Bush, Thatcher ‘Take Off Gloves’ : Friction Over Refugees in Hong Kong Surfaces at Farewell

President Bush wound up his European trip today conferring with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a farewell meeting that showed some sign of friction between old friends.

“It’s only with friends that you can take off the gloves and talk from the heart,” Bush said after a nearly two-hour private meeting at 10 Downing Street.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III said afterward that the United States and Britain remain at odds on London’s desire to expel Southeast Asian refugees who arrived illegally in British-held Hong Kong.

Baker said, “We support the right of first asylum and freedom of choice” for political refugees.

The British also have misgivings about possible U.S. military aid to Argentina, Britain’s adversary in the 1982 Falklands Islands war.

Nevertheless, Bush said the U.S. relationship with Britain “is strong and will continue to be.”

Along with his wife, Barbara, Bush also attended a Buckingham Palace luncheon with Queen Elizabeth II.

Bush and the First Lady and the queen and Prince Philip posed for pictures in an ornate picture gallery. As they lined up at the edge of an exquisite carpet, the queen admonished Bush: “Smile.”

On the eve of Bush’s return to the United States, Baker said he hopes that the President’s trip has helped still criticism at home about his foreign policy and responses to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

“I would hope that it might put to rest some of that speculation,” Baker said. “It is important, I think, that an American President be seen to be leading the alliance.”

Despite their differences on some issues, Bush and Thatcher were effusive in praising each other for the outcome of this week’s NATO summit in Brussels.

Bush hailed the “very, very special relationship” between the United States and Britain. Thatcher said, “We think very much the same way, which isn’t surprising.”

“It’s the end of containment, it’s freedom on the offensive, a peaceful offensive throughout the world,” she said.

The two leaders were allies in a successful bid at the NATO summit to keep short-range nuclear missiles on West German soil. Thatcher credited Bush’s leadership as the reason for a “very, very successful NATO summit.”

In two days of summit talks, the Western allies embraced Bush’s proposal for negotiating substantial cutbacks in conventional NATO and Warsaw Pact forces within the next year and rejected West German demands for early U.S.-Soviet negotiations on reducing--and possibly eliminating--short-range nuclear missiles.