Secret 1984 archive files on Thatcher tell all

1. Thatcher’s hairdo was high-maintenance

Margaret Thatcher’s immaculate hairdo took intensive efforts to perfect, with the late British prime minister having her bouffant reworked every three days on average. Her appointments diary for 1984, showed she had 118 hair appointments in the year. Around the G7 summit in London in June 1984, she had her hair done on five consecutive days. The diary confirms her reputation as a workaholic who struggled to relax, as evidenced by her two-and-a-half week summer holiday, spent in Austria and Switzerland. During her ‘break’ she met the German chancellor Helmut Kohl, Austrian chancellor Fred Sinowatz, former UN secretary-general Kurt Waldheim and the Swiss Confederation president.

She also attended a dinner for bankers and visited a local chipboard factory. One morning was spent working and writing letters, another was logged as “worked in library”. Only one morning was given over to “swimming and relaxation”, while three mid-afternoon slots were scheduled for “rest”. The hair got eight time slots.

2. Phoney Thatcher-Reagan tape spooked British spies

A fake tape of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher arguing over the Falklands War had the British secret services scrambling to identify the culprits. The tape, supposedly a telephone recording of then US president Reagan and the British prime minister, was anonymously sent to several Dutch newspapers during the 1983 UK general election. In the faked exchange about the 1982 Falklands War between Britain and Argentina, Reagan urged restraint while Thatcher wanted Buenos Aires punished “as quickly as possible”. The tape was constructed by cutting up and reassembling sound clips of the two leaders. The British punk-rock band Crass admitted making the tape — but that was only after it was taken seriously enough that the CIA and Britain’s MI6 had sought to establish whether the Soviet Union or Argentina was behind it.

A letter sent by a Foreign Office adviser to Thatcher informed her of the tape and who MI6 — the more common name for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) — thought was behind it.

3. Thatcher believed public would back chemical weapons

Margaret Thatcher believed public opinion would back the build-up of a western chemical weapons programme to counter the Soviet threat.

An official note of Thatcher’s meeting with Jeane Kirkpatrick, then US ambassador to the UN, outlines her concern that the west had “no adequate response to the impressive Soviet capability in the field of chemical weapons and that use of these weapons by the Russians might therefore force us at once to nuclear retaliation.” The comments came less than a month after the UN had confirmed the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war and as western allies scrambled to introduce export controls on chemicals which could be used to make agents such as mustard gas.

Kirkpatrick reveals the French foreign minister told her they would “unhesitatingly respond” with nuclear weapons to an attack on France using chemical agents. In the note, Thatcher argues “public opinion would accept the building up of a chemical weapons capability for the purposes of deterrence if only because the alternative was to depend on nuclear retaliation.”

5. Curious incident of the dog and the French embassy

It was a diplomatic incident so bizarre it became an episode in the television sitcom Yes, Prime Minister — but the British cabinet was not laughing at the time. Newly declassified cabinet minutes reveal the government’s astonishment that a French security officer, in London for the state visit of President Francois Mitterrand, had placed two containers of explosives inside the grounds of the French embassy, apparently to test the efficiency of the British security services. When discovered and questioned by the police, the operative was found to have additional explosives on him, which were seized. The man had apparently avoided airport security checks by revealing he was an intelligence officer.

The minutes reveal the cabinet’s anger — and bemusement — recording “it was agreed the episode was inexplicable and unacceptable”, adding in understated language: “The police are naturally extremely annoyed at what had occurred.” Charles-Henri d’Aragon, who was in charge of press affairs at the French embassy at the time, told the Financial Times this week that the episode, known in France as the “Sniffer Dog affair”, was largely the result of a misunderstanding. He said the French security officer had “no intention of embarrassing” his British counterparts. The explosive material was part of his equipment and had been planted as part of a Franco-British security exercise to check the embassy grounds ahead of a reception at which the Queen was expected. “The [British] dog found it. Everyone said what a good dog it was and they all thought that was the end of the matter,” Mr d’Aragon said. The French side was surprised when British police later issued a statement accusing Paris of “turpitude”.

6. Thatcher received warning about CIA’s activities in UK

Margaret Thatcher was warned that the CIA did not always give sufficient advance notice when it carried out operations in Britain. Paddy Ashdown, a Liberal MP, complained to Thatcher about the US intelligence organisation’s activities in the UK in November 1984.

Ashdown was worried about clandestine approaches made by US agents to British computer firms in this country and abroad to prevent eastern bloc countries obtaining western computer secrets by stealth.

7. Thatcher refused to call for Mandela release

Margaret Thatcher refused to call publicly for Nelson Mandela’s release from prison during her first official meeting with PW Botha, the former South African prime minister, in 1984. Government minutes published on Friday showed the former UK prime minister only raised concerns about Mandela’s detention in a private meeting with Botha — and they were quickly brushed aside. Thatcher’s decision to tip-toe around the subject will reignite Labour claims that the Conservatives indulged the apartheid regime in the 1980s and did little to assist Mandela, who died last month. Ahead of her meeting with Botha, the Foreign Office pressed the UK prime minister to include Mandela’s release as a “point to make” during a four-hour, officially minuted meeting. A Foreign Office briefing paper said: “Understand sensitive issue but progress towards freeing Mandela and others like him would be widely welcomed as evidence of the government’s desire for reconciliation in South Africa.”

Instead, Mrs Thatcher’s account of the meeting said Mandela’s plight was “noted” during a private meeting with Botha to discuss “sensitive issues”. No notetakers were present.

— Agencies