Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography by Charles Moore Page A
Authors: Charles Moore
Ads: Link
did not think autobiographically.
Once the memoirs were out of the way, the question arose of what should happen to the Thatcher papers – the huge number of records accumulated over her political career. Although offered a very large sum of money by an American university, Lady Thatcher declined it, and gave an undertaking to the then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robin Butler, that her papers would not be disposed of without her first offering them to the nation. Given that her own university, Oxford, had refused her an honorary degree when she was prime minister, she turned instead to Cambridge. In 1997, with the agreement of her family, she offered the papers, on permanent loan, to Churchill College, which has the best archive of modern British political documents. Once this was accomplished, her advisers then raised the matter of a biography. After some discussion, Lady Thatcher reached the view that, since her biography would undoubtedly be written, it would be best not to stand aside from the process, but to choose an author who, in her judgment, could be trusted with paper that had not yet been seen by the public and with the testimony from colleagues and family whichthe public had not yet heard. In 1997, the choice fell upon me. My impression was that I was chosen mainly for two reasons. As an editor, political journalist and commentator who had followed the period closely, I knew the dramatis personae. And, although my writing had generally been sympathetic to Mrs Thatcher, I was never part of her ‘gang’.
The arrangement that Lady Thatcher offered me was that I would have full access to herself, for interview, and to her papers. She would assist all my requests for interviews with others, including access to members of her family. Her writ also extended beyond Britain’s shores, particularly across the Atlantic, where numerous friends, acquaintances and former officials agreed to share memories, diaries and documents, many of which had never before seen the light of day. As a result of her support for the book, the then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, gave permission for all existing and former civil servants to speak freely to me about the Thatcher years, and allowed me to inspect government papers, held back from public view under the thirty-year rule. The permission to study government paper was granted on the understanding that all quotations from them used in my manuscript should be submitted to the relevant departments before publication to make sure that they did not compromise national security. A few minor changes were made, but nothing of substantial importance to the book was removed. The book is not an official history, and so the Cabinet Office had no remit (and no inclination) to influence or suppress any of its views. It is described as the ‘authorized’ biography, because Mrs Thatcher asked me to write it, but our agreement also stipulated that Lady Thatcher was not permitted to read my manuscript and the book could not appear in her lifetime. This was partly to spare her, in old age, any controversy which might result from publication, but mainly to reassure readers that she had not been able to exert any control over what was said. It was helpful to some of the people I interviewed to know that she would never read what they told me. I was paid not by Lady Thatcher, but by my publishers, Penguin.
It is fair to say that, when Lady Thatcher and I first discussed the project in 1997, she regarded it with the same lack of interest which she usually showed in her own past. Always keen to stick to whatever she had undertaken to do, she granted me several lengthy interviews, and was invariably co-operative. In later years, as her memory declined and long, formal interviews became impossible, she would join me for friendly lunches at which I would extract small nuggets of information from our chats. But what was extraordinary, when one compares it with the way male politicians so often pick over
Once the memoirs were out of the way, the question arose of what should happen to the Thatcher papers – the huge number of records accumulated over her political career. Although offered a very large sum of money by an American university, Lady Thatcher declined it, and gave an undertaking to the then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robin Butler, that her papers would not be disposed of without her first offering them to the nation. Given that her own university, Oxford, had refused her an honorary degree when she was prime minister, she turned instead to Cambridge. In 1997, with the agreement of her family, she offered the papers, on permanent loan, to Churchill College, which has the best archive of modern British political documents. Once this was accomplished, her advisers then raised the matter of a biography. After some discussion, Lady Thatcher reached the view that, since her biography would undoubtedly be written, it would be best not to stand aside from the process, but to choose an author who, in her judgment, could be trusted with paper that had not yet been seen by the public and with the testimony from colleagues and family whichthe public had not yet heard. In 1997, the choice fell upon me. My impression was that I was chosen mainly for two reasons. As an editor, political journalist and commentator who had followed the period closely, I knew the dramatis personae. And, although my writing had generally been sympathetic to Mrs Thatcher, I was never part of her ‘gang’.
The arrangement that Lady Thatcher offered me was that I would have full access to herself, for interview, and to her papers. She would assist all my requests for interviews with others, including access to members of her family. Her writ also extended beyond Britain’s shores, particularly across the Atlantic, where numerous friends, acquaintances and former officials agreed to share memories, diaries and documents, many of which had never before seen the light of day. As a result of her support for the book, the then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, gave permission for all existing and former civil servants to speak freely to me about the Thatcher years, and allowed me to inspect government papers, held back from public view under the thirty-year rule. The permission to study government paper was granted on the understanding that all quotations from them used in my manuscript should be submitted to the relevant departments before publication to make sure that they did not compromise national security. A few minor changes were made, but nothing of substantial importance to the book was removed. The book is not an official history, and so the Cabinet Office had no remit (and no inclination) to influence or suppress any of its views. It is described as the ‘authorized’ biography, because Mrs Thatcher asked me to write it, but our agreement also stipulated that Lady Thatcher was not permitted to read my manuscript and the book could not appear in her lifetime. This was partly to spare her, in old age, any controversy which might result from publication, but mainly to reassure readers that she had not been able to exert any control over what was said. It was helpful to some of the people I interviewed to know that she would never read what they told me. I was paid not by Lady Thatcher, but by my publishers, Penguin.
It is fair to say that, when Lady Thatcher and I first discussed the project in 1997, she regarded it with the same lack of interest which she usually showed in her own past. Always keen to stick to whatever she had undertaken to do, she granted me several lengthy interviews, and was invariably co-operative. In later years, as her memory declined and long, formal interviews became impossible, she would join me for friendly lunches at which I would extract small nuggets of information from our chats. But what was extraordinary, when one compares it with the way male politicians so often pick over
Similar Books
