Journalist’s notebook: When Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev met to honor President Reagan

Editor’s note: This story was first published on Fox News on April 9, 2013, but has been republished following Tuesday’s announcement of The death of Mikhail Gorbachev.

The calendar said June 2004. But it was definitely the 1980s.

A trio of the world’s most prominent leaders from the last days of the Cold War met for the last time. Icons, they were as indelible in the cultural fabric of the decade as back-to-back Thursday night shows like “The Cosby Show” and “Family Ties,” cult movies like “Heathers” and “The Breakfast Club” and little old. ladies asking “Where’s the beef?”

But this wasn’t like a rock band hitting the road for a reunion tour. It was explained by the casket with a flag flanked by an honor guard in the middle of the rotunda of the Capitol.

This was dismissed.

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FILE – Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, left, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney attend the state funeral for former US President Ronald Reagan at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC
(Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

They would visit their friend one last time in a moment. But for now, they have waited.

They were part of a line of people who were in the room that ran between the Rotunda and the Old Senate Room. The men wore dark clothes. The women, dark dresses.

But this duo stood out from the rest of the villains.

For him, there was the vascular birthmark, of port wine.

And for her, there was the bag.

The bag

At other times, the bag might hang from her left forearm as she waved to the crowd or photographers.

But that day, he held her in his body like a wallet full of diamonds.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan, left, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev leave Hofdi House after finishing their two days of talks during a mini-summit in Reykjavík, Iceland, on October 12, 1986.
(Reuters/Nick Didlick)

Amidst the murmurs, no one really thought much of it. But that was the 1980s. And here you had Mikhail Gorbachev, the former General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Right Honorable Baroness Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland…

To say goodbye to Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th President of the United States.

Gorbachev moved to the Rotunda and stroked the coffin of the man who declared his nation “The Evil Empire.”

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Reagan and Gorbachev were the main figures of the 1980s as the leaders of the world’s only superpowers. But it was Thatcher who brought them together.

It was Thatcher who first met Gorbachev when he ascended to the Kremlin. Thatcher said: “I like Mr Gorbachev. We can do business together.” Such an ironclad endorsement from the Iron Lady went a long way with Reagan. This led to arms summits in Geneva and even a failed set of talks in Reykjavík, Iceland. Some argue that Reykjavík was ultimately successful because both sides learned how close they were to reaching a treaty.

It was Gorbachev—and his position in life at the head of the Kremlin—that brought Thatcher and Reagan together: united in their disdain for communism.

And here it was Reagan’s death that brought them together under the dome of the Capitol on this sad occasion. Thatcher stood quietly in the hallway of the Capitol, waiting to pay her respects to her friend. Because Reagan trusted her like no other foreign leader. He approached Reagan’s casket in the Rotunda deliberately, and with some help. Ruby red lipstick and a single strand of chunky pearls stood out against her black ensemble. Thatcher reached out delicately, stroked her right palm over the American flag that surrounded Reagan’s casket as if she were petting an animal.

Other mourners looked around the Rotunda. They spoke in hushed tones. They wiped their eyes with Kleenex.

Reagan’s coffin never left Thatcher’s steely gaze.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan, center, and his wife, Nancy, listen to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev speak at the White House on December 10, 1987.
(Reuters/Gary Hershorn)

In February 1985, Thatcher’s embrace of Reagan was shown during her speech to a joint session of Congress. Thatcher then became the first British Prime Minister to address both the House and the Senate since Winston Churchill in 1952.

She applauded Reagan’s approach with Gorbachev, saying he “brought the Soviet Union to the negotiating table in Geneva.” Thatcher also stood by Reagan’s plan for a space-based missile defense system to protect against a Soviet attack, much to the delight of Republican lawmakers. The missile system’s formal name was Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). But the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., had dubbed it “Star Wars” for its seemingly sci-fi concepts of firing lasers into outer space.

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An economic conservative, Thatcher drew the ire of Labor with her budget cuts and social service reforms, not to mention bands like Pink Floyd and The Clash who took their grievances with her straight to vinyl. And Thatcher took the opportunity on Capitol Hill to implore Washington to take advantage of the spending.

“We so strongly support your efforts to reduce your budget deficit,” Thatcher said. “No other country in the world can be immune from its effects: such is the influence of the American economy on all of us.”

The message still resonates today as lawmakers grapple with out-of-control spending and heavy-handed spending mechanisms like sequestration.

Statue of Ronald Reagan in the rotunda of the United States Capitol.
(Chad Pergram/Fox News)

But in her presentation to Congress, Thatcher saved her praise for Reagan, speaking just days after his second inauguration (also held in the Capitol rotunda because of a severe 1985 cold snap).

“There is a new mood in America,” Thatcher told lawmakers. “A visitor feels it at once. The resurgence of your national pride is almost tangible. Now the sun rises in the west.”

Thatcher declared that her speech before a joint session of Congress was “one of the most moving occasions of my life”.

This week, the House returned the favor, passing a resolution honoring Thatcher “for her lifelong commitment to the advancement of freedom, liberty and democracy and for her friendship with the United States of America.”

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As the House ended the night, it adjourned in honor of Thatcher, the same gesture it did to Winston Churchill when he died in 1965.

Then-Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) called Thatcher “the greatest peacetime prime minister in British history.”

Mikhail Gorbachev and Chad Pergram
(Chad Pergram)

Then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., praised Thatcher for her “steadfast hand in our fight to win the Cold War, helping to tear down the Berlin Wall, brick by brick.”

Maybe that sentiment is only fitting.

There is a statue of Reagan in the rotunda of the Capitol. The base is lined with pieces of the Berlin Wall, forever linked to Reagan with his 1987 exhortation “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

The Reagan line is undoubtedly one of the most important moments of the decade.

So, of that troika of the 1980s, only one remained: Gorbachev, who survived both the Soviet system and his fellow leaders.

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The 80s are over. Reduced to a Sirius/XM channel with Duran Duran and The Thompson Twins. Or you can spy reruns of “St. Elmo’s Fire” on cable.

But politically, they released the final ’80s playlist in the early 2000s when the trio said goodbye to each other under the Capitol dome.