Falkland's. The Falklands have a strategic importance. How often have I tried to tell our friends and allies this. The Falklands have been important in British history since 1770, when we were forced off. The battle of the Falklands in the first World War was for the command of those straits; if we had not won that, we would not have won the war. It is British sovereign territory. The Falklanders wish to be British subjects. I simply do not understand what is wrong with that. I would have thought it was of immense help to our American friends that we were there.

On the status of Gibraltar. It is governed by the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, and again the governing thing is the wishes of the people of Gibraltar. I have always found great difficulty with the U.S. in not understanding this. The U.S. is founded on freedom and self-determination and democracy. Why do they find difficulty in applying that to the Falklands or to Gibraltar?

On Catholic rights in Northern Ireland. It is not a question, as it was in Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe], of exchanging the bullet for the ballot. They have the ballot box, but they do not even take part in the Northern Ireland Assembly. What they do not like is that the ballot box does not give them the majority, and therefore some of them resort to the bullet and those few intimidate the others. Mind you, I understand the people of Northern Ireland; once you have got terrorism it paralyzes many people who would otherwise want to help. One must not judge the minority community by the terrorism, never, never, never. Because when you have got that terrorism and that kind of intimidation, the people are not free.

On anti-Americanism in Britain. I hope I killed it. I spoke about it because I think there was, probably because of the cruise missiles, a bit of anti-Americanism. But the moment you remind people that the world is not likely to be free or safe unless we and the U.S. stick together, and of the fantastic generosity of the U.S. to Europe, putting it on its feet with the Marshall Plan, immediately they get their things in perspective. People are not anti-American really. It is really like being members of the same family: they work up resentment and then you say, "Now, look, come off it. Just keep things in perspective."

On the task ahead. We now have to try to do what every nation is trying to do, to get jobs. But you are only going to get jobs by getting real, genuine enterprise going. And genuine enterprise only gets going provided that by its products and by its services it can win customers. I think our biggest single achievement is the whole change of attitude in this country.

On whether she will lead her party in the next election. Yes, I hope so. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.