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On the day of her romp, an astute adviser warned Thatcher that victory would not bring five years of smooth ruling. He was right. Thatcher's reshuffled Cabinet performed poorly in Parliament. An operation for a detached retina slowed her down over the summer. Scandal struck when it was revealed that Trade Minister and Tory Party Chairman Cecil Parkinson had fathered a child by his secretary. The wayward colleague eventually resigned, but Thatcher's waffling over whether he should quit did her no good. Labor rose from its electoral ashes to choose bright, eloquent Welshman Neil Kinnock, 41, as its new leader. From Thatcher's Tory ranks came broadsides ripping her economic policy, her lack of compassion, her foreign dealings. Press Baron Rupert Murdoch, long an ardent backer, echoed the feelings of many when he declared: "She has run out of puff."
Even Thatcher's sturdy friendship with Ronald Reagan suffered strains when American troops invaded Grenada, a Commonwealth member. The Prime Minister asked the President by telephone not to go through with the operation; afterward, she uttered her harshest words yet about the U.S. Said Thatcher: "If you are going to pronounce a new law that wherever Communism reigns against the will of the people the United States shall enter, then we are going to have some really terrible wars." She opposed U.S. reprisal attacks in Lebanon, where Britain had contributed 100 men to the 6,000-member Multi-National Force, and criticized Washington's decision to resume arms sales to Argentina.
As the turbulent year drew to a close, Thatcher remained steadfast as ever. In India for the Commonwealth Conference, she presented an award to Poet Mahadevi Varma, quoting lines she might have written herself:
Take the boat to midstream
Though it sink, you shall get across
Let dedication be your only helmsman
He will see you through.
The redoubtable Thatcher sails into 1984 confident that her ship will weather any storm.
Judicial Command of a Landmark Case
It is by far the largest corporate divestiture in history, dwarfing the court-mandated division of the old Standard Oil empire in 1911. And much more is at stake than the fortunes and future of a company that last year had a million workers and revenues of $69 billion. The split of American Telephone and Telegraph into eight smaller companies, which takes effect on New Year's Day, will be felt by every person in the U.S. who uses a phone, or expects to benefit from new communications technologies that the breakup should inspire. The man who supervised this landmark case is an unassuming, soft-spoken German refugee, virtually unknown outside a small circle of jurists. Yet Federal Judge Harold H. Greene, 60, in an extraordinary display of judicial activism, has, almost singlehanded, determined the shape of the nation's new telecommunications system.