Thatcher Says NATO Power Brought Soviets to Negotiating Table

On the eve of the superpower talks in Iceland, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on Friday delivered a stirring defense of the Atlantic Alliance, emphasizing the need to keep American nuclear bases in Britain and to retain Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent.

In the concluding speech of her Conservative Party’s annual convention in this south coast resort town, Thatcher assailed the recently adopted policies of the opposition Labor Party, which call for unilaterally dismantling the 64 Polaris missiles that make up Britain’s nuclear defense. Labor also advocates the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear forces based here as part of the alliance strategy.

Referring to the meeting in Iceland, Thatcher asked rhetorically: “Does anyone imagine that Mr. Gorbachev (Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev) would be prepared to talk at all if the West had already disarmed? It is the strength and unity of the West which has brought the Russians to the negotiating table.”

Nuclear Deterrence Touted

Thatcher is widely regarded as President Reagan’s most loyal European ally, and the timing of her speech was a reminder to Moscow that, despite periodic disagreements, the alliance--the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--continues to have broad public support in Britain.

Her words echoed a principal theme of the conference--that only the time-tested strategy of nuclear deterrence in cooperation with the United States and other NATO partners can protect Western Europe from Soviet aggression.

Some political analysts believe that public concern about the Labor Party’s anti-nuclear policies has been a contributing factor in the decline of Labor’s lead over the Conservatives in recent public opinion polls. The third political force in Britain, the Liberal-Social Democratic Alliance, has been hurt by its inability to agree on a defense policy.

” . . . There is only one party in this country with an effective policy for the defense of the realm,” Thatcher said. “That is the Conservative Party.”

Security Threat

Although she does not technically have to face an election for another 18 months, this week’s conference had a distinct pre-election tone. There is speculation that if her party’s fortunes continue to revive in the next few months, she may call an election as early as next spring.

Security, tight throughout the week of the conference, was even more visible Friday after an alert just before the prime minister spoke.

In what appeared to be a faked bomb attack, a 29-year-old man threw a package from his car onto the front steps of a downtown hotel where many of the delegates were staying. Then he heaved a second package at the conference auditorium and crashed his car through a police barrier before halting about 100 yards from another hotel where the prime minister and senior members of her government were staying.

Security officials said that police snipers positioned atop one of the hotels came within seconds of opening fire on the car when it stopped.

At first the police were prepared to deal with a terrorist incident, but the packages were detonated and found to contain only telephone directories and pieces of clocks. The driver of the car, identified as MacDonald Kier Andrew Liddall, from the nearby town of Poole, was being held without bail.

At the Conservative Party conference two years ago, in Brighton, an Irish Republican Army bomb gutted a hotel and came close to killing Thatcher along with most of her Cabinet.