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In the words of The Daily Mail:
It was 1981 and the world's most powerful leaders were gathered in one room. US President Ronald Reagan could be seen putting pen to paper. While the other participants could have assumed the president was thoughtfully making notes, he was [in fact] doodling: scribbling heads, and eye an a torso.This bizarre fact has come to light because the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, Britain's representative at the meeting, bagged the sheet of doodles sketched by the United States president and it is among papers that have just been released.
Historian Chris Collins of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation said, "She told me it was fascinating to see it, and she just grabbed them...He just left it on his desk. She snaffled it up, put it in her papers, brought it back to Downing Street and kept it in her flat."
In 1981, when the doodles were sketched, Reagan and Thatcher were just beginning their famous friendship. That January, Thatcher called Reagan to say, "The newspapers are saying mostly that President Reagan must avoid Mrs. Thatcher's mistakes so I must brief you on the mistakes." He kindly responded, "We will lend strength to each other."
The next month, after she nabbed the drawings, Thatcher reportedly liked the American president even more. She wrote to the British ambassador in Washington, "I have great confidence in the President. I believe he will do things he wants to do - and he won't give up."
Margaret Thatcher's 1981 personal papers are being released by Cambridge University and the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust nearly three months after official record keepers made 1981 Government files available.
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