Word: thatcherism
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Even a Prime Minister can become a Washington lobbyist when a big military contract is at stake. But despite a personal appeal from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to President Reagan, the U.S. Army last week chose a U.S.-French consortium to supply it with a sophisticated, $4.3 billion field-radio system. In one of the largest U.S. military contracts ever awarded for a foreign-designed system, the Army picked RITA, a joint venture by France's Thomson-CSF and GTE of Stamford, Conn., and turned down a competitive system offered by the British-American combine of Plessey Co. and Rockwell...
...Thatcher had sent a private telex to the White House last August invoking Britain's "special relationship" with the U.S. and reminding the President that Britain supported the American defense buildup "in every way." Some observers took this to refer to Britain's endorsement of the Strategic Defense Initiative, which France has refused to back. But the French obviously believe in dollar wars: the Thomson and GTE bid was a whopping $3.1 billion less than Plessey-Rockwell's. SPYING Painful Stalemate...
Late last week British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald dared to gamble again, this time on a cautious scheme devised to provide the basis for an armistice, if not a settlement, in one of the world's most tenacious conflicts. After a year of discussions between British and Irish negotiators, the two leaders flew to an Anglo-Irish summit at the 188-year-old Hillsborough Castle, twelve miles to the south of Belfast. There they signed an agreement giving the Irish government an official voice in the running of Northern Ireland for the first time...
FitzGerald and Thatcher faced a formidable array of opposition, ranging from the Irish Republican Army and its political wing, Sinn Fein, to many Protestant political leaders and militants in paramilitary organizations like the Ulster Defense Association. Neither government had any illusion that the agreement would have much impact right away. Explained an Irish official: "The real purpose of this exercise is to detach the northern [Catholic] community from the clutches of the I.R.A. We know that won't happen in six weeks. If it happens in a year, it will be a bloody miracle...
...Paisley, the fiery head of the more militant Democratic Unionists. Normally fierce rivals, the two men joined forces to oppose the Anglo-Irish rapprochement. Jointly they protested, first by letter and then by visiting 10 Downing Street to make their case in person. They demanded that Thatcher submit any proposed agreement on Ulster to a referendum in the province, where loyalist Protestants outnumber the Catholic population by about...