Deukmejian Visits Thatcher; the Talk Is Mostly About Gorbachev

The prime minister they call “The Iron Lady” and the governor some call “The Iron Duke” met at 10 Downing Street on Thursday and talked mostly about Soviet Leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Gov. George Deukmejian was a bit bleary-eyed from a sleepless overnight flight from San Francisco as he began a 12-day European trade mission. But his “juices were flowing” in anticipation of meeting Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for the first time, he said, “and I reached down and got extra energy somewhere.”

Consequently, the governor--who until recently did not even have a passport but who now is becoming increasingly interested in national and foreign affairs--also got a short course in East-West relations from one of the world’s renowned experts.

Touching only lightly on trade and investment issues, Deukmejian queried Thatcher at length about her recent trip to Moscow and nine hours of conversations with Gorbachev.

Reporting on his meeting during an interview, Deukmejian said Thatcher told him there still is missing between East and West--between Gorbachev and President Reagan--the “climate of trust and confidence” necessary for an arms control agreement.

“It’s going to take a lot of time is the way she views it,” Deukmejian said, indicating that the prime minister is pessimistic about the prospect for a relatively quick, successful outcome to current U.S.-Soviet negotiations over intermediate-range nuclear missiles based in Europe.

Thatcher told the inquisitive governor, according to Deukmejian and two aides who also were present, that she is “encouraged” by Gorbachev’s willingness to “be much more open” than his Kremlin predecessors had been in discussing East-West points of tension. But she said she does not expect the Soviets to significantly “pull back on their efforts to spread communism” around the world.

Thatcher likened the Soviet Union’s apparent gradual move toward a more open society to “a bird kept in a cage for 70 years,” Deukmejian said. “You open the door of the cage and the bird isn’t going to just go out and fly out to the natural habitat and be able to function.”

Deukmejian was so eager to meet with Thatcher that he flew to London two days earlier than he had originally planned in order to accept the only half hour she had available for him. Once here, he was kept cooling his heels for half an hour in a waiting room while a meeting between Thatcher and King Hussein of Jordan went into overtime.

Suddenly, as the governor and his aides were sipping tea, the prime minister bounced into the room and apologized: “Oh, governor, I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting; I’ve so been looking forward to this,” she exclaimed, ushering Deukmejian upstairs to the White Room, where the prime minister greets most visitors.

Later, volunteering his impression of “The Iron Lady,” the governor remarked:

“I was very impressed. . . . She’s a very warm person when you talk to her one-on-one. She comes across much more warm and cordial than I had expected. When you see her on television she’s a little bit more formal. . . . Very open, very warm, very effusive. That’s a good word.”