Files show Thatcher an ‘Iron Lady’ with a soft side

Politics and pandas don’t mix, but a dying British spy gets a break

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to share her Concorde with a giant panda on her first trip to visit U.S. President Ronald Reagan, saying the cuddly mammals brought bad luck to politicians.

The tale emerges in a new batch of government documents published Friday at the National Archives in London. They also reveal an act of kindness from the “Iron Lady” to a dying spy and the long shadow she cast over her successor.

One of the most surprising anecdotes to emerge is Thatcher’s mistrust of panda politics. In 1981, her office was approached by the president of London Zoo as Thatcher was getting ready to visit Ronald Reagan, who had just been sworn in as U.S. president and who went on to become her political soulmate.

Solly Zuckerman explained that Washington’s Smithsonian Institution wanted to borrow London Zoo’s male panda, Chia-Chia, to mate with their female, Ling Ling. He would be happy to time the announcement of the loan “in any way that the prime minister thought would be most likely to benefit Anglo-American relations,” one of Thatcher’s aides wrote.

Perhaps, it was suggested, the premier might like to take the panda in the back of her supersonic jet airliner. But although she heard the suggestion “with some interest and amusement,’’ Thatcher was unimpressed with the idea of facilitating the mating ritual, according to her private secretary.

“I am NOT taking a panda with ME,’’ the prime minister scrawled at the top of the letter. “Politicians and pandas are not happy omens.’’

Some files show Thatcher’s softer side. One concerns an official history of wartime intelligence deception operations. In 1980, the prime minister refused permission to publish it, despite requests from former spies “that their contribution to winning the war should be chronicled.”

Four years later, the author of the history contacted Thatcher’s office to report a “sad letter” from Ewen Montagu, a Naval Intelligence officer who helped mastermind Operation Mincemeat, which saw the Allies deceive Germany about the invasion of Sicily by floating a corpse off Spain carrying fake plans for invading Greece. Montagu, then 83, had cancer, and wrote that he was “intensely keen” to hear “the official verdict” on his wartime work.

“The doctors have now given me only a very few months more to live,” Montagu pleaded. “Would it be possible for me to see a copy of the typescript in confidence. I have never broken security.”

The question was referred to the premier, who annotated it with a single word: “Yes.” Three weeks later Montagu wrote back, having read the history. “I cannot thank you enough,” he said. He died six months later.