Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Dead at Age 87

Margaret Thatcher

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Margaret Thatcher, the legendary “Iron Lady” who became the United Kingdom’s only female Prime Minister, died of a stroke Monday. She was 87.

During her 11 years as Britain’s leader, Thatcher revived the nation’s economy, restored the nation’s pride and international prestige and, in a remarkable alliance with U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, helped defeat Soviet imperialism.

One of the most influential world leaders of the 20th century, Thatcher was elected to Parliament at age 34 as a member of the Conservative Party and spent the next two decades ascending the ranks to become Prime Minister in 1979. She set about reversing many socialist economic policies of the British Labour Party, famously saying, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Thatcher’s resolve was tested in April 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. The British military had been weakened by years of neglect under Labour leadership.

When she was advised that the nation should not risk defeat in a distant and strategically irrelevant conflict, Thatcher famously replied: “Defeat? I do not recognize the meaning of the word!”

Thatcher sent a naval task force that defeated the invaders and restored the Falklands to British rule by mid-June.

Born to modest circumstances, the daughter of a small-town grocer, Thatcher was an outspoken conservative who fought her way up the ranks of a Tory party against the resistance of more aristocratic and moderate members. She was strongly influenced by the free-market philosophy of economist Friedrich Hayek. In a 1975 article, she wrote, “If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it.”

It was Thatcher’s Cold War opposition to Soviet communism that earned her the moniker “The Iron Lady.” That title was bestowed in an article in the Soviet press after a 1976 speech at Kensington Town Hall where Thatcher, newly installed as leader of the Conservative opposition, warned that the U.S.S.R.’s leaders were “rapidly making their country the foremost naval and military power in the world.”

In that speech, Thatcher warned that the British must oppose Soviet imperialism: “The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet politburo don’t have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns. They know that they are a super power in only one sense—the military sense. They are a failure in human and economic terms.” Shortly before becoming Prime Minister in 1979, Thatcher told a BBC interviewer: “I can’t bear Britain in decline. I just can’t.”

She and her husband Sir Denis Thatcher, who died in 2003, had two children, Carol and Mark. The grocer’s daughter from Grantham, Lincolnshire died as a member of the nobility, having been made Baroness Thatcher after she left Parliament in 1992. After suffering a series of strokes, Thatcher retired from public life in 2002, but sent a videotape tribute to Reagan when he died in 2004. She was the subject of the 2011 Academy Award-winning film, The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep.

World leaders paid tribute Monday to Thatcher.

“It is a truly sad day for our country,” said British Prime Minister David Cameron. “We have lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton. She didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country.”

“She was truly a great leader, a woman of principle, of determination, of conviction, of strength; a woman of greatness,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “She was a staunch friend of Israel and the Jewish people.”

“Margaret Thatcher was a heavyweight politician and a striking person,” said Mikhail Gorbachev, who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1991. “She will remain in our memories, and in history.”

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