In her native Britain, Margaret Thatcher left behind a complex legacy that included privatization, Euroskepticism, and British revival. But in the realm of foreign policy, Thatcher will forever be associated with the Cold War.
Thatcher -- or so the narrative goes -- stood alongside Ronald Reagan and faced down communism with steely resolve. But Thatcher was no closed-minded ideologue. Her nickname, the "Iron Lady," was given to her by a Soviet newspaper following a 1976 speech in which she vowed to resist "Communist aggression," but Thatcher was also one of the first Western leaders to recognize the liberalizing potential of new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. She stood before the U.S. Congress in 1985 and declared her firm support for Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, but she also paid visits to communist Hungary and Poland as well as the Soviet Union itself, where she held talks that helped lay the groundwork for a Reagan-Gorbachev summit. Here, we've collected pictures from the days when Margaret Thatcher was a fighter for the free world.
Above, Reagan and Thatcher wave after their arrival at Camp David on Dec. 22, 1984.
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