Thatcher papers show fascination with Reagan visit

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December 29, 2012

Thatcher papers show fascination with Reagan visit
Posted by Staff

The Huffington Post:

Few people keep Queen Elizabeth II waiting, especially when she has issued a personal invitation, but President Ronald Reagan managed to do so in 1982 without causing any lasting damage.

It happened in 1982, when the Reagan White House failed to reply in a timely way to a personal invitation from the queen for the president and his wife Nancy to stay with her at Windsor Castle during a planned visit to England.

Formerly Confidential papers made public Friday reveal there were raised eyebrows, and bruised feelings, when Reagan did not answer the sort of invite that usually commands a prompt reply the world over. The queen's invitation was left to languish for weeks – something the British believe is simply Not Done.

"It is really for the president to respond to her invitation, which he has not done personally, something that I have pointed out several times here," writes Nicholas Henderson, Britain's ambassador to Washington, in a memo to the British Foreign Office. "As you know those surrounding the president are not deliberately rude: It is simply that they are not well-organized and do not have experience of this sort of thing."

12/29/12 4:19 AM

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