Two Previously Secret Reagan-Thatcher Phone Tapes Released

"If I were there, Margaret, I'd throw my hat in the door before I came in."

For many years the tapes were believed to exist but now we have the confirmation of their existence , the tapes are of phone calls between Reagan and Thatcher following the US invasion of Grenada and IRA Brighton bombing and are now available thanks to a Freedom of information request by researcher Dan Collings.

A box of 20 tapes was released to the public in late Oct 2014 at the Reagan Library in Los Angeles, days before our editor happened to visit, as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request by Dan Collings, researcher to the biography.

Among the haul were two Thatcher tapes, one of them on the crucial topic of the US invasion of Grenada, the other the call President Reagan made to her after he received news of the Brighton bomb.

margaretthatcher.org will publish the Reagan tapes in full, with MT the first batch
www.margaretthatcher.org...

Reagan phone call to Thatcher following the IRA Brighton Bomb attack which nearly wiped out the British Government in 1984.

Later in the day of the Brighton Bomb President Reagan rang MT to express his concern and offer support. The tape released by the Reagan Library largely consists of silence, however, for the simple reason that MT wasn't at her desk when he rang. There is a kind of dark humour to it, as anxious staff at No.10 pop up on the line to make sure he is still there. The tape also ends in mid-flow.
www.margaretthatcher.org...

a reply to: gortex

Interesting for what it is, but then the tape (at least in the vid) is cut-off after or during Reagan speaking. So...what did Mrs. Thatcher answer in response. Maybe 'Who is this?' , or 'What leak are you talking about?' (and he may have answered that question). It seems the Thatcher historical people will release a transcript if I understand the post right on a quick reading, so more to come.

now imagine the two of them having phone sex in one of those tapes...
some secrets should remain so.

originally posted by: IShotMyLastMuse
now imagine the two of them having phone sex in one of those tapes...
some secrets should remain so.

Not an image I needed

Heres an article with a full transcript of the conversation.

Link

The US government has been invading countries my whole life. Grenada is just one in a long list.

Thatcher may "disapprove" but I found it unlikely she didn't now about it beforehand. Is this just more smoke and mirrors?

Grenada, what a weekend

Who made the recordings? Secret service or is it standard protocol?
If it's a standard get those Blair - Bush tapes released.

Sorry but the best tapes by far are LBJ. Seriously they are the funniest things ever.

a reply to: UKWO1Phot

Who made the recordings?

From the article I linked.

The answer is that the NSC staff used them to make accurate paper records of presidential phone conversations, which no one doubted had to be made. Calls were particularly difficult for the notetakers. For one thing, secure communications sometimes affected the audibility of the person on the other end of the line, making some words, particularly names, hard to catch. And the absence of visual cues made it harder still.