Margaret Thatcher’s resignation shocked politicians in US and USSR, files show

Margaret Thatcher’s resignation as British prime minister provoked tears in Washington and consternation in Moscow, according to a secret Downing Street file released on Friday.

Henry Kissinger rang Downing Street “in a very emotional state” saying her decision to resign was “worse than a death in the family”, while Thatcher’s closest adviser, Charles Powell, told the US national security adviser, General Brent Scowcroft, that her departure was “a sad commentary on standards of loyalty in politics”.

The Downing Street file entitled The Resignation of the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, includes tributes from world leaders to Thatcher, a two-page briefing note from the cabinet secretary explaining why an immediate general election was not necessary, and a “resignation action plan” setting out a timetable for the fateful day of 22 November 1990.

It also contains a curious 1991 rebuttal by John Wakeham, then a cabinet minister, of allegations in a forthcoming book by the journalist Alan Watkins that he had deliberately precipitated Thatcher’s downfall by initiating the “parade of cabinet ministers” who one by one told her she would not win a second round leadership ballot against Michael Heseltine.

Thatcher quit to leave the field clear for John Major and Douglas Hurd to fight off Heseltine, a move recorded by the Guardian that day under the headline: “Battle to halt the usurper.”