British Officials Portrayed Reagan as a “Bozo” [View all]

[DonViejo]

WRITTEN BY Nico Hines and Ben Jacobs

In the early1980s, senior members of the British foreign service were appalled by what they saw as the American president’s bumbling ignorance and lack of interest in world affairs.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were often portrayed as geo-political soul mates, but government files declassified in London on Wednesday expose a deep British disdain for the president who was described in official papers as homophobic, uninformed, disinterested and, not to put too fine a point on it, “a Bozo.”

The British Foreign Office files seen by The Daily Beast show that Prime Minister Thatcher was warned President Reagan had little interest in world affairs and was unable to sustain a serious conversation about contemporary politics.

The damning critiques, which expressed sheer incredulity that this man could occupy the White House, were shared at the highest levels of government before and after Reagan’s first State Visit to Britain in 1982.

Despite the hostility of her advisors, Thatcher appeared to strike up a close relationship with Reagan based on their shared values. They loudly battled Communism together and were determined to vanquish the post-war economic consensus, which had been based on the work of John Maynard Keynes, in favor of trickle-down economics and low taxes.

Successive British ambassadors in Washington were deeply unimpressed with the former California governor, however. Sir Nicholas Henderson, who was in the job when Reagan was elected, described him as a dogmatic and simplistic man. “He has clear-cut opinions, not to say prejudices, as was apparent to me when he told me à propos Keynes that it must not be forgotten that he was a homosexual,” Henderson wrote in his United States Annual Review of 1981.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/30/british-officials-portrayed-reagan-as-a-bozo.html