An Interview with Thatcher

"No liberty unless there is economic liberty"

As her election campaign was nearing its end, Tory Leader Margaret Thatcher was interviewed at her office by London Bureau Chief Bonnie Angela and TIME's Frank Melville. Thatcher critically inspected the flowers on the table, deftly broke the stems to improve the arrangement and then candidly put forth her views on both foreign and domestic policy. The exclusive interview is the only one that Britain's new Prime Minister gave to a foreign publication during the campaign. Excerpts:

On Rhodesia. You have got to go from where you are now: there is an internal settlement. There was an election, one person-one vote for four different parties. Where else would you get that in Africa? The problem isn't between whether you should have a white or black government, it's who shall be the black government. The whole illegality of Rhodesia was because they had not observed the six principles.* If those six principles are observed, there's no reason to retain the illegality, no reason to have the sanctions at all. So the Anglo-American plan is not the point in issue at the moment.

On defense. We shall increase our defense expenditure. We don't feel we are bearing our proper share. Certainly our troops aren't properly equipped, they haven't got the proper supplies. We shall have an independent nuclear deterrent. Precisely what that deterrent will be is obviously a matter for further consideration. But the Russians have the big SS-8, -19 and -20 movable ballistic missiles, which are not in SALT. We have to have our deterrent to that. I'm very much for three deterrents: American, ours and the French. It's very much better than one.

On Anglo-U.S. relations. You don't change warm relationships between countries just because you've changed governments. I'm sure President Carter said the same when he was running for office--after all, he was the challenger. We know that Europe and the Free World cannot be properly defended unless America stays in Europe. The ties of history, the ties of the English-speaking peoples are really very great indeed. They should outlast Presidents and Prime Ministers.

On the neutron bomb. We did not give enough support to President Carter on the neutron bomb. He was asking for European opinion, and European opinion was: "It is a matter for you." It was not wholly a matter for him. We should have said quite clearly, we believe this is the most effective antitank weapon we can have, and that it would be advisable from the viewpoint of Europe's defense to go ahead with it. He did not get the view in Europe that he was asking for. I think it's a greatpity. I think the Conservative Party was prepared to give it.

On the Soviet Union. You have to watch them--they work in three ways. First, by trying to get such superior forces they never need use them; a threat would be enough. We must stop them from doing that. Secondly, by trying to outflank and cut us off from our supplies of raw materials. That is the great significance of Rhodesia and South Africa: we get our vital raw materials from there. We're lucky with our oil for the time being. Now there is that colossal outflanking movement right across the oil countries, across the Horn of Africa. The third way is subversion. I often say to some of our African friends, "Don't you ever forget, we were easy to throw out. Don't think the Communists will be if they got in."

On Soviet objectives. I do regard the Russian threat as a worldwide thing. Their objective has never changed; it is the domination of the world by the Communist system. There are only about 35 democracies now out of about 120 countries. Together, by one means or another, we must see that the Soviets don't win their objectives. We have to get an interlocking alliance throughout the world. I would like to see Japan giving more of her tremendous resources to defense--after all, she is in a pretty tricky position. We have the best political system the world has ever known. And we're not just going to see countries go under, one after another. We'd do whatever we have to do.

On Britain and Europe. I think our support for the European Economic Community has been very halfhearted. You really cannot join any group of nations and spend all your time criticizing it. The E.E.C. is free Europe getting together. Had we some vision like that after the First World War, we might never have had the Second. We couldn't get the whole of Europe, but at least we've got half of Europe free. At least my son does not have to go and fight as his father had to fight. Surely that is the most valuable thing of all, the reason for keeping Europe together . . . I loathe the bureaucratic trivialities of the E.E.C., and tell them so. What is important is to keep competition genuine and free.

On economics and liberty. There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty. The E.E.C. treaty concentrates not on a declaration of human rights but on the economics of the free society: it shall be based on consumer choice and fair competition, freer movement of capital and people. It is the only economic treaty to really underpin liberty. Extinguish free enterprise and you extinguish liberty.

On her rise to the top. I didn't set out to arrive here at all. I just set out believing very passionately certain things and taking each opportunity as it came, and the astonishing thing is that the ball has bounced right on each occasion. I didn't set out to become a rival to Ted [former Prime Minister Edward Heath] in any way. Our party decided that Ted must submit himself to a leadership contest. I sat back and waited for some contestants to come forward, and when they didn't, I said, "Well, you can't have a contest without some contestants." So I said, "All right--I will!" I didn't know how it would go, but I did it because I happened to believe passionately that we needed to return to the fundamentals of a free society, that we were going much too fast toward the bureaucratic state that controls people. By far the most powerful and dynamic force in society is that people want to do better for their children. Once you start to deny that, and once people start to turn to government for everything, they will soon cease to be a free and independent people. That is what I put in issue in this election.

On women in power. I think women tend to be very much more practical, less theoretical. They look much more to the long term because they are concerned about the world into which their children will grow. Far more women have experience of management than men, because they are managers of their homes. They have the experience of making decisions and not passing the buck. Don't forget, before we had democracy the women didn't do half badly--Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria. Women in power have done very well for Britain.

* In 1966, then Prime Minister Harold Wilson spelled out six conditions under which Britain would recognize Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The principles included majority rule, an end to racial discrimination, and a form of government that was acceptable to all Rhodesians, black and white alike.

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