ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I extend a lifetime of gratitude to a prince among archivists, Andrew Riley, the ever-patient, ever-droll, ever-helpful, ever-tactful Thatcher Papers Archivist and Public Services Manager at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. I am more indebted to him than anyone who has not written a book about Margaret Thatcher could possibly understand. For his efforts, Andrew would in a just world receive from me bouquets of hothouse orchids, magnums of champagne, crates of chocolate truffles, tins of Beluga caviar, a solid-gold watch, a month-long vacation in the Caribbean, and my firstborn child. Over the past year I’ve asked Andrew a billion questions (more or less) about the documents he lovingly curates. He has patiently and learnedly answered every one of them, usually within minutes. He introduced me to many of the men and women I interviewed, spent hours helping me find and secure the rights to all the photos in this book (and did so at the very last minute, without a word of complaint), and read every word I wrote, in multiple drafts. I suspect there is nothing he would not do to help a researcher. I implore others never to take advantage of his good will as I have.

Andrew tsked-tsked (very tactfully) when he came across passages that he found insufficiently respectful of Margaret Thatcher or her friends. The concern in his voice when he said, “She might not like that!” was touching and a great tribute to the loyalty Margaret Thatcher inspires. I hope she appreciates that in Andrew, she has a servant as hardworking and energetic as she is, and as devoted to her as she deserves. I can promise her that any word in this book that displeases her remains despite Andrew’s strenuous objections. Many words were removed as a result of them.

I’d also like to thank Andrew’s colleague Sophie Bridges, who spent many hours combing through the archives in search of the perfect photos for me.

Then there is Chris Collins, editor of the official Web site of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. The site, www.margaretthatcher.org, is the most useful resource of its kind I’ve seen, all thanks to his industry and energy. There is far more material about Ronald Reagan on this site, for example, than on the Reagan Library’s and Foundation’s sites put together. I could not have written this book while living in Istanbul without Chris’s determination to make these documents available to researchers around the world. Chris too went far beyond the call of duty in answering questions, reading draft material, granting me the rights to use the material I cite from the Foundation archives, and helping me to make the book generally better. I thank him gratefully.

I suspect that my editor, Bill Frucht, may be a man of the Left. He has hinted as much in our phone conversations. Nonetheless, he acquired this book and gave me the freedom to say precisely what I wished to say, proof of his admirable intellectual confidence and tolerance. Bill has been particularly kind to me personally. When I signed the contract for this book the dollar was strong. By the time I finished it, it was not. Having just written a spirited defense of free markets operating in the context of robust contract law, I could hardly make an intellectually credible case to Bill that he should give me more money simply because I didn’t have enough of it. All the same, I didn’t have enough of it. Bill found a creative way to interpret our contract and to cut my advance check ahead of the stipulated date. “The free market,” he wrote to me, “does not always yield the optimal solution. Unless it’s balanced by reason and compassion, it can, like any machine or algorithm, go off course.” Given the circumstances, these struck me as remarks of godlike sagacity. I hereby qualify this book with his wise words. If only everyone who was tempted to tamper with the free market possessed his reason and his compassion.

I extend my thanks as well to my industrious production editor, Annie Lenth, whom readers must imagine as this book’s drill sergeant, responsible for maintaining good unit order and discipline. I also thank my meticulous copy editor, Antoinette Smith.

My friends Damian Counsell, Norah Vincent, Kristen Erickson, Judith Wrubel-Levy, Martin Davies, Bill Walsh, Elizabeth Pisani, Justin Hintzen, Zia Rahman, and David Gross all read chapters or full drafts of this book, in some cases several drafts, and every one of them made it better. Zia, in particular, devoted days to the manuscript while visiting Istanbul, setting aside his own work to do so. I am lucky to have friends like these.

As always, my father and brother were my unofficial collaborators. I particularly thank my brother for calling me one evening to say, “You know what you should write, Claire? A book about Margaret Thatcher.” And I thank my father, as always, for showing me how it should be done.

It hardly needs to be said—but I will say it anyway—that I am grateful to my mother and my stepfather for their unfailing support.

The people I interviewed in this book were extraordinarily generous with me. They were to the last gracious about my questions, even when less good-humored subjects might have thrown me out of their homes or offices. I hope that it is clear that even when I did not agree with them, I had a wonderful time with each and every one of them. I would especially like to thank Brian Lewis for his superb hospitality in Yorkshire and for his wonderful gifts of Thatcher memorabilia and books about the miners’ strike, which I treasure. I’d also like to convey my affection and gratitude to Andrew Graham, the Master of Balliol, not only for his help with this book but for his warmth and patience with me when I was his student.

A number of people who were close to Margaret Thatcher spoke to me off the record, and in doing so greatly helped me to form a more complete mental picture of her. I thank them all for their time and insight.

For all the reasons I’ve named in this book, the world owes Margaret Thatcher a great debt. Historians are more indebted to her still. Lady Thatcher was under no obligation to give her personal papers to anyone. Indeed, she could have sold them to the highest bidder or burnt them had she thought it prudent. She instead donated them to the British people. This is proof of the depth of her commitment to the ideal of an open society, not to mention an extraordinary testimony to her confidence in her own character. You do not hand over to historians and journalists 3,000 boxes of papers, many of which you have not seen since the day they crossed your desk, if you are not certain that you have always conducted yourself with irreproachable integrity. Think about it: Would you?

A final word for my agent, Daniel Greenberg. For reasons that will be obvious to him, I acknowledge his work on my behalf with particularly profound feeling. No words are quite adequate to express what needs to be said, so I will choose the simplest ones. Thank you, Daniel. Not a day has passed when you have not been in my thoughts.